22-Year-Old Norwegian Magnus Carlsen Is the New World Chess Champion
ardmhacha writes "Magnus Carlsen was able to force a draw in the 10th game of the World Chess Championship to claim the title with a 6.5 — 3.5 score (3 wins, 0 losses, 7 draws) over Viswanathan Anand. Carlsen became the youngest ever World No. 1 in 2010, but withdrew from the 2012 championship cycle and so has only now been able to add the World Champion title to his No. 1 ranking. He won three games and lost none. His first two victories came when he was able to convert small advantages in the endgame into wins. The third (in game 9) came after a blunder from Anand."
FINALLY!!! I was wondering if that was possible anymore.
It's been more than fifteen years since Deep Blue beat Kasparov. Certainly humans don't stand a chance against modern chess software and hardware.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Wikipedia: "Carlsen modelled for G-Star Raw's Autumn/Winter 2010 advertising campaign with actress Liv Tyler." and "Carlsen was selected as one of the "sexiest men of 2013" by Cosmopolitan." He's a pawn star.
Here in Norway everyone has followed the game online instead of doing actual work. DNB, our largest bank, had to block access to the live coverage. Almost everyone streamed the game making their network slow and it made real work difficult.
(Norwegian source: http://e24.no/media/dnb-maatte-stenge-tilgangen-til-sjakk-vm/22641053)
"he, who has quotes in his signature, is a douche" - unknown.
Isn't it typically when playing white you play to win and black you play to draw (that one-move advantage is huge)? So the fact that Carlsen got a win as Black was huge, right?
With grandmasters, it's said that there is a slight advantage too white, but it's still not huge. It's still theoretical, and I don't think black is that bad off IMO.
Can someone explain the details of the mistake to me?
Are you talking about game 9? Well, essentially at the blunder point, black has 2 queens. With the blunder knight move by Anand, Carlsen then moves to Qe1. Now, when Anand moves Rh4 threating mate, Carlsen can simply trade the queen for the rook. Now Carlsen will be up by a rook (~5 points). This is a huge advantage and no way for Anand to win, as his mating opportunity is now completely lost.
I've always wanted to be good at chess (I equate it to being "smart") but I've never been able to be very good at it.
The Polgar's have some good books. Study middlegame and endgame puzzles. Play a lot of games online. Most people think that fast games and overuse of computer analysis weakens your play, so play long games when you can and use computers analysis sparingly. Also, study historical games by masters (see if you can predict the next move). As far as openings, as a beginner, just pick a solid line for white (I suggest pawn d4) and a simple response for black from white's pawn e4/d4. The more games and puzzles you do, the better you will be. Play in local tournaments to keep your motivation up or join a club. Eventually, buy a book on openings or even start studying unorthodox/irregular openings (as they're a lot of fun and it rattles people); Nc3 (dunst opening) is usually regarded as the strongest irregular opening.
The G
The computer would not need a history of games of the opponents.
Computer chess has moved so far ahead of human players that Carlsen would have been utterly destroyed. These days, spectators watch the game with chess computers on the side, since the chess computers can tell properly which player is ahead, while spectators wouldn't be able to tell properly.
Chess engines such as Houdini, Stockfish and a variety of others have ratings well above 3100. Carlsen has a rating of 2872. He would be crushed.
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
I was watching a live stream of the match, which also showed the next moves suggested by Houdini. Interestingly both players were pretty consistent in selecting the highest ranked moves. The exceptions were the "blunders" which lead to Anand's defeat.