So the chess world will once again have a single world champion in the coming month. Game one was today and I admit I’m not sure of the outcome since no one is explicitly stating it, you can see game 1 here: Elista 2006: Kramnik wins game one | ChessBase
Thoughts on it? How do you think the match will proceed?
– IG
Lemme see now
e4 e5
resigns
BTW is Bobby Fischer still alive and kicking???
Best chess player ever IMO
Bobby Fischer is alive, last I heard of him in the news he was being held in Japan for travelling on an expired American Visa. Poland gave him a visa and brought him to their country, having had a soft spot for him after he played the match there.
He’s a nut job, swearing that the Jewish leaders are behind much of the corruption in the world and after 9/11 he got on the radio in the Phillipines and was praising the terrorists for their attack.
Yes a great chess player, but Kasparov is better.
– IG
Alright the match has finished and Kramnik won game 1. His end game was excellent, after Topalov made it obvious he would not draw Kramnik made some decisive positional wins.
– IG
Fischer is in Iceland, not Poland!
I’m not sure what you mean about the ‘outcome’ of the game. Kramnik won.
A useful start to a 12 game match!
As for the game, after the opening Kramnik had a slight edge (note these guys will have analysed hundreds of each other’s games going back several years), but Topalov turned down a draw by repetition and lost.
Because of the extensive opening analysis, it’s hard to get a big advantage between the top players these days, so I’m sure the match will be close. Kramnik has had some health problems recently, but otherwise I don’t have a favourite.
Oh damn, yeah Iceland.
When I had originally posted this thread the match hadn’t finished but I wasn’t seeing any move updates and so I thought it had, but was confused because Chessbase wasn’t showing a score result, thus the initial confusion.
Yeah, I saw him pass up the draw and knew it was a bad sign - oh well.
– IG
An incredible game 2. 
Topalov (White) chooses a sharp variation and throws in two pawns for a big attack. He misses a couple of wins, but the position is still full of chances for both sides. Then, similarly to game 1, Topalov goes wrong and gets ground down by Kramnik.
Can the best attacking player in the World come back from 2 games down?!
I seriously doubt it.
Chess is tough enough without having (for up to 7 hours) to face the guy you’ve blundered against twice…
So whatever happened to Kasparov? Last I heard, he was one of several claimants to the title of “World Champion”. Was his claim taken over by one of the other claimants?
And is there any fair assessment of how the strongest computers compare to the humans? I know that Deep Blue beat Kasparov on their last meeting, but that match was very much on IBM’s terms, and besides, Kasparov isn’t the best player vs. computers, anyway (his biggest distinguishing strength being his mastery of the psychology). But then, too, I’m sure that the computers have gotten better than Deep Blue.
Last year Kasparov announced his retirement from competitive chess, he no longer held the world champion title though he still had the highest ELO ranking. He’s written a few books about Chess, “My Great Predecessors” is a series about the previous world champions. He has since taken great interest in Russian politics, speaking very loudly and openly against Putin.
Yes I agree Kramnik is a much better player vs the computer, which he showed in playing Fritz. Deep Blue was a behemoth of a machine, with so much processing power that it was pushing Kasparov into the realm of twenty some moves ahead as I recall and indeed IBM played on their terms. Kramnik’s match was with a very powerful machine, but it did not have the raw power of Deep Blue, and Kramnik was playing python chess for much of it by countering and taking away opportunities.
As for game two, I only saw up to move 40something, I’ll go take a look now.
– IG
Wow, this might be a very decisive victory for Kramnik. I knew he would come in prepared and it looks like he most definitely has, though he got a break when Topalov missed the blunder.
Topalov needs to shift momentum, whether it be a brute strength win on black or if he can even get a draw while playing black, but if he loses again it’s all but over.
– IG