The hype built around the "great white hope" came crashing down in the 2014 Anand Carlsen match. If at all anything, Anand more than proved a point that even past his prime he is more than a match for Carlsen and made the latter look pretty ordinary throughout the match's progress so far. Let's look at some key aspects of the match so far and see how history seems to be repeating itself,
The decline of Anand: Let's face it! Anand of 2007-2008 was one of the most destructive chess forces in the world leaving a trail of destruction behind in matches and tournaments. He would not spare anyone, not even the genius who beat the motor mouth Kasparov. Kramnik was an equal of Anand in all aspects of chess. Kramnik is not someone you can beat through cheap psychological tricks or even opening preparation. The former is something Danialov/Topalov can vouch for and the latter is something that great pimp of the west, Kasparov, can vouch for. Still, Anand through a combination of out of the box preparation and dynamic on the board play beat his equal. It was just sheer chess pleasure. Problem for a guy like me who likes both Kramnik and Anand equally (also add Gelfand and Karjakin to the list) is that one of your favs won while another fav lost. Then in 2010 began the wane. The match against Topalov though a hard fought one was simply not a demonstration of the chess of prime Anand. It was at best a mediocre display not in line with his 2007-2008 standards. That he had to go through a lot of trouble to get the venue of the match is another matter. Anand did show his pedigree when he still beat Topalov convincingly preventing a tie after game 12 thus leading to rapid games where he would have had the edge. Anand was the best rapid player of his generation to which Topalov also belongs. Here in Indic race we do not believe in saying things such as "greatest of all time" as easily and freely done by the fan-boys of the west, especially the Germanic descendant ones!
If we look at it deeply, Anand's son came along. Here in India, family comes first, before everything else. In Family we see God and all that is good in him. Fatherhood is more important to an Indian man than wealth or cheap allures of Kama. Somewhere during that time his tournament playing slowed down and Carlsen was the new number one. Anand did challenge Carlsen to reclaim the number one tag which he did achieve successfully but then Anand's priorities clearly changed. He was content playing what he does best, play matches! He reduced his tournament play and that impacted his ratings. He peaked at 2817-2820. He could have easily gone past it but simply chose not to for other priorities beckoned. Carlsen made full use of Anand's decline. The young genius went on to scale new heights and beat everyone until there was no one else to beat.
Then 2012 happened. Gelfand at his best! This master of theory and no less a player in practice scaled the peak and at that time was one of the best, easily winning the candidates to challenge Anand. Here were two gentlemen, my two favourite players, from my two most favourite nations, India and Israel. Who do you support? Its a tough ask! Both of them put western-pimp Kasparov in his place. Smack came the two slaps on the old motor mouth who was as eccentric as Fissure...er..Fischer. Anand beat Gelfand by a narrow margin. It was not a convincing win by most standards. Anand kept saying that Gelfand was at his best and he was a very tough opponent. Anand was vindicated when Gelfand raked up win after win in strong tournaments in the very same year.
The thing with competitive sport is that once you wind down its very difficult to remain at the top. By 2013 it was easily clear that Anand was definitely not the best but still had substantial ability and drive in him to make a big bang if he were to so chose. All that he needed was motivation! Achieving all that he did, what else could motivate someone who achieved it all?
The (hyped up) rise of Carlsen: Magnus Carlsen is a great chess player, no doubt. He has won the right to be number one and has worked hard to achieve all that he has! But wait, is he a genius on the same level of Anand, Kramnik or Karpov or Botvinnik or Capablanca? Hell no!
Let me explain. It is one thing to slowly grind your opponents and win games as against producing beauties on the board. Ivanchuk, Kramnik, Anand, Topalov, Fischer all produced beauties on the board. There are very many beautiful games of these geniuses that can be cherished by chess lovers for the very beauty of the tactics and strategy bring out the beauty of chess! The quality of the game matters more than if you went up a pawn. Kasparov's immortal is remembered not because Kasparov won or Topalov lost, it is remembered for the beauty of the game. Coming back to the point, Carlsen simply does not produce such beauties at the rate of his predecessors. Please let's not point to his age, he has been a grandmaster now for 10 years and is quite a senior given how young GMs of today start.
