Two surprising things happened on the way to the World Chess Championship. The first: Twenty one year old Magnus Carlsen, the world's highest rated player and the "wonderboy" considered by many as heir apparent to the throne, pulled out of the Candidates Matches for very controversial reasons.
The second: In the absence of Carlsen, the player who has qualified to challenge Viswanathan Anand for the title next year is 43-year-old Israeli GM Boris Gelfand, surprise winner of the Candidates Matches held recently in Kazan, Russia. At a time when chess has become a young man's game, the global sport will be confronted next year by the spectacle of two "old stagers" battling it out for world supremacy. Records show, in fact, that the two will be the oldest championship opponents since 1934 when Alexander Alekhine, 41, defeated Efim Bogoljubov, 45, to retain the world title. According to a report in the New York Times, Gelfand, who was born in Belarus, has never played for the title, which is remarkable in itself. He has been a top player for two decades and first qualified for the Candidates Matches in 1990, although he has never been a serious contender.
"Part of the problem is that he has often played risk-averse openings that are hard to beat but provide few chances for victory. He still relies on some of those openings, like the Petroff Defense, but now he mixes it up more, to better results," The Times chess correspondent observed. In one post-match interview, it was noted that Gelfand had deserted his "unbeatable" Petroff Defence as black for the Sicilian Najdorf which he has employed "very effectively". His reply: "If you prepare well, you can play any opening. In this case I looked at the field and I decided that the Sicilian would fit me better. In general, I am happy to play both openings with black."
Gelfand's success, it seems, proves anew the critical advantage of preparation for such matches. He demonstrated it in the novelty he introduced on move 13 - b3! - against Alexander Grishuk's Gruenfeld defence in the sixth and last game of the finals when the scores were tied. It may well have been his most significant move in the entire series. Surprisingly, the Israeli GM opened with the queen pawn and played a popular line against the well-known Gruenfeld until he varied unexpectedly on move 13 shifting the game into paths less familiar to his opponent. Out of his comfort zone, Grishuk decided to launched a sharp king-side attack but under intense time pressure, he went astray, lost a piece and conceded the game.
In the quarter and semi finals, Gelfand prevailed over Shakriyar Mamedyanov of Azerbaijan and Gata Kamsky of the USA. He singled out his third game against Mamedyanov as one of his best and most beautiful efforts. He was six pawns up for a rook when the game ended with his opponent running out of time. Another interviewer pointed out that while the 90s were a very successful decade for Gelfand with victories in several top-flight tournaments, his present results were not that good. "Where would you fix an age limit for a player's career apex?" he asked.
"It's natural that younger players are growing up quickly," Gelfand replied. "They have a lot of energy and motivation and it's not easy to compete with them. However, I think that players of my generation are doing fine. Vishy Anand, Wassili Ivanchuk, Evgenij Bareev, myself and others are still belonging to the best players of the world and winning a lot of events. Since December I have won four top class events. And the example of Victor Kortchnoi gives me a lot of motivation and inspiration."The withdrawal of young Norwegian genius Carlsen from the Candidates tournament so shocked and disappointed the chess world that it generated a record volume of discussion and comment more con than pro. In his letter to FIDE, Carlsen said he could not motivate himself to play because the current World Championship cycle was not fair and modern enough.
Mainly, he feels it is not a fight on equal terms with the reigning champion having "one of two tickets to the final." Instead, he suggests an eight-to-ten player World Championship tournament as was held in 2005 and 2007. Carlsen, who became a Grandmaster at 13, is not in favour of what he calls "the shallow ceaseless match-after-match concept." Many commentators, while mourning Carlsen's withdrawal, point out that his proposal "undermines the long tradition of matches to determine the World Champion." A fairly common view is that his reference to the Football World Cup format is flawed. According to one observer, the comparison with soccer and the World Cup is ludicrous. "Isn't it the culture of chess that in order to be World Champion, you have got to defeat the reigning champion?" For whatever it is worth, Double Rooks agrees.