World Chess Candidates – A risky business

I’m writing from London, where the biggest chess tournament of the year, the World Candidates Tournament, is well and truly underway.  Eight of the world’s best have qualified (through various channels in FIDE’s convoluted system that I don’t pretend to understand) for the right to play against Vishwanathan Anand for the World Championship crown.

I have to admit, I had some doubts before the event started. These things have a bit of a reputation for being a snorefest borefest drawfest, resembling any other top-category tournament where the big names are too conservative to play for anything other than a series of half points. Usually the winner scores something like plus-two or plus-three (meaning two or three more wins than losses, with the rest being draws), and that way all the competitors basically protect their high ratings and guarantee invitations to future events. Not an irrational strategy by any means for a professional chessplayer, but arguably not what the spectators want to see.

Not this time, however!  This time, there’s too much at stake, too much to gain. A shot at the world title doesn’t come along very often, and for some of these guys, this tournament is definitely their best ever shot at having a crack at being crowned the world’s best. Sure, playing some risky, attacking chess may backfire and see them drop a few rating points, but the downside risk is hardly enough to dissuade the players from the glory that awaits if Lady Luck is feeling frisky.

What this means is that, for once, we have the world’s very best player going at it hammer-and-tongs to rip apart each other’s defences. We’ve got unusual, unorthodox and even downright dubious openings appearing on the top boards, much to the delight of coffeehouse-chess amateurs everywhere. We’ve got unsound sacrifices, positional bluffs and unpredictable time scrambles filling our computer screens as we watch positions appear that are more commonly found on board 15 of a junior blitz event.  It’s glorious.

Of course, I exaggerate somewhat; the lines that the guys are playing have obviously been worked out in excruciatingly intricate detail over the past few months by themselves, their paid seconds (~grandmaster assistants) and the world’s strongest chess engines. The ‘risky sacrifices’ are deeply calculated gambles which, while perhaps not objectively the best moves in a given position, maximise the chances of overall success. The bluffs are carefully conducted to optimise the pressure on their unsuspecting opponents, while the defences and countermeasures are equally top class.

You’ve got to understand that at the top, the same chess players usually appear, and so these guys play against each other in events dozens of times each year.  But this one’s very different. For once, coming second or third is significantly worse than coming first. It’s all about the top spot, and that makes the risks worth it.

We just finished a course in behavioural finance in my university program in which one of the most fascinating results is that company CEOs are usually overconfident and in fact consistently over underestimate the risks and downside potential when making decisions. The reason? Well, hundreds and sometimes thousands of employees in a company have the potential to become CEO if the right results go their way, but only one or two ever will. In this ‘winner takes all’ sort of structure, it’s not usually the best employee who gets to the top of the ladder, but one of the ones who takes the most risks, but just happens – through good luck – to get the good results. This leads to the somewhat unfortunate result that CEOs are generally riskier people than the rest of their employees, though this doesn’t make them better leaders.

And we’ve got the same situation in this event. For once, the winning score is not going to be a flimsy plus-two. I’m predicting at least plus-six to win the event – a mammoth score at this level, to be sure, but one that will be necessary in the very spread field that will result from this sort of risk taking. We’ve already seen Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian (the world’s number one and two ranked players) racing to plus-three after only six rounds.  Drawing their way to the finish line is definitely not going to be enough.

A result of this is that it cuts down the number of people who I think can actually win the Candidates.  Sure, in a normal event, any of these eight guys is good enough to get plus-two or plus-three if they’re really in form. But a Boris Gelfand or a Alexander Grischuk getting plus-six?! Not in my mind (though this is just my opinion, of course).

Vassily Ivanchuk has the potential, to be sure, and he did the right thing in taking big risks with both colours in the rounds so far – but fortune was not with him, and the time scrambles did not fall in his favour. At a score of minus-two, despite his amazing talent and his will to take risks, I’m afraid no betting man would put money on his chances of winning outright from here.  Likewise with Radjabov’s unfortunate time-induced blunder yesterday; minus-one is probably too far for him to catch up, given that I’m saying he needs to score plus-seven from here to win.

So we’re down to four. It’s hard to ever write off the world number three and former world champion Vladmir Kramnik, and to be fair, his chess has been of exceptionally high quality so far. But he’s been unlucky not to convert at least one and probably two winning positions so far, and so six draws has resulted. I predict he’ll finish with a plus score for the rest of the tournament, maybe even plus-three, but as one of the older competitors, the energy levels will be falling as the second week wears on. Maybe a top three finish is possible, but I’m predicting we’ve seen the last world championship match with Vlad the Impaler at the board.

Then we come to one of the crowd favourites, Peter “Mr Cricket” Svidler. He’s taking risks and playing well, although only on 50% at the moment. Still, having lost over twenty kilos for the event (a feature that’s seen too much media attention, in my opinion, so I’ll leave it there) Pete’s going to be in good shape to keep playing high-energy chess towards the second half. His biggest weakness is not skill or strength or luck; it’s self-belief. He has a fantastic humility for a top-ten chessplayer and a deliciously self-deprecating sense of humour, but I feel that maybe these traits are underlined by a genuine lack of confidence in his own ability to become the world’s number one. Still, with one or two results tipping his way with the chess gods smiling on his pieces, Pistol Pete might just start to believe…and then anything can happen. I’d love to see him take the title, but everyone (most especially Peter himself) would rightly admit that it’s a long shot.

And then there’s the big two. It kind of reminds me of Nadal and Djokovic vying for the right to be the one to wrest the title from the ageing Federer, but I’m not sure which of Carlsen or Aronian is which. (Carlsen is more softly spoken, I guess, so let’s make him Rafael.) Both Magnus and Lev have the potential to put together big scores against the best in the world, and both definitely have both the talent and determination to reach plus-six. In my mind, it’s hard to bet against one of these guys winning, but even harder to pick between them. If the Norwegian plays his best chess, he’ll win – of that there’s no doubt. But can he really consistently keep performing at around 3000 ELO tournament after tournament?  He was lucky not to lose to Chucky a few days ago, which suggests that nerves are starting to creep into the play of the boy-wonder who’s broken every record and won every title, except that of World Champion.

Too close to call. But the main point is, thanks to the winner-takes-all accolades for this event and the consequences thereof for risk-taking, I can only imagine two players reaching the sort of scores necessary to win. One way or the other, the chess is going to be incredibly entertaining for us spectators, and that’s what I like to see. Let’s just hope the players don’t try their hand at becoming CEOs any time soon, though, and keep their sacrifices on the board.