This one seems to have slipped through the cracks. While his visit to New Delhi was devoted to politics and his speech (with link to full transcript there, which is quite unusual), of course Garry was asked about Anand while in India last week. Here are some clips from this rather haphazardly written article in the Mail Today.
"Vishy is a brilliant player. But it is very difficult to compete at 40. He is up against people half his age. I will be surprised if he can go on any longer. He can fight against anyone but time," Kasparov said, on the sidelines of the India Today Conclave 2009 in the Capital on Friday.
When pushed to explain his deduction, the Russian said that more than Anand's style, it is the adroitness of the current crop of players which has changed the way chess is played.
"About 50 years ago, the average age of a chess player was about 35 years. Nowadays, 14-year-olds are becoming Grandmasters. This is due to (the advent of) computers and sophisticated software," he said.
Not too impressed by youngsters challenging the might of much older competitors, the 46-year-old had an interesting take on the precocious talent sprouting all over the world.
"Nowadays, a 13-year-old would probably know more than Bobby Fischer knew when he retired. They analyse all the moves and prepare themselves on their computers. But that doesn't mean they are special."
But it's not the youngsters' fault that they are better prepared to learn the nuances of the game. Just because they have technology to sharpen their skills doesn't mean that they have an undue advantage, does it? "Physics students nowadays know more than Einstein and Newton did. That doesn't make them smarter, does it?" quipped the Russian, who quit the sport in 2005.
He's still 45 until April. And "go on any longer" is no doubt "last much longer" as WCh, instead of making it sound like Vishy is going to drop dead at any moment! He called Anand's play against Kramnik some of the best chess Vishy has ever played, after all. And of course the bit about how not every knowledgeable 13-year-old being special doesn't mean there aren't a some who are. He's been complimentary of Carlsen, for example, since the earliest days. Mainstream journos' paraphrases are always a bit dodgy.
I'm more interested in what Garry thinks of Anand's mediocre performance in Linares. We talked day-to-day during the tournament, but no overview. He often contradicts my impressions of how players performed. (I.e. play, not results.) My general feel from his comments on the games was that Anand had some bad luck (the loss to Aronian) and lost a great game to Carlsen, hardly a crisis. I'm hoping he'll do a New In Chess column on his old favorite tournament.
"He often contradicts my impressions of how players performed. (I.e. play, not results.) My general feel from his comments on the games was that Anand had some bad luck (the loss to Aronian) and lost a great game to Carlsen, hardly a crisis."
Exactly. I am with The Boss, Mig!
A very good performance by Anand! I would say a better performance than all the three finished ahead him (Grischuk, Carlsen and Ivanchuk too)!! I believe move precision is the key. Not just playing the top candidate moves. You should be vary the top candidate move at your will and keep on choosing good alternatives and keep your opponent guessing and working OTB. His precision in open or dynamic positions were amazing! You can't say the same thing of others I'm afraid. I still believe the gap between him and others are huge! Somehow ratings are not reflecting that.
Just my opinion, anyway..
But it was a bummer to see Anand largely shut it down in the second half. He just seemed to feel it wasn't his event and better not to push too hard. The Poisoned-Pawn notwithstanding. He was clearly frustrated after making a hash of his game with Carlsen in the last round. Just sounded like he felt he wasn't seeing anything anymore by that point.
I will first cite @sim's post in another thread:
"Kasparov's video interview in India at the Conclave 2009 http://tinyurl.com/bc4pwu "
The connection is terribly slow (at least on my computer with Internet Explorer), but it never hurts to check what GK actually literally said. Hard to be selective on quotes, here are some:
"Anand was one of my nicest opponents."
"He is a great ambassador of sports."
"When I left, he took over." [Fans of Topalov (and Kramnik?) may disagree ... here this is just a neutral comment from me]
"It is very very difficult to compete at the same level when you are almost 40."
"His [Anand's] character helps him to stay afloat ... because he spends less energy on the game than I did."
"I will be surprised if he will go _for very long_ now."
I could go on 'for very long' with this post ... but the short message is: the newspaper article and particularly the headline does not quite reflect the content of the interview. In particular, there is a significant semantic difference between "for very long" and "any longer".
As I wrote before, "for very long" may well mean 'Anand's decline may start in five or ten years'. On the other hand, IF Linares 2009 in retrospect turns out to be the start of Anand's decline (I don't think so, at the very least it's far too early to call) and he will drop below 2700 within two years, in hindsight GK will have prophetic qualities ("Kasparodamus"!?).
"Nowadays, a 13-year-old would probably know more than Bobby Fischer knew when he retired. They analyse all the moves and prepare themselves on their computers. But that doesn't mean they are special."
As always, Kaspy forgets that he is guilty of the same "crime" (preparation). The only reason he beat a significantly older oppenent in Karpov was his far superior opening preparation (Karpov is, in my opinion, much more talented). That was the case with Fischer and Alekhine, to mention the most outstanding examples (Topy comes to mind these days).
