023. Thinking potential samples of two former World Chess Champions

During the World Championship match between GM Anand and GM Carlsen at Chennai, Doordarshan TV channel telecast the match. One simple chess player (not even a tournament player), an acquaintance of mine, told if Anand would have captured that pawn, he could have obtained advantage ... I was momentarily nonplussed. For a while, I did not know what to say to him…I told him that GMs think for atleast 10 moves combination (10 white moves and 10 black moves sequence) with lot of sub variations. After this incident, I thought this is how thousands of casual chess players would have commented in Tamil Nadu and across India.

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The reason why I created this webpage is to show simple people, samples of how many moves are calculated in background before a GM makes a move. I must confess: Sometimes, the GMs do not calculate even 1 move. I have seen in newspaper during Anand Vs Gelfand World Championship match, Gelfand saying I did not see Anand’s ____ , some move, I do not remember exactly and in which game but that game turned out to be the shortest game in the history of World Championship chess which Anand won. I have read in newspapers other super GMs and sometimes even Carlsen admitting “ I did not calculate that move”

Carlsen did not take a move into consideration. click on image to maximize

Carlsen says he did not calculate 71...Ke4

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For a new comer to databases of chess programs or chess informator books: The moves that are in dark and bold letters were the actual moves played during the game between GM Kasparov and GM Anand. The moves that have been printed in light are the analysis by the commentator for this game. That is Anand. Have a look at the header and side header. Anand.V appears in brackets. That means he has given his analysis for the game.

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The position that appears on the chess board is the 16th move 16.Nxe4.

You can notice the move is in a dark box. After that you can see Nf3+? also appearing

bold and dark. After that for about 23 lines the moves are in light and some are colored.

The colored moves are sub variations

a) 17.Bxh3.  If this move is made how to handle the situation  or instead of this move what if the move

b)17. Nxf6+ is made. b1)19.Bxh3??   b2)19.f4   b3)19.Bb2 are branches of the sub variation b

THEY ALL ARE ANALYSIS WHEN THE MOVE 16.Nxe4 was made. So when the Grand Masters make a move, they have behind lots of analysis and it is not so simple as it appear to be.

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In short, in case the reader’s mind became dizzy after reading the previous para….The moves in bold and dark letters were the moves made during the game and the moves in light color and pink colors are analysis before a move was made

click on image to maximize

GM Anand analysis tree

Kasparov thinking potential

One can observe that Kasparov’s file has more analysis and depth than that of Anand’s. Look at the sub variation b2) which ends at 35^thmove. Rb7+. The analysis started on move 19. Rfe1 Qxd6!. The combination runs to 16 moves on a sub variation !!!. The indomitable chess giant who ruled chess world for 20 years. Maybe the position that Anand dealt with required only that much of analysis. In fact, he drew Kasparov in that game as the result shows. Or maybe Anand’s thinking potential was slightly less than that of the formidable Kasparov and that was the reason why he was often placed behind Kasparov in World Rankings in the 1990s

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Most of the chess people say “Anand is a nice guy and gentleman”

Page created: Year 2015