Carlsen is a winner on the board, no doubt, but to chess connoisseurs like me he hardly evokes admiration. He wins games, not hearts of chess lovers. Capa could, Alyokhin could, Lasker could, not Carlsen! Chucky could, Kasparov could, Karpov could, Spassky could but not Carlsen, at least at the rate of his predecessors. Caruana is able to though! I rate Caruana and Karjakin better than Carlsen in this aspect, even Giri!
Those comparing Karpov to Carlsen are insulting the former. The former had respect for his opponents, something Carlsen or Fischer for that matter had. Anand or Kramnik or Kasparov on realizing that the game is drawn would agree for one and look forward to the next match! Carlsen has this sadistic pleasure in "grinding" games. The so called "torture" of his opponents hour after hour hoping to generate blunders of the first order in order to seal a win! Sure there are victories to be seen but where is the honour I ask? To win at any rate, even dubious means? Like Fischer, the great megalomaniac said "I want to destory the ego of my opponent". This represents all that is wrong in the Neanderthal gene infested Germannic tribes of today. The need to "crush" or "torture" others.
The cultural moorings on the hype behind Carlsen: Civilizations and cultures with inferiority complexes relish destroying other superior breed civilizations around them using horde tactics. Take the barbarian Germannics or the Huns for example. Or let's take the case of the Arabs and Turks or even the Mongols. The Germannics took down the non-white Romans and Greeks down (latter more by Slavs). The Arabs took out the Persians and the Turks came very close to destroying India. The Indians of course fought back and took the fight into the Islamic lands right before the last of the barbarians, the British sacked India.
You can clearly see this trend continuing to this day where the Germannic tribe infested nations take great pride in bringing down other civilizations which are clearly superior to them in breeding and culture. Like the way the British enjoyed destroying the underpinnings of Indian education and culture, the way the Americans relished the defeat of the Japanese etc. Where the Germannic tribes cannot take down an enemy who is even superior militarily they engage in a war of attrition and propoganda. Take the cold war for example, the Americans never dared the Soviets into a fight but kept up the propoganda machine running full time. Even the Indians were not spared. Any sport occassion is an opportunity to somehow "demonstrate" the "superiority" of the "West aka Germannic tribes. The trend to this usually is as below,
1. Ignore any sport where they don't have world beaters, read Chess before 1970s.
2. When a promising player comes along, make a larger than life figure out of them. Fischer is the best example of this. They hyped him so much that the fool actually started believing it. His streak against others was impressive but one short burst of victories and the Americans started calling him the "greatest chess player of ALL time". Reminds you of Carlsen? Hold on we will get to it.
3. Inject propoganda, dirty tactics, sleaze, espionage into the event. Damn the sport, it is the "western superiority" that matters.
4. Psyche out the gentlemen opponents to a point where its no longer about only the sport. The opponent wants to be just left out of the media glare at this point.
Fischer was eventually hyped up to such a point that the man was now dead scared to smell defeat. Other rising stars (and level headed) ones at that would eventually unseat him in what is the history cycle of sport where champions rise, dominate, wane and are unseated by challengers. Fischer now petrified about the prospect of losing to Karpov should he chose to compete simply ran away from doing so. To Fischer's credit he was a worthy champion and a very good one at that. Defeating Spassky is no mean task which he accomplished. The propaganda machine was so destructful that it made a complete eccentric of Fischer. Fischer saw through this, became a rebel and eventually died a lonely death fighting to the last minute the very nation and its apparatus which brought things to such a pass to him. The media loved eccentric champions all the more, it brought in the $$$ for people loved the whacko ones all the more than the gentlemen. That's one reason Anand sells far less than Kasparov or Carlsen.
With the rise of Karpov, a staunch gentleman and a patriot at that the "West" lost all stake it had in the system. Karpov was a normal guy at that, hardly the ones which evoke the interest of the papparazzi. Worse there was no "Western champ" around as well. What do you do when you dont have talent of your own but still want to go around town claiming your system produced the "latest and greatest"? Simple, appropriate one, even if it is one from the enemy camp.