In fact, chess databases and computer software are the not-so-secret reason that Kaspy went on to become the strongest player ever (not the most talented, but that's a personal opinion).
Like Capa and many others before him, Kaspy - no longer a at the top - dishonestly laments the game's "decline" and tries to discredit the younger players' accomplishments.
Two things; one, I always had the impression that K had a bee in his bonnet regarding Fischer, ever since I read in that early book he did with Eric Schiller that he always had a selection of high-quality eading material with him and that his general education level was "much higher than that of Fischer's". So I thought he felt he had to prove himself. And two, the prep argument; Joel Benjamin also once said that you could argue that Karpov is the better player when one disregards opening theory an interesting viewpoint which I am too weak a player to assess.
But what is the central argument?
"In fact, chess databases and computer software are the not-so-secret reason that Kaspy went on to become the strongest player ever"
Did other players not have access to the same software? Did Kasparov not retain his status well into the times when such material was used by all?
One can argue about the role of his team of GM assistants, fair enough, but that is another aspect. Karpov and others had similar help.
"As always, Kaspy forgets that he is guilty of the same "crime" (preparation). The only reason he beat a significantly older oppenent in Karpov was his far superior opening preparation (Karpov is, in my opinion, much more talented). That was the case with Fischer and Alekhine, to mention the most outstanding examples (Topy comes to mind these days)."
I do not think objectively it can be claimed in the 84 and 85 matches that Kasparov outplayed Karpov in the openings. And it is of course disingenuous to make a claim about Kasparov's opening acumen, while ignoring Karpov's backing by the soviet chess machine. If anything Karpov would have come into the 84 match with the superior openings do to having the entire resources of the soviet chess apparatus at his disposal.
In response to Kasparov's comments about 13-yr-olds, irv writes:
"As always, Kaspy forgets that he is guilty of the same "crime" (preparation)."
I don't know why people are always so ready to attribute meanness or vitriol to things. What Kasparov is saying is objectively true, and he's not suggesting that this is any "crime". It's just how the world works (in the same way that a modern Hyundai has more technology aboard than Apollo 12).
Incidentally, Mig, have you ever heard Kasparov voice an opinion on the nickname "Kaspy"? To me it seems awfully incongruous; I cringe every time I hear it.
Chesshire Cat asks:
"Did other players not have access to the same software? Did Kasparov not retain his status well into the times when such material was used by all?"
Yes, Kasparov retained his status when the computer was available to everyone. However, there is a very subtle difference: Kasparov had the money, assistants, drive and talent NOT available to most of his peers. The only one who could could come close was Karpov; that explains the very close matches (until the point when Karpov's age began to heavily tilt things in Kasparov's favor).
Now, I'm NOT in ANY WAY trying to discredit Kasparov's accomplishments. He deserves every one of the things he accomplished. He is, in my book at least, the strongest player ever. Nobody could possibly question Kasparov's position at the top of chess and chess history.
What I'm criticizing is his claim that today's players are so strong ONLY because of computers and not talent. That's just dishonest.
Today's players are so strong at such young age because computers provide a very good and cheap environment for players (of all ages) to maximize whatever talent they have. Computers can't make anyone become stronger that what their talent allows. That's why we have very weak players who train like professionals and play like C players. There's no talent. And when you have very young players becoming GM's in 3-4 years of heavy training and play, it is because their talent is special.
Just imagine a 16-year old Karpov or Fischer having access to today's training tools? What would Kasparov say of their talent?
Irv: "Today's players are so strong at such young age because computers provide a very good and cheap environment for players (of all ages) to maximize whatever talent they have. Computers can't make anyone become stronger that what their talent allows."
But this is exactly what Kasparov's saying. It's not that there are more "special" talents out there than there used to be; just that their maximising that talent earlier. Note too that "special" here for Kasparov probably means something more than just "could be a GM" (i.e., special relative to the average population). He means *truly* special -- a Carlsen.
lrv, your convoluted and rambling discourse is hard to decipher, but I think you say the following:
1. Fischer, Alekhine and Kasparov only achieved their exalted status due to preparation. There were others equally talented, but they didnt prepare for the opening phase as much as their opponents, whether due to lack of resources or laziness, and this meant they were not as successful.
2. Karpov is much more talented than Kasparov.
3. Kasparov became the strongest ever chess player only due to the advent of strong chess playing software and comprehensive databases.
4. Today's young players are very strong because they are talented. Specifically, "computers can't make anyone become stronger that what their talent allows"
Is this correct? Do you perhaps see any contradiction in what you said, without even going into the completely wrong statements?
Theorist writes:
"But this is exactly what Kasparov's saying. It's not that there are more "special" talents out there than there used to be; just that their maximising that talent earlier. Note too that "special" here for Kasparov probably means something more than just "could be a GM" (i.e., special relative to the average population). He means *truly* special -- a Carlsen."
