Anand

So Anand has just won the Candidates Tournament. But what does this mean? For me, this simply means that chess fans all around the world are going to see, once again, a battle between two generations: the "new" and the "old". While I don't necessarily imply that the new will ultimately beat the old, being young certainly has its advantages... and of course disadvantages too! Just several months before the epic Anand-Carlsen match of 2013, a lot of Anand's fans were saying things like, "Carlsen doesn't have the experience", "Anand is better in World championship matches", and so on. Yet in their match, the 23-year-old Magnus carlsen proved that having the great-ER experience (which Anand had, by the way) is not always everything. It's not as if Carlsen doesn't have any experience at all, right? I mean, he's been playing among the Top 10 elites for over 5 years by now and has been world's #1 for quite some time. Surely, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Carlsen was the most poised player to become world champion in 2013 last year, right? Not exactly, cause we had Aronian buzzing to everyone that he had a shot for the world championship too.. until he went downhill in last year's Candidates :(

Levon Aronian, world's #2

So what will be Anand's strategy when he comes face to face with his young nemesis once again this November? Beats me. But when I followed their match last November I observed that Anand didn't try to steer his games towards volatile paths, especially in the first few few rounds. So why am I telling you this? Because that strategy could have been a good idea especially when you take into account that Carlsen prefers to play simple positions. Anand took heed of this idea only when he was already 3 games down in the match. Tsk tsk tsk. Another strategy Anand may try in order to beat Carlsen is by preparing and then playing specific opening variations that may force Carlsen to spend lots of time to think in the early phase of the game. One good example is by playing out an opening where the correct reply for your opponent is a "not so usual-looking" move like in this line of the Scoth Opening: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nxc6 bxc6 6. e5 Qe7 where the Black Queen hinders the development of his own Bishop. I know this example might be way too simple but I really intended this so that my point would be easily understood by the readers in general :)



So what about Carlsen? Well Carlsen has already made a big leap from being a naive and somehow, awkward 13-year-old chess prodigy, to a chess super-star and world champion. He could play a lot of openings with precision and squeeze out victories from "unwinnable" games. He was tutored by the great Kasparov and even before that, drew a game with Kasparov himself in 2004 when he was only 13. According to Kasparov, Carlsen has made a qualitative leap in his skills and is now well advanced and ahead of the rest of the chess elite by 5 years. If this is true, Anand may only have little or no chance at all to regain his title this November. Yet I think we must still refrain from any of our bias as anything can still happen in the playing field :)

Magnus Carlsen (right) becomes world champion in November 2013