However, if I want to produce some quality thoughts than I need some time to think about the games.
So, yesterday, 2. December was played round number two and we had couple of interesting games.
First of all, there was the game between World number one, Magnus Carlsen and World number two Levon Aronian.
Magnus won in very nice style.
The second most interesting game was game between Vladimir Kramnik and Nakamura. Kramnik won with black pieces and he and Carlsen has two out of two points.
Here are the results of the second round:
Judit Polgar - Gawain Jones draw
Hikaru Nakamura - Vladimir Kramnik 0-1
Magnus Carlsen - Levon Aronian 1-0
Vishy Anand - Luke McShane draw
Judit Polgar had an advantage against Gawain Jones, but somewhere near the end of the game she threw it. I have to say that I expected more from Judit (considering that she lost even in round three against Michael Adams), maybe not in terms of number of points, but in terms of quality of her play.
She had some pause in chess and she did not played in top tournaments for a while.
What is the biggest difference today, and in the 90-ties is probably the level of resistance.
As her piece sacrifice could work against players in 90-ties today is almost impossible to get something from it.
Still, Judit are playing very aggressive chess and I think that she will win at least one game in the tournament (but also she will lose some more games).
Kramnik is always in a good form in London (he won it last year), and against Nakamura he played for a revenge for defeat in the Olympiad.
He was black, and he won in the very long game.
The trend in today's top chess, is that the games are won or lost in the endgames.
We can just look at two Carlsen´s victories.
One more good thing is the Sofia rule.
I am sure that couple of games would ended in a draw if it was allowed.
The World Champion, Wishy Anand was free in the first round, but he did not played well (or fresh) in the second round.
McShane took an initiative and won a pawn.
Anand managed to save a draw after very good resistance.
Carlsen´s victory against Aronian is historical one. He is now the highest rated player in chess history.
I am not sure that inflation in rating exist, as it was never proved.
The only period when one could see the inflation in rating was when Soviet players were allowed to play in the West (beginning of the 90-ties).
Anyway, looking to the historical Elo numbers my personal feeling is that Fischer´s 2785 in 1971 is higher than Kasparov´s 2851 in 1999 or Carlsen´s 2855 in 2012.
Not because of (possible) inflation but because when Fischer had 2785 the second best player was Spassky with around 2630.
However, Magnus is more than worth player to became new World Champion.
I think that he will win the title very soon.
I would like to see the match against Kramnik, as I think that Anand is not anymore worth of such event.
Carlsen in not typical player for the newest generation. His strength is in the endgame, and he has incredible feeling for the piece coordination.
His style is like Krapov´s style but on the higher level.
All the games from the second round you can see in the chess viewer.
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