All possible predictions are available on every corner of chess world and this site will not be an exception.
Tomorrow at 3.00 P.M. local time Anand and Carlsen will begin their battle for the biggest title in world of chess.
Who is a favourite?
Will this match be a easy home run for Carlsen?
Does Anand has advantage because he is playing in his country?
Can Carlsen´s inexperience in this kind of events tells more than his advantage of nearly 100 elo points?
Who has the better opening preparation?
Who has the better team of seconds?
There are many answers, but only after the match we will give the definite answers to some of these questions.
Anyway, people love to speculate, and love to give predictions on sport events.
Here are some of mine.
First of all, when we are talking about these two players and this match, we have to notice substantial bigger interest of mas media compared with previous World Championship matches.
Anand became World Champion (in classical terms) in Mexico City in 2007.
Before that he was FIDE World Champion, but because of split in World of chess in 1993, we have paralel champions up to 2007.
I assume that most of people considered the real World Champions Kasparov and Kramnik during that time.
In 2007 Anand won double round robin WC tournament in Mexico City, and he became World Champion of reunited chess world.
He successfully defended his title against Vladimir Kramnik in 2008 in Bonn, Germany.
This was especially important as Vladimir Kramnik never lost his title (gained against Gary Kasparov in London 2000) in a match.
From that point nobody could put Anand´s title in a doubt, and it is correct to say that he was a victim of the conflicts at the top of chess world during a period of splitting.
I considered that the peak of Anand´s chess abilities was in the middle of the first decade of 21th century.
However, he managed to defend his title on two more occasions, against Veselin Topalov in 2010 and Boris Gelfand in 2012.
All these players are the players from previous generation, that start to play on highest level in the 90-ties.
Magnus Carlsen is the best what youngest generation can offer at the moment, and as we already know, it is in terms of pure chess strength the best possible answer.
His level of play is something that is beyond my understanding.
I can understand Anand´s, Kramnik´s and Kasparov´s games, but how Magnus Carlsen wins his games is just something completely different.
For example, we can look at the game against Gata Kamsky from the last tournament in United States, when Carlsen was White.
It seemed for me that Kamsky has an advantage, but when Carlsen moved his pawn f2-f3 the whole picture changed.
It can not be considered as a luck, if he find similar resources all the time.
The biggest mystery for me is, how he enters such positions as it is clear that he can not foresee the concrete moves so far ahead (even computer engines can not do that).
The answer is in his extraordinary understanding of chess that has it´s manifestation in incredibly accurate intuition.
If I take everything into account, my prediction is that Carlsen will win this match, and I think it will be with 2 or 3 points ahead of Anand.
Most of people, predicts that it will be tough for Carlsen, and it will be, but up to the point when Carlsen takes a lead.
Well, this can happen in sixth or eight game, but from that point it will be no comeback from Anand´s part.
Anand represents past, and Carlsen represents present and future.
He is at the moment better player, with a higher motivation and his age is also big advantage.
I assume that Anand will raise to the occasion, and that he will play much better then he showed in the last two years in the tournaments. I assume that his experience will count for something and that he is prepared well, but he can not reduce the gap in playing strength.
In the last WC match, Gelfand managed to reduce the gap in difference in Elo, but the main difference between these two matches is that Anand-Gelfand was the match of the players from the same generation which means that their way (not style) of playing and thinking chess is similar.
Today´s generation has increased level of resistance in their games.
To win a game against Carlsen (or let´s say Caruana or Aronian) players of Anand´s generation had to put much more energy and strength then it was required earlier against let´s say Kamsky or Topalov.
Only one player of previous generation has the ability to win the games pretty easy, and it´s Vladimir Kramnik, who succeeded to reform his chess in period of 2009-2011 (The same reform made Kasparov in the beginning of 90ties when he succeeded to adopt his play to a new generation, and even to dominate world of chess for one more decade).
Kramnik´s tournament results and his shared first place in London Candidates, shows that he plays better then ever.
However, I think that even he would not be able to stop Magnus Carlsen.
The match Anand-Carlsen comes a bit to late for Anand, and in a perfect time for Carlsen.
It seems to me that Carlsen did the right thing (from individual point of view) when he refused to play in previous candidate circle, especially when we knows how big the element of luck was in Kazan in previous candidates matches.
The match starts tomorrow, and the analysis of the games will be available on this blog.
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