Not quite accurate if you care to read between lines. Let me quote Kasparov again:
"Nowadays, a 13-year-old would probably know more than Bobby Fischer knew when he retired. They analyse all the moves and prepare themselves on their computers. But that doesn't mean they are special."
The key senstence there is: "But that doesn't mean they are special".
How would Kasparov know how "special" a 13-year old kid who knows and plays stronger than Fischer at his peak is? What makes Kasparov believe that such powerful combination of young age + deep knowledge + strong play is not special?
How does he know there are not one or two "special" players in today's crop? Yes, I agree that throughout chess history, there has been very few "special" players (not just strong GM's, Fischer vs Taimanov comes to mind), but Kasparov offers no valid reason to believe that there are no "special" talents around.
It is a subtle thing...
@d_tal
No, that's not what I said. Thanks!
Irv: "It is a subtle thing..."
Not really. You're confusing things again. Kasparov's ability to spot genuine, top-of-the-world talent is, you'd have to agree, second to none: I can't imagine anyone in the world who has deeper insight into chess, and is more qualified to judge genuine talent, than Kasparov. What Kasparov's saying is that just because you're a GM at 13 doesn't mean you have that once-in-a-lifetime talent. To suggest that Kasparov couldn't spot the difference is a bit silly.
Theorist wrote:
"Kasparov's ability to spot genuine, top-of-the-world talent is, you'd have to agree, second to none: I can't imagine anyone in the world who has deeper insight into chess, and is more qualified to judge genuine talent, than Kasparov."
You're talking as a fan, not as a smart un-biased observer. It is very possible that there are weaker players (not like me or you; but like, say, Shirov or Kamsky) who are better judges of talent than Kasparov; it is very possible that matters of ego could cloud a great player's judgement. We just don't know, do we?
"What Kasparov's saying is that just because you're a GM at 13 doesn't mean you have that once-in-a-lifetime talent."
Kasparov may be the strongest player ever, but I doubt he has the God-like power to accurate predict how special every single 13-year old player will turn out (remember, that the outcome is unknown and into the future).
In other words, TODAY'S 13 year-old GM's MAY OR MAY NOT turn out to be a special talent. Nobody knows. It is common sense.
Sorry to keep hammering on about this, but I think common sense suggests exactly the opposite, Irv. I'm no Mozart, but I like to think I could tell the difference between Lang Lang and Chopin, even at the age of 13 -- and no matter how fast either of them whizzed up and down the keyboard (actually, telling the difference between Mozart and Clementi might be more the point: they famously had a "keyboard duel"; Mozart was in no doubt about the outcome).
You've already called Kasparov the strongest player who ever lived. He himself was famously a Wunderkind. Suggesting that Kasparov really, truly couldn't tell the difference between a Carlsen and a Bacrot at 13 is tantamount to saying that, as that age, there *is* no difference between the players. And surely, your own common sense should tell you that that's absurd.
How far will Magnus Carlsen go?
Will he ever dominate like Kasparov?
Will he even become world champion?
Will he go into history as a great champion or as another Paul Keres?
Nobody knows. Not Kasparov. Hell, not even Carlsen himself...
:-)
Theorist wrote:
"Suggesting that Kasparov really, truly couldn't tell the difference between a Carlsen and a Bacrot at 13 is tantamount to saying that, as that age, there *is* no difference between the players."
What makes a player "special" is not being stronger than an obviously weaker player. Kasparov himself was not special because he was always stronger that Yusupov or Elvhest. That's absurd.
Kasparov can tell the difference in strenght and talent between two 13-yera olds. He CAN NOT tell how far the best one will go. He can not tell how "special" today's young talent (remember that most of these ultra-strong, ultra-young players have not had enough international exposure for outsiders to accurately guess their potential) WILL turn out. Maybe there will be a genius, maybe there will be none. NOBODY knows. It's common sense.
Finally, I'm not even mentioning the fact that it is increasingly difficult for "special" players to remain "special" with so many ultra-strong players around...because of computers...
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Actually that's exactly what you said lrv. Do you need me to pick out the quotes?
That's a legitimate question...anyway, 12 years ago I took the liberty to name my cat Kaspy (or Caspi)...and I think its a perfectly lyrical (nick)name :)
@d_tal
No need for you to re-write what you think I said. What I wrote is still here. Thanks, once again, for the offer.
:-)
I hope it's a lion or a ferocious leopard, Catman!...
Maybe I am just stating the obvious, but I guess nowadays it is easier to become a GM at a rather young age than thirty years ago (when Kasparov was a teenager). First, because there are computers and databases, and the young generation knows how to use them efficiently. Second, because there are more tournament opportunities, including some specially geared to obtain GM norms (First Saturday).
