Pivotal day in the (chess) Candidates Tournament
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Pivotal day in the (chess) Candidates Tournament
Hi fellow tennis lovers,
I don't know how many of you are familiar with chess and the whole tournament system, ELO rating system, World Championship, etc. but here is a short summary of all these and what the Candidates tournament means to the chess community...
Now why am I saying today is pivotal? The answer is because today there is the last game between two of those top 3, between Aronian and Kramnik, the former playing White and latter Black (I don't want to get too deep into explaining the tournament structure but it is a double round robin, like a group Robin in tennis, but where two players meet each other twice, so that they each have a chance at having White and Black pieces, makes it less prone to the luck of the draw ) as all the other games that happened between the guys at the top 3 were drawn so far...
Anyone interested to follow, here is the link to the official site:
Candidates Tournament - official site
Also, a nice little piece from chessbase on the current probabilities of winning the tournament etc.
chessbase
Enjoy!
I don't know how many of you are familiar with chess and the whole tournament system, ELO rating system, World Championship, etc. but here is a short summary of all these and what the Candidates tournament means to the chess community...
- The FIDE ELO rating system is the official rating system in chess and is basically a measure on how you perform relatively to your competition. Contrary to tennis or golf, you do not score points by winning tournaments per se, you score more points by beating stronger opponents, and lose more points by losing against people who are much worse then you. As an example, each time Nadal beat Fed, he was scoring good points as Federer is a better tennis player, with a better ranking when the latter was number one and the former number two or below, etc. Federer was losing a few at the same time. When Nadal lost to Rosol, he lost a lot of points etc.
- The number one player in the world, using this ranking system is Norwegian prodigy Magnus Carlsen, who also has the record of highest ELO rating ever at 2872, the previous record being held by all time great Gary Kasparov at 2851. As I said though, as it is only a comparative measure to your opposition, the absolute number does not mean as much as what people think, the difference between yours and the others is more significant and as of now, Carlsen is 62 points ahead of his closest rival.
- The World champion is Indian GM (Grand Master) Anand (ELO rating 2784)
- The Candidates Tournament is the tournament taking place right now (from March 14 to April 1, 2013, and was is taking most my sport following time these days instead of tennis) and decides on who will be the next challenger to the World Championship. Carlsen is currently leading with 7.5/11 followed by Kramnik (who dethroned Kasparov back then as World Champion and who also is currently number 2 in the world with ELO rating 2810) at 7/11 himself followed by Aronian (number 3 in the world at ELO rating 2809) at 6.5/11. This tournament is really strong and it is interesting that number 1, 2 and 3 in the ranking are also, so far, number 1, 2 and 3 respectively leading this tournament.
Now why am I saying today is pivotal? The answer is because today there is the last game between two of those top 3, between Aronian and Kramnik, the former playing White and latter Black (I don't want to get too deep into explaining the tournament structure but it is a double round robin, like a group Robin in tennis, but where two players meet each other twice, so that they each have a chance at having White and Black pieces, makes it less prone to the luck of the draw ) as all the other games that happened between the guys at the top 3 were drawn so far...
Anyone interested to follow, here is the link to the official site:
Candidates Tournament - official site
Also, a nice little piece from chessbase on the current probabilities of winning the tournament etc.
chessbase
Enjoy!
sphairistike- Posts : 589
Join date : 2012-08-20
Re: Pivotal day in the (chess) Candidates Tournament
thanks spahir...
my childhood/teenage days were so loong and boring I even used to play chess!
I have no idea who the "stars" are these days...and because I don't know anything about it any more I assumed it has lost its glamour a bit...has it?
It was great in the days of cold war Fisher,Spasky vs Karpov/Kasparov days...then I remember there was some Hungarian woman prodigy, as well.
I've got a beautiful one-off hand-made chess table at home and the last time I played a game on it was over 10 years ago.
Is chess becoming popular again?
I suppose chess players don't sell t-shirts and trainers so not very interesting for marketing...and with the cold days over, no "prestige" to be fought over either.
Still, it would be good for it to go a bit mainstream again, I think chess-thinking is quite useful in everyday life.
my childhood/teenage days were so loong and boring I even used to play chess!
I have no idea who the "stars" are these days...and because I don't know anything about it any more I assumed it has lost its glamour a bit...has it?
It was great in the days of cold war Fisher,Spasky vs Karpov/Kasparov days...then I remember there was some Hungarian woman prodigy, as well.
I've got a beautiful one-off hand-made chess table at home and the last time I played a game on it was over 10 years ago.
Is chess becoming popular again?
I suppose chess players don't sell t-shirts and trainers so not very interesting for marketing...and with the cold days over, no "prestige" to be fought over either.
Still, it would be good for it to go a bit mainstream again, I think chess-thinking is quite useful in everyday life.
noleisthebest- Posts : 27907
Join date : 2012-06-18
Re: Pivotal day in the (chess) Candidates Tournament
The Hungarian woman prodigy is Judit Polgar, only woman to have ever been inside the top 10 players in the world.
Popular, more than before I think, they are trying to push chess in schools in the US and more countries in Europe (outside of the ex CCCP)... Also, Magnus Carlsen modeled for the "modern" clothe brand G-Star
Popular, more than before I think, they are trying to push chess in schools in the US and more countries in Europe (outside of the ex CCCP)... Also, Magnus Carlsen modeled for the "modern" clothe brand G-Star
sphairistike- Posts : 589
Join date : 2012-08-20
Re: Pivotal day in the (chess) Candidates Tournament
By the way, since then Magnus won the Candidates Tournament and has become the chess world champion after beating - rather convincingly, I might add - Anand in a match, and... he again (after winning the strongest tournament in history, at least from an average ELO rating of the participants point of view) beat the record ELO rating and is at 2881 now!
sphairistike- Posts : 589
Join date : 2012-08-20
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