It is an ambition achieved, only to be replaced by a new ambition to go higher, but I won't be risking that for a little while and will play only unrated games. I am already rated well above my ability on there, at 48.06% of the way down the list of registered players, which is odd because when I reached 1417 a long time ago, I'm sure I was about 46% but the distribution must have altered. I'm not going to ruin my ranking while the World Championship is on because, of course, such prestigious status gives me every right to pontificate on the match that starts on Saturday, http://chennai2013.fide.com/.
Magnus Carlsen, aged 22, would appear to be Champion Elect but would miss out on being the youngest Champion ever because he is nearly 23 and Garry Kasparov was 22 when he won the title in 1985.
Carlsen's rating makes him officially the best player in the history of the game but such ratings are only that and it would be a matter of some debate if he is already better than Kasparov, Fischer, my personal favourite Capablanca, and all the others. It certainly isn't for me to say, who is well aware of what it's like to enjoy watching sport without having the faintest idea how the players can do what it is that they are doing.
Carlsen, it seems to me, will pursue a win, or fight for a draw, to indefatiguable lengths and sometimes get it but in a match that is these days over 12 games, it is a situation in which an early advantage to one side or the other leaves precious little time for the loser to equalize. The schedule of tournaments and matches nowadays surely means that the exhausting race to six outright wins will never be used to decide the championship again. That title, as in every other sport, is just another sponsored event in the calendar. A win with white by Anand early on could see him retain the title against all apparent odds if he can then play out the remaining games as draws and so I don't recommend taking odds of 1/3 about Carlsen.
Anand might have dropped down the official rankings but he is a wily old hand at match play and I, for one, wouldn't mind seeing him delay the inevitable in making the languid Norwegian wait a bit longer to add the Champion's title to his overwhelming status as World no. 1.
The recent match, I think in the Candidates Tournament through which Carlsen earned the right to challenge Anand, against Aronian, returned us to those heady days of weird accusations and paranoia with the suggestion that Carlsen hypnotizes his opponents. Aronian appeared to blow a safe position and Carlsen prevailed.
Or is it that Carlsen doesn't break under pressure whereas his opponent eventually does. I don't know. But one thing that many of these Uri Geller-type insinuations have in common is that Viktor Korchnoi is often involved in them. Korchnoi is 81 years old now and very much not to be disrespected but here he is somewhat disrespecting Sofia Polgar, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxeiGipoFSE. And that was ungracious.
So, when it kicks off in Chennai on Saturday, I'll be following. Given the choice, I am usually a supporter of the underdog and so, for what it is worth, I'll be hoping rather than expecting that the champion will retain his title.
