I added a new page for the
2013-2014 FIDE Women's Grand Prix
to my index page on the
World Chess Championship for Women.
The first of the six Grand Prix events has already been played and the results can be found at
geneva2013.fide.com.
I'll add those results to my own page as soon as I can.
The official site for the 2013 Geneva event included a new FIDE logo that I don't remember seeing before. I've copied it to this post.
While I was preparing those, I realized I had no tiebreak info for 2007 Mexico City, and will add it ASAP.
I added the crosstable for the 2013 Zug event to my page on the
2012-2013 Grand Prix.
(The PGN will follow shortly.)
The second edition of the FIDE Grand Prix has been just as chaotic as the first (see 2008-2009 Grand Prix for background and links). I last commented on the situation in a post on London Candidates - First Week, but much has happened since then and I haven't found the time to dissect the changes. In any case, the situation is certain to continue evolving. I'll add relevant links to the page on the 2012-2013 Grand Prix -- and maybe do a post here -- as soon as I can.
Why would FIDE want to award the organization of the match without a bidding process? Didn't they learn anything from the disastrous schism that was the result of the flawed award in 1993? See FIDE/PCA Chronology for more about those dark days that resulted in a lost decade for world class chess players.
The Rules & Regulations for the match mention both Anand and Carlsen, so they were published after the end of the Candidates tournament. We are looking at a 12 game match with tiebreak. According to a post I wrote three years ago, Intermediate Scores as a Match Predictor, 12 is a sufficient number of games. What happens if either Anand or Carlsen can't play?
3.6.2 If a player refuses to participate in the World Championship Match, he will be replaced as follows: The runner up finalist of FWCM 2012 GM Boris Gelfand replaces the World champion Vishy Anand and the runner up of the Candidates Tournament 2013 Vladimir Kramnik replaces the challenger Magnus Carlsen. In case any or both players refuse to participate when invited, or for any further replacements needed, the rating list of January 2013 will be used to determine their replacements.
The Chessgames.com links I created for the Candidates event, 2013 London CT Player Records, proved particularly useful. Here's the same for the title match: Classical games: Viswanathan Anand beat Magnus Carlsen 6 to 2, with 19 draws. Those 27 games are from a total of 58 played between the two opponents. How does that compare to my own PGN file on Carlsen's Tournament, Match, and Exhibition Record? I downloaded the file, extracted the Anand - Carlsen games, and also came up with 58. Here are some SCID stats for the first moves used.
Judging by comments in various places, Carlsen is the favorite going into the match. He was also the favorite going into the Candidates tournament, but emerged the victor thanks to a controversial tiebreak system. Given that he has little match experience, I expect the upcoming title match will be close.
Posts from my main blog, Chess for All Ages, are usually lighter.
I even found inspiration for a post on my chess960 blog.
For a similar post on last year's title match, see Anand - Gelfand Wrapup.