And almost by definition (or inherently) this implies that a relatively smaller percentage of those young GM's are exceptionally talented - meaning that they can further progress to become top 10 or even world champion. Carlsen is clearly one of them (he is already top 10), but taking Anish Giri as one example: who knows how far he will eventually progress.
Regarding chesshire cat's comment:
"Did other players not have access to the same software? Did Kasparov not retain his status well into the times when such material was used by all?"
You are right, so apparently Kasparov was exceptionally talented - and maybe this exceptional talent included knowing how to work efficiently with computers and software.
I read once that a worrying sign that chess geekiness is too large a part of your like is if your pet is named after a chess champion...btw, anyone got a cat called Tiviakov? or Korchnoi? or maybe some guy with 2 IM norms....
I think there is a lot of wishful thinking about Anand he had three clearly lost positions and one probably lost against Grischuk at Linares. He was lucky to get away with only 2 losses. It was a bad tournament for him - no excuses it happens. Bilbao was also bad - there he had the excuse of his up coming WCC match If he performs below par at the next tournament then we can say he has some problems - and I think he has. As for saying he is ahead of the rest thats just hero worship. The live ratings are a reasonably good indicator of current performance and Topalov is 30 points ahead. So at the moment the prospective match is looking competitive. I think Anand will slip further behind in the ratings.
"Harry Nelson Pillsbury" would be a good cat name.
I'd call my cat 'cheshire cat' if I had one.
Be careful - someone might accuse you (or your non-existing cat) of identity theft ... even though you [maybe intentionally] put only one 's' in the name rather than two in the original version.
Is it just me or is there a lot of parity at the top right now? Or is the issue consistency?
Take the top 8 and I couldn't begin to guess who would win a match-tournament between them. Not even who would advance to the second round and if I had the brackets. Or somebody from 9-16 knocking off a top 4.
I COULD guess that the match-tournament would be postponed and cancelled by FIDE within half a year of initial announcement.
¨Is it just me or is there a lot of parity at the top right now? Or is the issue consistency?¨
It is very simply really , Topalov is dominating.
He won almost every event he played lately , and he is the number one rated player for second time in a row.
What would be the media saying of Carlsen if he had done that? (and he could , lost in semifinals of the World Cup and played Bilbao and strong tournaments like Topa).
Of course Anand is the champ and like many times discussed the use of computers level things a lot , but IMO ratings can fool you sometimes but not all the time .
I'm not so sure I agree with Kasparov that chess is a young man's game now. I counted only 3 players who were under 21 in the top 50. Of the top 10, seven of them are in their 30's.
Talent ages well, I've heard and said often. It's more a question of having the energy and doing the work. But 21 is still world junior territory! Under 25 is more of a cutoff for young, even today, and there are plenty of them in the top 20, let alone 50. That wasn't really the case 20 years ago. Eight of the current top 20 were born in 1983 or later, Aronian a year earlier. It used to be only super-talents considered serious WCh potential were hitting the top 10 by age 20 or so. Now it's getting to be routine. Before 2000 you could count the number of 17-year-old world-class players on one hand. These days you can see that many in one tournament.
I pointed out a while ago that, somewhat paradoxically, the average age of the top 20 isn't decreasing all that dramatically. Averages rarely do. It's more that you don't have the 40+ players (and 50+ sounds laughable now) and you now have the teenagers. The dropoff at 40 is staggering. You have super-talents Anand and Ivanchuk, both 1969, then Gelfand (68) hanging tough in the top 15. Then you drop to #39 to Dreev (69) and way down to #61 for Nigel Short (65). Beliavsky and the nearly inactive Karpov are the only players born in the 50s in the top 100. Just 20 years ago a quarter of the list was probably 40 or over. The game has definitely changed. A year from now I'd say there will be more players under 20 in the top 100 than over 40!
I wouldn't be surprised if Anand's vegetarianism buys him a few extra years. Cleaner circuitry maybe?
One other thought that occurred to me while reading this. You know how it is with music? A jillion bands from Liverpool (or, thirty years later, Seattle?) It's possible that a similar thing happens with chess. . .artists feeding off of one another's inspiration. What I'm getting at is that the dropoff you describe after age forty in the rating list might be a sort of demographic accident having to do with what players learned from each other during what era.
I've also wondered for a long time if endorphins had something to do with it. Someone asked Korchnoi the secret of his chess longevity once, and he said that he had had an auto accident (crashed into a police car!), and ever since did a great deal of walking. . .
Mozart was far more talented than beethoven but the Former's symphonies cannot match up to the later's. This is because beethoven brought a ferocious and disciplined intellect to imbue his symphonies. Beethoven worked harder and hard work can sometimes prove superior to talent.
A similar comparison can be made between Karpov and Kasparov. It's Karpov's own fault that he was much lazier compared to Kasparov. What did Karpoc expect? Just because you are more talented nobody can stop you? In fact, I consider Kasparov and such other people heroes...they go to show that you don't need to have blinding talent...work hard and consign the more talented players to the dustbin. This gives the rest of us untalented lot hope....
