Candidates' Tournament starts in London this week.

[Wowbagger]

http://www.worldchess.com/candidates/london.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/mar/10/chess-magnus-carlsen-world-title

The World Chess Champion is fortunate: his rivals slog it out for the right to play him in the final and, unless they've changed the rules since I last checked, he keeps his title in the event of a tied match.

The Graun article is more than tinged with hyperbole: Carlson is the highest-rated player of al time, it's true, but he's not the greatest. Ratings suffer from inflation, just as currency does, and I think it's only possible after a player has a bit of a track record, no matter what the sport, that you can say he's a candidate for "the greatest of all time". I think Kasparov still holds that accolade. He was World Champion for the best part of 15 years and the world's highest rated player for about 20 years. I'll regard Carlsen as the greatest of all time if he can match that.

I don't think I will be paying £25 for a ticket, either. All the games will be online pretty much as soon as they are played, if they aren't broadcast live.

[Tail End Charlie]

I still recall following Bobby Fischer's demolition in his candidates matches. We won't see that again.
Look forward to the current crop. 

[Wowbagger]

No: a lot of what came before Fischer was swept away at his insistence when he was World Champion. Likewise with Kasparov: throughout the history of the World Championship, it seems that the reigning champion has always had more clout than the rest of the World Chess Federation.

[Wowbagger]

Four rapid draws in round 1, Carlson & Kramnik have drawn in round 2.

[Wowbagger]

Aronian has beaten Gelfand to take the lead.



Black resigns.

The white king simply captures the h4 pawn and then marches along the light squares to support the advance of the c-pawn. Black's king just can't get into the game.

[Wowbagger]

It seems that Carlsen has won the tournament but the table on the Chessbomb website places him second on tie break.

http://london2013.fide.com/ shows that it was the second tie-break (number of games won) that decided the tournament. Oddly, both leaders (Carlsen and Kramnik) lost in the final round.

http://chess.co.uk/

Lawrence Trent, the interviewer in the video currently on the chess.co.uk website, was one of my players in the Essex team between about 1996 and 2004.