Chess masters to analyze championship
By Anthony Stoeckert, Packet Media Group
Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlesen aren’t exactly household names, but in the world of chess, the two masters facing off for the World Chess Championship is the equivalent of the Lakers and the Celtics playing for an NBA title.
And as the two players compete for the world title in a series of 12 games being played through Nov. 28 in Cennai, India, area grand masters will sharing insights into the players and matches at the Princeton Public Library.
The analysis will take place Nov. 9, 16 and 23, from 7 to 8 p.m.
”It’s something that I think is useful and important to do,” says Jon Edwards, one of the chess masters who will host the programs. “There are a lot of chess players, of course, from Mercer County, a lot of kids. All the masters teach their clubs. It’s just really useful to be able to share our insights. By no means are we going to be able to see everything, but this is chess at its absolute best and finest.”
Mr. Edwards is a member of Princeton University’s class of ‘75. He won the United States Correspondence Championship in 1997, and the North American Invitational Correspondence Chess Championship in 1999. He is the author of many chess books, and is a web master for Chess is Fun (www.queensac.com), a chess instruction website. He writes a column called You Can Do It, for “Chess Life for Kids” magazine. He has recently started a series of chess e-books, under the Chess is Fun banner, and which are available at Amazon.com.
Mr. Edwards says that part of what he’ll be doing at the library is talking about the players, and how they play the game.
”I think it’s important to get a sense of their styles and the way in which they’ve grown up, and the way in which they’ve trained, and all the rest,” he says. “And they have some baggage, because these guys have played more than 30 times, Anand actually has a better track record against Calrsen. And I think it’s important to get a sense of what their games look like.”
He says that in years past, he says players would have worked with a team, and used lots of books. In this era, training is done with computers, through a program called Chess Base.
”They have every game the opponent has ever played,” Mr. Edwards says. “They know exactly what the likely moves are by each player and what they’re training looks like.”
Mr. Edwards says that Mr. Carlsen has been a “champion” of what is known as the “Breyer Variation,” and that over the course of their matches, there have been five games where the two players found themselves in a certain situation after 12 to 14 movies. That means they could likely get there again.
”That Breyer is under fire!” Mr. Edwards says. “At issue is, does Carlsen really go back to the well and attempt to defend there, which he’s done successfully. But with only 12 games, you can’t afford to make a mistake, so the preparation is just extremely intense.”
Mr. Edwards says the match is also a battle of generations. Mr. Anand grew up in India learning about chess the old-fashioned way, through books, and spending hours each day poring over those books. Mr. Carlsen grew up in Norway during the computer age, spending about an hour and a half a day on chess, and not being apologetic about it.
”He accomplishes more in that hour and a half than any of us ever did in 10 or 12,” Mr. Edwards says. “Of course, if he loses this match, I’m not going to be the only one who says, ‘Maybe he should have put in two and a half.’”
The format of the Championship is pretty simple. It consists of 12 games, and whoever wins seven, or six and a half games, wins (players are each awarded half a point for a tie).
If the match ends in a tie, there will be a tiebreaker, played on one day. As they play, the time limit will get shorter and shorter, until there is one game left to play. In that case, Mr. Anand will choose whether he will play white or black. He’ll likely choose white because, according to Mr. Edwards, playing white will have more time to make a move than black.
”It’s understood that white has to win, if black draws that game, black wins the world title,” Mr. Edwards says. “And let us all hope that it doesn’t get to that point.”
Other participants in the panel include David Hua, a former student of Mr. Edwards’ who won the Atlantic Open last year, and who is just 15 years old. Another participating master is Jonathan Crumiller of Princeton, and Mike Colucci.
”The other beautiful thing about this, the masters who are going to be there, we’re all friends. Maybe we wouldn’t be if we were paired over the board,” he says with a laugh. “But we have shared the same experiences, we are really in love with this game.”
Mr. Edwards says you don’t have to be a chess expert to appreciate the program.
”There’s an excitement that comes from seeing a world championship in anything,” he says. He compares it to the World Series, in which it wasn’t just baseball fans, or Red Sox and Cardinals fans, who followed the action.
”It’s like any art form, and this is an art form,” he says. “You can get some appreciation from coming, and we’re not going to be speaking over anybody’s heads. Masters can actually make it simple.”
The Princeton Public Library is located at 65 Witherspoon St. in Princeton For more information, go to www.princetonlibrary.org