It's pretty laughable that Mehul does not consider Kasparov to have had much talent. It's also pretty laughable to repeat the old lie that talent somehow precludes hard work, and that the ultimate talented individual doesn't have to do anything to be good. Or that intellect is somehow not talent. EVERYONE who has ever been good at anything has invested an awful lot of hours... a recent estimate in one article I read was around 10,000 hours, which does not seem unreasonable for a high standard.
It is also nonsense to claim that anybody can reach the top through hard work alone. Without a real talent for the subject, whatever it may be, nobody could bring themselves to invest the time necessary for excellence. So you need both the desire for the skill (talent?) and the determination (hard work).
The statement "Mozart was far more talented than Beethoven" is obviously too controversial to be taken seriously. And anybody who believes that "Beethoven worked harder" has obviously not noticed how much music Mozart wrote in his short life.
Bob
Beethoven had to indeed work harder because it was needed to push the frontiers. Mozart had already done whatever could be done in the classical form. Beethoven needed to sweat to create something which would not automatically become a repetition of Mozart's work. (See Stravinsky's comment that Vivaldi wrote the same concerto six hundred times!) Post Beethoven, it became even more difficult for others to create symphonies of an original/different flavor. Brahms couldn't finish one symphony for 21 years, because of Beethoven's shadow.
Beethoven also worked harder because he was never satisfied with his work. He kept writing scores and discarded them for revised scores. Witness his sole opera Fidelio. It was already fully composed once under the name Leonore. He rewrote the whole thing. In fact, the overture itself exists in three different versions, all three performed even now.
And, by the way, Beethoven never proved himself superior to Mozart, hard work or othewise. He himself was in awe of his predecessor and is known to have said after emanating from a Mozart piano concerto performance: Alas! we can never be so good.
It's meaningless to say that Mozart's symphonies cannot match up to those of Beethoven. In the later symphonies of Mozart (40/41) one could already foreshadow the arrival of Beethoven. Had Mozart lived longer, he might already have extended the symphonic idiom beyond Beethoven. It's just natural progression. Beethoven simply extended the classical form to newer idioms, just as Mozart had extended the Baroque form.
However, modern stalwarts may differ on who of the two could be considered the greater composer. One thing is given, regardless. Mozart's is the most naturally euphonic music. Even infants, when played Mozart, listen with rapt attention. (I've seen this myself.) Beethoven's music is more advanced, more varied, but also thereby less euphonic in parts.
But the fact remains that had Mozart succeeded Beethoven, then Mozart would have had to work the harder to invent more.
And Karpov doesn't become lazy just because he didn't use computers much. He worked with the tools of *his* day -- GM seconds, analysis, endgame study etc. I'm sure that Karpov put in much greater hard work than Fischer did, who in turn had worked more than his predecessors.
I wonder how you would call what Mozart was doing all those years giving concerts, and practising his play and composition. Just because (some of) his music seems euphonic to you it doesn't mean it is to everyone. Do you want to make a children appeal contest between Beethoven's 5th symphony and Mozart's Die Zauberflöte? I wonder which one would win. Many composers have made children-like music, not only Mozart. Every great composer tried to create something new, even Mozart. That's part of why they're great. They also happened to be quite modest, in their majority (true, with Stravinski being a notorious exception) not only to their great predecessors but also to their pairs. In my view, this comparisons, as well as between chessplayers of different eras, can be fun, but are, in general worthless. As to what Mig says about his views being different of Kasparov's, i also remember that many times, Kasparov's evaluation of certain positions were quite different to those of other players of seemingly similar level (i think there was an example of that in "The test of time"). I found strikingly that it also happened to Carlsen in a game against De Firmian, who judged (even after the game in a written analysis) the position to be equal while Carlsen thought he had a clear advantage. Maybe it's just that they see more than we can and also see "better" what we see. In general, chess-wise i tend to rate Kasparov views extremely high
Wow, Mozart vs. Beethoven, am I still on the same chess blog? ,:) Well, one of my personal favorites is Chopin ... who didn't even try to 'compete' with his predecessor's symphonies but found his own formats and own style.
And then music sure did change drastically with electronic instruments and, still later, computers playing a role. Debatable if this was an improvement, at least my grandfather (who was a high school music teacher) never thought so ... . The chess analogy is that this is comparing apples with oranges, same applies to Steinitz vs. Fischer vs. Karpov vs. Kasparov !?
Kasparov didn't mentioned Anand's best career move -- finishing 2nd at San Luis, rather than win it. The winner (Topalov) was forced into a "qualifier" with Kramnik to get into the next World Champ, while the 2nd-4th finishers went ahead for free. By having an in-form Kramnik torpedo his main rival, Anand ensured his victory road. But all things come to a circle, with but one stalling of FIDE left to be jumped, until the history is repaired.
