Carlsen loses to a girl and doesn't react well: <iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/WeyXKTVYenA?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> When I was 19, I probably would have reacted the same way. Today I would cringe if I reacted in this manner. Losing to a girl/woman is annoying, but if she beats you fair and square, be a man and shake her hand. It wasn't just losing to a girl, Alexandra is also like 400 lower rated points lower than Carlsen. Double whammy.
Carlsen clearly didn't pay much attention to the game, looking around half the time, so that blunder that he made with R3e2 was only natural.
http://www.chessbase.com/Home/TabId...c-genius--a-film-about-john-healy-231013.aspx There are countless stories like this about chess being a healer and friend. Well worth the read. Psychologists take note.
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ZOuvQpXm5PE?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> This is the way that chess is in Europe among adults. Two old tigers playing, one strong player (Bacrot) and Mariya Muzychuk who is a very talented female player. In his prime, Karpov is arguably one of the greatest chess players ever. If Karpov lost 40 pounds (whatever that is in Kilos) he might be able to ascend the top twenty. Ivanchuck is is playing terrible chess recently, and one wonders if aging takes its toll on all of us in a different way (of course it does).
I used to play speed chess 30 years ago at the Toronto Chess Club. Once in a blue moon I would beat a player with a 2000+ rating but could never pass 1860 myself. There was a player there with a 1300 rating who would slaughter me every time. Early in the game he would dig into his nose and pull out a bit of snot then hold it above the board and roll it between his thumb and forefinger while he pondered his next godawful move. This was a bit of chess strategy that worked perfectly with me but apparently not everybody or he would have had a higher rating. Even so it must have worked with at least a couple of other players. He was a terrible player and I suspect that without his snotball technique his rating would have been <1000.
The World Chess Championship starts on November 7. The chessbomb site will be packed. This is a documentary on Magnus. Well worth looking through it. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.vgtv.no/embed/?id=73427" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe>
I have gotten some PMs on what are good books to learn to play chess: For the beginner to intermediate: http://www.amazon.com/Chess-Fundame...TF8&qid=1383609698&sr=8-5&keywords=capablanca For the Advanced player. All five books: http://www.amazon.com/Garry-Kasparo...=UTF8&qid=1383609631&sr=8-5&keywords=kasparov There are more books published on chess than any other sport. Carlsen is said to have devoured the Kasparov books at a very young age.
The official site of the World Chess Championship: http://chennai2013.fide.com/ There will be a live HD internet feed. However, it starts at 4:00 AM ET, so it will be brutal to see it from the start. I believe the purse is $2M USD, with 1.25M going to the winner and .75M USD going to the loser.
The chessbomb site: http://chessbomb.com/site/ I have the live feed on one monitor, and the chessbomb on another. I am a premium member which means I can see the engine evaluation. The chat can also at times be informative.