I really wish ICC would hire Anand to play on their site for a few hours each week. As an ICC member (notyetagm) I would absolutely love to watch the world's best rapid and blitz player take on the other top GMs on ICC.

Question for Anand :

Why doesn't he play d4 ?

The bidding for the last place in the simul has just ended. I was the one who drove the price on that last one from 255 to 395. But I lost :) Anyways, good luck and thanks to all who have purchased the spot in the simul!

A question for Anand: what is the best format for deciding the world champion: match, tournament or a KO?

It's Macauley Peterson.

It's Macauley Peterson.

Question for Anand: Who is the most difficult opponent for him these day?

How important is it for you to be the world champion and to be ranked #1?

Question for Mr. Anand: Do you think Fischerandom should and will play a more prominent role in competitive chess in the years to come? Do you think a player is less "chess-worthy" if he is winning tournament games thanks to thorough opening preparation assisted by a computer? Thanks.

Oh and another one: how much obligation do you think super-GMs have to avoid short draws in tournaments like Linares/Dortmund?

dirtbag: Anand played 1. d4 vs. me in last year's simul :)

For Mr. Anand,

--Is it acceptable that 80% of games between the very top players are drawn?
--If this percentage continues to rise, at what point should something be done?
--At some point would you favor any of these methods to bring about more decisive results? Rules changes? Shorter time controls? Introducing a new opening position each year or two?

--Thanks!

Hey Vishy

What do you make of that remarkable, groundbreaking new book "How Life Imitates Chess"?

Question for Vishy:

Of all the players you have known and/or played, is there one player whose affinity for the game, or a portion of the game (endgame, middlegame, etc.), made you feel awestruck?

For example, Tal's calculating skills? Kasparov's opening preparation? Karpov's positional feel?

Question to Mr Anand: Mr Karpov in a recent interview published at Chessbase.com (Spanish version) stated that your talent for chess is undeniable; however he also stated that your chess development has been hindered by excessive use of chess engines such as Fritz in your preparation. How would you reply to this criticism?

The 80 percent number is for the European championship...the top GM classical chess face-to-face play in the past year produces a bit of a different number:

Linares 68 %
Corus 60 %
Dortmund 64 %
Tal Memorial 69 %

And of course the Topalov-Kramnik's match 55% is even lower.

Interestingly, though, the round-robin numbers are fairly consistent.

For Mr Anand,

--Why chess? Heck, Vishy, why anything?

--Is a dog's mouth cleaner than a human's?

--Would you consider Henry Rollins' invitation to guest-host his IFN show when he's on tour? And if so, would you invite Taimanov as a musical guest?

Ed, thanks for the hint about the Karpov interview. It was very interesting. It would be worth of a new thread, Mig?

Yuriy--

By "very top" players I was referring to Kasparov before he retired, Kramnik, Anand, and Topalov for the last few years.

Imagine sitting down to play a game that's 80% likely to be drawn; where there's only a 20% chance that you'll win (or lose).

Greg:

Hmmm...seems to me that the closer matched the top players are the more likely one will not lose. High draws seems pretty logical.

Vishy,

How do your current chess strengths and weaknesses compare the Vishy who played a WCChamp title match against Kasparov in 1995?

At your age of 37, is your ongoing accumulation of experience still enough to offset the effects of aging?

So what are the last news around the Grand Slam chess association? Is Anand going to play?

Choosing February 2005 as a starting point (thus eliminating Topalov's weaker years when he probably lost more and Kasparov's loss in his last game):

Kramnik-Anand +1-1=1
Topalov-Anand +3-2=7
Kramnik-Topalov +4-3=8

That amounts to 53 percent draw. Percentage of draws in Kramnik-Leko: 71. Percentage of draws in Kramnik-Topalov: 55. That's without including the fighting draws, such as Kram-Topalov at the Corus this past year and others.

The situation you describe, if it were true, would vary a lot, based on whether we are worried about GM's ability to play for a win at top level, about general lack of combativeness at top level, and whether the 20 percent is of winning, losing or is simply a statistical probability that does not seriously enter into a GM's mindset.

ed made a good point in the previous thread, nobody paid any attention. All this talk about short draws is ridiculous when you consider that players pay all their expenses! Not only do I have risk significant amount of money (which makes a chess tournament a gamble to begin with), I also have an obligation to provide an entertainment?! I know Mig in the past promoted view that chessplayers can't expect more money in chess if they continue to make short draws.
I agree. I also agree that if we all work very hard with no regard to money, one day we are going to build a society where everyone will be happy.

It looks like I will be playing after all as ICC decided to open a few more spots :)

To Russianbear and others who have reserved their spot,

What opening (against e4/d4) are you going to play and why? Any special preparation for Anand?

It's OK if you do not wish to disclose your preparation.. :)

stringTheory, I guess I am going to play one of the openings I usually play - Anand played 1.e4 most of the time and I will probably stick with the French. I have looked at some games he played recently, especially against Morozevich and Radjabov in MacCutcheon and some game in Classical. But I guess Anand can play pretty much anything: as John Fernandez pointed out, Anand played d4 against him in an earlier simul.

Are the games from Anand's simul posted anywhere?

The ICC has them all if you "history anand". Here is a link to the six most interesting games, including the win and the draw.

http://www.chessninja.com/download/anandsimul.pgn

Still trying to fix the comment script, btw. Apparently there was a spam attack earlier and it was shut down. Trying to implement some solutions but now I'm getting errors with comments, even though they post okay.