I dunno, I think Topalov cried all the way to the bank. And frankly I doubt Anand would have chosen Kramnik over Topalov to face in a match. Easy to say otherwise now, of course.
"As always, Kaspy forgets that he is guilty of the same "crime" (preparation). The only reason he beat a significantly older oppenent in Karpov was his far superior opening preparation (Karpov is, in my opinion, much more talented). That was the case with Fischer and Alekhine, to mention the most outstanding examples (Topy comes to mind these days)."
1. i.e. in other words, Fischer, Alekhine and Kasparov only achieved their exalted status due to preparation. There were others equally or more talented, but they didnt prepare for the opening phase as much as their opponents, whether due to lack of resources or laziness or any other reason, and this meant they were not as successful.
2. Karpov is much more talented than Kasparov.
"In fact, chess databases and computer software are the not-so-secret reason that Kaspy went on to become the strongest player ever"
3. i.e. Kasparov became the strongest ever chess player only due to the advent of strong chess playing software and comprehensive databases.
"Today's players are so strong at such young age because computers provide a very good and cheap environment for players (of all ages) to maximize whatever talent they have. Computers can't make anyone become stronger that what their talent allows."
4. i.e. today's young players are very strong because they are talented. Specifically, "computers can't make anyone become stronger that what their talent allows"
How is Point 4 consistent with 1, 2, and 3?
If you post the same thing three or four more times maybe you'll wear him down and he'll respond.
Not to mention that anyone who has actually looks at the Kasparov-Karpov match games and read analysis of them will see that Karpov was just as well prepared as Kasparov, with as many novelties. (Though, being the veteran, he was more set in his repertoire.) In several entire matches (90 in particular) Karpov had more success in the openings than his opponent. While I agree Kasparov's prowess in developing new opening ideas was overall an big advantage for him over the rest of the chess world, it certainly didn't show to great effect in his matches with Karpov.
The occasional bombshell like the 8..d5 gambit in 85 help give the impression that it was like that in every game. In Kasparov's five wins in the 86 match, Karpov made the first new move in four. Not that meaningful, I admit, but it goes some way toward countering the "without his opening surprises Kasparov would have lost" myth.
Of course the entire argument about "work compensating for talent" is idiotic. Obviously the capacity to work -- and benefit from that work -- is an inseparable part of one's talent and a talent in and of itself. Why didn't Capablanca work has hard at Alekhine? Because he couldn't. He didn't have that talent. As Garry put it, roughly, maybe it took Alekhine four hours to see what Capablanca saw in one. But Alekhine worked ten. Winning is what matters. Conjuring belittling semantic arguments to explain why someone was better at the board than someone else is mostly just partisanship.
Tennis great Ivan Lendl said this about himself in relation to McEnroe in a 2006 New Yorker article I clipped for just this purpose! "Can you create athletes, or do they just happen? I think you can create them, and I think that Tiger Woods's father proved that. People will sometimes ask me, "How much talent did you have in tennis?" I say, "Well, how do you measure talent?" Yeah, sure, McEnroe had more feel for the ball. But I knew how to work, and I worked harder than he did. Is that a talent in itself? I think it is."
And when did Alekhine and Kasparov get bad at the rest of the game? I'm quite sure you could make a book of "200 brilliant wins in which my opponent made the first new move" for both Alekhine and Kasparov.
Speaking of vegetarianism, anyone notice Leko and Moro looking chunky at Melody Amber in the ChessBase report? Dr. Nunn's charmingly atrocious photography aside (reminds me of my grandma's Christmas snaps), they both used to be quite thin.
Well wasnt Leko the one with the chocolate bars near the board?
Not to mention that several well-respected, strong GM's like Short, Benjamin, Seirawan, Nunn, Timman and even Spassky think that a great part of Kasparov's success (all deserved) is opening preparation. So, we have the opinion of 2600+ players and also the contrasting opinion of an 1825 player (Mig). Who's right and who's wrong? Well, it is a matter of opinion and every reader will have to draw his own conclusion.
Mig, however, has made a very important and often-overlooked point: the capacity for hard work is part of a person's talent. I couldn't agree more; that's why I have often stated my position that ALL of Kasparov's accomplishments are FULLY DESERVED. He is the strongest chess player of all time. He coupled incredible talent with an incredible work ethic and an incredible fighting spirit (only Fischer comes close in this department). But we can't overlook the fact that he was the first beneficiary of modern, computer-assisted trainig methods. It does not, IN ANY WAY, detract from his well-deserved glory.
Choosing to belittle the young players who are just following in his footsteps is only further proof that Kaspy is now an official member of the 'sour grapes" club of Fischer, Capablanca and others who claimed the game was not as good - but only after they were no longer at the top...
I wrote: "While I agree Kasparov's prowess in developing new opening ideas was overall a big advantage for him over the rest of the chess world, it certainly didn't show to great effect in his matches with Karpov."
