BOTW 2015.12.04
London Chess Classic
Dec. 4-13, 2015
The big chess event of the month begins today in London: the three-event "Grand Chess Tour" began in Norway, continued in St.Louis, and ends this week at the London Chess Classic. It features the top players in the world:
Players and World Rank (Dec1)
1 Magnus Carlsen
2 Veselin Topalov
3 Viswanathan Anand
5 Hikaru Nakamura
6 Levon Aronian
7 Fabiano Caruana
8 Anish Giri
10 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
17 Alexander Grischuk
20 Michael Adams
Games start Dec.4 at 11am EST, and continue on weekends at 9am EST.
Every round has interesting pairings. In round 1I'll be watching Grischuk - Nakamura
Homepage
http://londonchessclassic.com/
Live Games with GM Commentary
From London
http://live.londonchessclassic.com/c24grand-chess-tour-2015.php
From St.Louis
http://grandchesstour.com/2015-london-chess-classic/watch-london-chess-classic-live
London FIDE Open
Canadian GM Eric Hansen plays in the FIDE Open, which runs alongside the main event. You can see live games here:
http://live.londonchessclassic.com/fideopen.php
Interviews with World Champions
When non-chess journalists interview top players the questions are too often embarrassingly uninformed -- "what's your favourite piece" and "are you a genius" -- but World Champions Vishy Anand and Maguns Carlsen are usually worth listening to, and for very different reasons: Anand has been interviewed enough that he's developed a smooth varnish that produces at least a few interesting things even when his interlocutors are no help, while Carlsen is (still) Fischer-like: candid, blunt, and with no concessions made for projecting a saleable public image.
In an interview on "excellence" with Indian tennis player Vijay Amritraj, Anand reviews his chess career. A lot will be familiar to anyone who has followed Anand's career, but there is a very interesting revelation about how much help Vladimir Kramnik gave Anand (and his team) via Skype during his match with Topalov. Anand is one of the very rare World Champions -- possibly joined only by Tal and Euwe -- who seem to not only have made no enemies, but are actually liked by almost everyone. Although Anand doesn't say so -- and may not even think it -- the assistance he got from Kramnik and Kasparov during the Topalov match is one of the rare clear-cut examples in chess of how being a nice guy actually paid off in the number of people who were happy to help him during his title defences.
You can find the full 37 min interview on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIiDqjxRiNQ
Magus Carlsen hasn't (yet) developed Anand's easy-going affability -- often seeming grumpy or bored during both interviews and games -- but he's always candid/blunt enough to be interesting. The English newspaper The Telegraph has an interview with Magnus Carlsen before the London Chess Classic, and (once again) Carlsen gives his opinions about other players past and present. When asked about who he would like to play from history he says Capablanca, Tal and Fischer, and adds his prediction:
"I think I would beat Tal pretty easily. Fischer would be more difficult, but I think I could beat him too."
A player who is more PR savvy/afraid of seeming egotistical/boringly-milquetoast... would pad that prediction with a thick layer of pointless qualifications -- "of course, it would be hard to say who would win, but...", "anything could happen when playing such a genius.." -- but that's not Carlsen. And that's good! Carlsen's direct response -- I would win -- is the only reasonable answer. Anything else would be either disingenuous or proof that Carlsen doesn't understand the evolution of the game. Chess is, in large part, an information game; and contemporary players have vastly more information available than their predecessors. Carlsen has learned from Tal and Fischer, and they have learned nothing from him: of course he's going to be better than them.
There's also a bit about his Tesla Sports car, sitting unused in his garage because Magnus does not have a driving licence.