There are two parts to it. One is the legitimacy of the title holding. And the other is the demonstration of superiority over the challenger. People complain because they want the second part too, not because they have a grudge about the first.

Gelfand was the legitimate challenger, who every bit earned his right. Hopefully, next time either Carlsen or Aronian go on to win the candidates, and challenge Anand. Carlsen is still very young, but Aronian has to justify his current perceived standing by winning when the stakes are really high. So far he hasn't even been a challenger, despite being at the peak of his career.

I guess there are historical reasons. When the world chess championship was introduced there were very few international tournaments, so the purpose of a title match was in fact to find out who the best player was. Of course that's rather obsolete today when we have regular top-level tournaments, but the notion that the world champion should somehow be the strongest player still hasn't completely vanished.

Even in the 19th century, it was a contest. Had Anderssen won the last game against Steinitz, they would have tied, so in that sense, you could say that Steinitz didn't really "prove" he was the better player. But he won the bragging rights.

I think what really got us going in the wrong direction was when Fischer postulated that "beating me by 1 isn't good enough, you have to beat me by 2 to PROVE something". (Lasker had floated the same idea years before, but as far as we know, he never got anywhere with it, and there were non-title matches, like Gunsberg-Tchigorin that had the same kind of rule). But winning by 2 doesn't "prove" it either.

Congratulations to the Chennai Chess Super King Anand!!

Looked more of an effortless show by Anand. He pulled off a win at will on the 8th game when getting an opening advantage is so difficult against some perfect preparation. A world championship record move (played out) win! 11th and 12th game, Anand just teased Gelfand with draw offers in his opponent's time pressure. Rocking the cradle and rocking at the chess board at the same time is not that easy, yet an wonderful show, to hold on to the title without too much exertion.

Anand, sorry, didn't show much support this time. But keep it up. Next championship, we won't let you relax.

So folks, once again get this.. Anand is the greatest ever in the kingdom of chess!!

Didn't you predict he'd win by 4?



I'm afraid he'll never be out of Kasparov's shadow. Be happy that he's the champion now.

From where did you get that?

Anand has already overshadowed Kasparov! Remember, to be on the limelight Kasparov went and skyped Anand last time. He must have helped Gelfand but now that Gelfand has lost it won't probably come out. I doubt Kasparov himself considers him better than Anand. Mig sort of called Kasparov's bluff the other day. You should be happy if Kasparov finds himself in top 10 all time real list.

I got it from you. Didn't you even say something in the shoutbox just before the start about not celebrating until Anand was up by 3? I won't go digging through old posts if you say that wasn't your prediction, but if it wasn't, what was?

I'm not sure what you mean about Mig, I'm not really following his activities any more than he's following his own message board. What did he say?

Pretty much all the news reports I've seen still generally refer to Kasparov as the best player of all time, and that's not likely to change. I understand you think Anand is better, but you thought that before he even won the title. The really hard core fans on either side don't really count. On cg, there are actually people who have similar opinions about Fischer, and even Nakamura.

Incidentally, I realized that I hadn't updated my Chess Championship site in some time (I've been working on a book that probably wouldn't interest anyone here, as it's not chess-related.

But, inspired by TwoSheds victory, I did a quickie update tonight, to add this match and the last couple into the totals. The games themselves still aren't up, but I'll get to that soon.

http://graeme.t15.org/chesschamps/world/index.htm

Congrats to Anand for retaining the title. I am glad it was Vishy who prevailed in a very close fight, and kudos to Gelfand for taking it to 'the last wire'.



Not much i can agree here again. Anand is still one of the best players and objectively speaking, this is the first time that i seriously think Vishy's strength has reduced. The match proved that he could not convincingly beat a player who was not supposed to be his deadliest challenge, but one who proved just that by being extremely well prepared.

Going by the level of the rapid match, I think Anand has lost some of that sharpness which was feared by others. Game 3, Anand got himself into a horrible position, and Gelfand too missed Nxe4 with lots of time. The ending although drawn in principle was lost for black, and both Anand and Gelfand misplayed the position on many occasions. I definitely feel Anand has to change something if he has to face Carlsen or Aronian in the future.

PA, Anand definitely has claim to be one of the greatest, but please do not even try to think that this match proved any of that.

Milestones set by this match:

Lowest Moves-Per-Game Total in a championship Match: 29.00 moves/game

Fewest Total Moves in a championship match: 348

Fewest Wins by "Winner": 1 (tied with Lasker-Schlechter)

2nd Highest Draw Percentage in a championship match: 83.3% (tied with Karpov-Kasparov I)

One thing it isn't, at least, is the shortest match ever. Two recent matches (Kramnik-Topalov, and Anand-Kramnik) only had 11 games. And of course Lasker-Schlechter and Lasker-Janowski were also shorter.