And yet Irv says I'm disagreeing with all sorts of GMs who say opening prep was "a great part of Kasparov's success." As if everyone and his dog didn't know that.
I don't find Garry's remarks about today's super-tots belittling. He simply pointed out that thanks to computers, kids have access to top-level preparation at a very young age these days, something that didn't exist before. When Fischer was world-class at 15 it was clear he was unique. A kid that young simply couldn't compete equally in the openings with veterans, so he had to have incredible skills to do so well.
Now every 10-year-old can book up in ways Botvinnik could only dream about and if you're not world-class at 18 you're practically a has-been. So the point is you can't use extremely early achievement to evaluate a player's potential the way you could before computers. Negi, Ponomariov, Karjakin, Radjabov, Carlsen, Bacrot, So, Leko, et al are a great group of players, but they aren't all going to be #1. They aren't all "special" by the standards of Fischer, Karpov, and Kasparov, or by the standards of modern chess today. They are becoming the norm. It's not saying none of them are special, but de facto they can't all be. (As in Lake Wobegone, where all kids are above average.)
For this coming generation it will be very rare for a player to make the top 10 for the first time after he's 20. Before computers, doing so was almost unheard of. That's a big shift. It doesn't mean the truly special ones won't stick around at the top for a long time, only that there will be a lot more very young players, as we saw at Corus this year.
Irv,
Isn't it rather obvious Kasparov outplayed his opponents in every phase of the game? Especially in complex tactical positions?
I remember Yasser Seirawan's analysis of Kasparov's superority before the 2000 match with Kramnik. Seirawan said Kasparov was superior in the openings, formidable in complex middlegames and he was no mean endgame player either. Something like 'he generally wins endgames where he's equal or better and draws one's he's worse'.
Kasparov DID belittle the young players' accomplishments by assuming that there was no real talent, just preparation.
"Nowadays, a 13-year-old would probably know more than Bobby Fischer knew when he retired. They analyse all the moves and prepare themselves on their computers. But that doesn't mean they are special."
He could have said something completely true and NOT-OFFENSIVE:
"Nowadays, a 13-year-old would probably know more than Bobby Fischer knew when he retired. They analyse all the moves and prepare themselves on their computers. We will have to see which ones, if any, are truly special."
Remember that a 14 year-old Fischer knew more than Alekhine and a 14 year-old Kasparov also knew more than Capablanca when he retired. It is the normal course of things.
"They analyse all the moves and prepare themselves on their computers. But that doesn't mean they are special."
"They analyse all the moves and prepare themselves on their computers. We will have to see which ones, if any, are truly special."
Only HR managers would believe that the two sentences are different. Kasparov isn't one. Neither are most other people.
Is it me or does everyone think that after Kasparov's retirement there hasn't been anyone (even on the horizon) who can even try to dominate others? I mean sure there have been world champions - Kramnik, Topalov and Anand. But none of them has that 'aura' of invincibility! I mean Kasparov (and Karpov at his peak) entered any tournament as a clear favorite so much so that everyone else were fighting to draw him and take up that second spot. Well, when Kramnik and Anand were included, the others were by far contesting for the 3rd slot. It's painful that incredible talents like Ivanchuk never got control over their psychological weaknesses. But to me Anand, Kramnik and Topalov, are way too weak in comparison to their predecessors as world champions. Topalov has that creative bent, Anand the famed resourcefulness and Kramnik has that will to defuse anything slung at him! But none of them dominates their rivals as yet..:(
Garbage deleted, including my own. We now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion of the Kasparov on Anand article. Let's see if we are capable of letting our knowledge speak for itself.
If the 14-year-old Kasparov knew more than Capablanca it was because the quality and quantity of the knowledge itself had progressed greatly in the intervening decades. But there weren't really more young stars in 1980 than in 1920. Even with the promotion of chess in the USSR, with standard curricula and picking out young players with potential. They were still using books and classes. The invention of a radically superior training tool -- computer databases + engines + instant access to new games via the internet, available in every home at any age -- changed that. The discovery of talent is now diy.
Kasparov's early mastery of these tools gave him a boost over his peers, albeit a temporary one. This entire generation's mastery gives them an advantage over previous generations, one that has little to do with their individual chess talents. It dropped the age at which chess talent manifests into results. 15 is the new 21, basically. Better training methods also raise the ceiling (the overall quality of play), but with shorter time controls and no adjournments, that will be harder to see.
I wonder if there are other fields that have seen a similar impact from early computer training. Maths? It doesn't seem like there would be many other areas in which attaching a firehose of data to a young brain would have such a quick and positive impact as in chess.
I think we got cheated a bit by Garry's early retirement in that there was no transition to another dominant player. Not that that always happens, of course, and there have been long periods of relative parity before, such as the the two decades before Fischer's peak. We got spoiled by Fischer, Karpov, and Kasparov. Perhaps had Garry played another five years it would have been Carlsen, who knows?