Question for Vishy:

What is your take on Sanjaya?

I was PVAjedrez. It looks like I choked when I didn't play 25...Rxb3, which I did seriously consider. I just misevaluated some of the subsequent positions and thought the line played gave me a "free" attack. 25...Rxb3 looks like it might just give me a very strong edge.

30...Bxb3 was probably a mistake (though a very tempting one since really how often can you sac your queen against Anand?) and I can maintain reasonably close to equality by playing more normal moves here.

a question..
has kramnik ever been the number one ??
in wikipedia written he is among only six players to achieve this ..but in FIDE abd other sites they wrote his best psition ever was 2..when kramnik was number one ??

In January 1996 Kramnik and Kasparov were tied equal first at 2775. However, under FIDE rules a
tie-break had to be applied which was the number of games played.Since Kramnik had 45 games to Kasparov`s 20,Kramnik was indeed officially listed as number 1.

In January 1996 Kramnik and Kasparov were tied at 2775. As FIDE rules stated the tie-break to be applied was the number of games played, and since Kramnik had 45 games against Kaspy`s 20, Kramnik was indeed officially listed as number 1.

"Well ... this happened in January of 1996 when both Kramnik and Kasparov figured in a dead heat at ELO 2775. As per the rules the tie-break applied was the number of games played, and since Kramnik had 45 games against Garry’s 20, big Vlady was officially listed as no. 1." (Bobby Ang)

thx superchess for the historic information,i didnt expect kramnik was no:1 in 1996 as the archive of rating lists in fide.com begine ony from 2000 ):

Some interesting comments over at ChessNinja.com

http://www.chessninja.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=6;t=001508

Apparently someone checked Rybka against the Bluesette game vs Anand and got incredible matchup of the moves by Bluesette.

(quote) All in all, 47 out of 50 moves by black matched the computer, 2 moves matched the 2nd eval choice, and the last move of 48... Kg5 was the only one not evaluated as best. (end quote)

Maybe someone can double check the game. I do not have Rybka.

I was PVAjedrez. It looks like I choked when I didn't play 25...Rxb3, which I did seriously consider. I just misevaluated some of the subsequent positions and thought the line played gave me a "free" attack. 25...Rxb3 looks like it might just give me a very strong edge.

30...Bxb3 was probably a mistake (though a very tempting one since really how often can you sac your queen against Anand?) and I can maintain reasonably close to equality by playing more normal moves here.

Are people still getting 500 errors or experiencing other problems when posting comments? I'm not getting errors anymore but I'm seeing the duplicates. (If you get an error, don't repost, it will appear.) I may have to reinstall a few things. Will wait till Sunday night if so. Sorry for the problems. That's also why I'm not posting new stuff right now. I want to make sure it's not a database problem. That was a big mess last year.

You can see my game against Anand in the links given above.

I wanted to listen to the replay of the chess.fm broadcast of the simul but it doesn't seem like ICC replayed broadcast yesterday. Anyway, it would be fun to listen to that as I didn't during the game.

Some interesting comments over at ChessNinja.com

http://www.chessninja.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=6;t=001508

Apparently someone checked Rybka against the Bluesette game vs Anand and got incredible matchup of the moves by Bluesette.

(quote) All in all, 47 out of 50 moves by black matched the computer, 2 moves matched the 2nd eval choice, and the last move of 48... Kg5 was the only one not evaluated as best. (end quote)

-- Posted by: KoreyK at April 22, 2007 08:10

Wow, that is an amazing coincidence: 94% agreement with Rybka on first picks (47 of 50!). And on first or second choices, that's 98%(!) (49 of 50).

Just a coincidence. No one cheats in online chess.

Bear, which game is yours?

Chat on ICC during the simul:

P1: "Who is this Mig?"
P2: "Is he named after the plane?"
P3: "No. Mig is short for Miguel"
P1: "Oh, ok"

Miguel Greengard? :)

oops...

I just did a google search and it seems Mig really is short for Miguel. Right?

Sorry Mig! I though those guys were wrong so it seemed funny...

Yes, short for Miguel. Nothing to do with Soviet jets or Swedish pronouns. My birth certificate says "Michael" but I've been Mig for 16 years now, so if you want me to answer it's the best choice! Grandma still calls me Michael and my sister lapses occasionally, but family is family. Since I lived abroad during the entire Mig acquisition, it's understandable.

Hi Mig,

Is there a transcript somewhere of your interview with Anand? Did you get a chance to ask him the questions we suggested on this forum? What did he have to say? Thanks.

Boston

The games went longer than expected and I had to bail out, so Macauley Peterson did the interview. I sent him a list of our questions and a few other things, but to be honest I haven't even heard it yet! Been busy with a few other things and also trying to update and fix the Dirt software to stop all these errors.

I can get the audio of the interview and will do a highlight transcript today.

Btw what were the results?

Yuriy Kleyner, my game is the one where the black player is "Russianbear" :)

There is a pgn file with all the simul games on the ICC Anand Charity Simul page that Mig linked to in the original blog entry above.

You can see my annotations of the game here:

http://www.chessninja.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=6;t=001508

Cheating isn't new - last year was spoiled by Mislav, IIRC, but no one made a fuss about it because it was a draw in a charity simul and Mislav paid his full fare.

(Of course my draw was legit, but it's more because you can't really cheat effectively in a Stonewall Dutch. :) )

I thought Bluesette was the father (an FM) playing for the son of the same name.

Mig, have you heard from Anand yet about the questions?