Ever since Linares 2005 I intermittently think Topalov is going to settle down and be the favorite in every event. Not dominate, perhaps, but at least stop losing so often. But apart from entirely subjective arguments about talent, and this is a credit in many ways, Topalov is less pragmatic than Kasparov was. Garry had five matches against Karpov to beat a sort of common sense into him about what can and can't be done at the chessboard. Another four matches with Kramnik would do the same with Topalov! That's one of the great shames of the disappearance of the long WCh matches and candidates matches.
Maybe Topalov will be there in another few years, impossible to say. He's definitely the one who shows the killer instinct and work ethic that a dominant player needs and his recent results show how he can put up great results even without being in top form. That was always a problem for him and what I meant about Kasparov, and Anand as well, being more pragmatic. Look at Garry's 'bad' Linares results. People forget he was a drawing master several times, twice winning one and drawing the rest. A Topalov -- or even a younger Kasparov -- in bad form would have tried to force things and maybe won three and lost four instead. More fun for spectators, but not the stuff of a dominant player as Nishant describes.
Speaking as a selfish spectator and commentator, I hope Topalov doesn't change too much. Same for Morozevich and others like them. Plus, I still have the feeling we're just waiting on Carlsen's next jump. He might not be winning everything two or three years from now, but it will probably be news when he doesn't win. We do seem to have enough strong players to keep it interesting though. There won't be that period in which (thanks partly to Korchnoi not being in the same events) guys like Ljubojevic and Timman played Tina Turner to Karpov's Ike. I blame Fischer for that. More than the loss of their 1975 match, imagine Fischer and Karpov battling it out for a decade.
"There won't be that period in which (thanks partly to Korchnoi not being in the same events) guys like Ljubojevic and Timman played Tina Turner to Karpov's Ike."
Classy as always
The greater the talent pool, the lesser the chance that one individual will dominate.
What's happening in chess has already happened in baseball. When that game was played almost exclusively by American white guys you'd have performances by, for example Babe Ruth, that so far surpassed the mean that it looked like he'd been dropped from the planet Krypton. With players drawn from a vastly expanded talent pool these days there's nothing remotely comparable to a Ruthian performance (vis-a-vis the mean). (Steroids not counting.)
In chess, Fischer, Karpov, and Kasparov were all "Kryptonian", but the coming of internet-related tools vastly expanded the talent pool beyond the few who could read Russian chess magazines. The pack was catching up with Kasparov as he turned forty: Anand won the chess Oscars in 2003 and 2004 and Kasparov's 2005 accomplishment was a shared first. Another player could come along and dominate as did Fischer, Karpov, and Kasparov, but the vastly increased talent pool makes it much less likely.
"Russian chess magazines ..."
I use this just as a keyword ... and now make another a bit daring proposition: Is it mere coincidence that the transition from a single player dominating to a bunch of very strong players broadly coincides not only with the advent of computers, Internet and databases, but also with the decline of the Soviet empire, fall of the iron curtain, end of the cold war?
Karpov was heavily supported by the Soviet system, Fischer, Kasparov (and Korchnoi) may have gotten extra motivation from fighting against this system. Those days are over ... . Due to its long chess tradition, Russia and other ex-Soviet countries still have a large pool of strong players. But India and China have sort of caught up, and there are at least individual players around in the top from some other countries (e.g. Bulgaria and Norway).
Greg Koster wrote:
"The greater the talent pool, the lesser the chance that one individual will dominate."
...with a correspondingly smaller chance of being considered "special" - even if they are truly "special". Such is the case of Radjabov and Karjakin, who are often forgotten, lost in Carlsen's shadow.
'Stop of all your comments, just play with me and you'll find how can I beat you faster and clearer....'
[quote]My general feel from his comments on the games was that Anand had some bad luck (the loss to Aronian) and lost a great game to Carlsen, hardly a crisis. I'm hoping he'll do a New In Chess column on his old favorite tournament.[unquote]
That was exactly my sentiment! Also about the play, not results. Results would never give psychological edge over your opponent, play would however.
Also no endorsement from Karpov in the interview few days ago endorses Anand's skills!! You can't generalize, but for them to look better some would pick people who they think at their level or inferior.
I don't think age will come in the way of Anand unlike Kasparov thinks. Because Anand's style/skill is very different from players of the past and present and I feel he is way above others unlike the rating would show which should give the necessary cushion to stay on top for a much longer period. We'll see.
Is this from an year ago?!!!!
Lots of nonsense here. So called 'talent' is way over rated. Genuis isn't born as much as made. Fischer wasn't particularly talented, he just studied harder and smarter than most others. Same goes for Kasparov. Lots of what Kasparov says is just bull.
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For my opionion Kasparov is the best player of the last 10 years!