We here in Indic race are no fans of the Soviets or the Americans, but in the comparison between the two the former come across as being more level-headed and less destructive even though they had pretty weird ideologies, even worse than the Americans at that. Then came along Kasparov. Here was this eccentric, self indulgent megalomaniac of a man who would even sell his nation to get what he wanted! "Western admiration and paens singing directed at him"! The perfect candidate to appropriate. While at it having Kamsky in the fray was also not a bad idea though the approach to him was a world apart which is outside of the scope of this post. Thus began the process of what would eventually end up in making a pimp of Kasparov to the west. Kasparov was projected as the "rebel" even though Kasparov was a member of the communist party of the Soviet Union. Kasparov the young rebel against the bad old communist boy Karpov. Immense resources went into Kasparov's home preparation to make sure he had somewhat of a chance against Karpov. To Kasparov's credit he was indeed a bright player but again in terms of pure chess he was no match to Karpov. Tame Kasparov's home preparation and you had a mediocre player. Western backed player against the mighty Soviet chess machine, this ought to be interesting!!!
Karpov would munch up tournament after tournament, winning more of those in the process than Kasparov. The matches, however, were the battleground to "prove western superiority". Match after match Kasparov managed to sneak in wafer thin victories on the basis of home preparation and somewhat average on the board chess play against the great Karpov. "All that is needed is a win", sounds familiar? Hold on. Kasparov thus became the next Fischer, larger than the life and a "close-to-white hope".
The strong hold of the Soviet Union and Russia on FIDE was just too strong. It was necessary to break that. Of course Kasparov was always around to do what the west wanted. What do you do when you cannot control a sport's superior governing body? Easy, create one yourself! Thus came around PCA sponsored by Intel!! That freak of an experiment lasted not very long eventually crashing after 2000. Ironically Kasparov was defeated in a PCA match!! By someone who outclassed him in home preparation. This unseating of Kasparov shattered the man who never went on to become world champion again, beaten in his own game by a combo of great chess talent and home prep. The Kramnik and Anand combo dominated Kasparov from then on until 2005 when Kasparov retired. Thus came crashing down what was one of the best support systems in Chess built up by Kasparov, of course with great Western help. Oh, and while at it, let us not forget to note how the western fanboys of Kasparov reacted to the defeat,
1. Beaten by home prep.
2. Kasparov had "personal" problems.
3. Freak victory, Kasparov is still better than Kramnik.
4. Kramnik was never the legal challenger, it was Shirov. After all Kasparov can beat Shirov who beat Kramnik.
Let us also keep in mind that Kasparov had had his career peak of 2856 in the same year. Kasparov, now the spent force that he was in chess was used for another purpose, to take over Russian politics, but thats another topic out of scope of this post.
The period between 2000 and 2008 was a period of great discomfort in "Western chess circles". Anand, Kramnik, Topalov and a host of non-whites were ruling the roost. Then comes along this North Germannic Carlsen :-)). See the trends? eh? The Germannics are funny ain't they? Problem was that this chap was too young and was being easily beaten by the likes of Kramnik and Anand who were well into their peaks. Worse, geniuses like Kramnik would could not be taken down by psych tactics made a "client" of Carlsen. Something had to be done.
Then comes to mind the remark of motor-mouth Kasparov on the Polgar sisters -- "Trained Dog!". What do you do when your next white hope needs to be made a dominant "Greatest of all time" player? Easy, make him a "trained Dog"!! Thus came Carlsen under the training of Kasparov. While there was some "chess", there was a lot of training in the "psych" aspects of the game. Who better than to train under for these nasty tricks? Suddenly emerged a new Carlsen who apart from his increased chess strength was armed with a host of new "tactics".
Kramnik, Anand and Gelfand would have none of it. They would ridicule Carlsen. Kramnik once joked on Carlsen on how worked up the lad was on fighting himself on whether he should play the move he wanted or the one he was "trained" to play by Kasparov! Carlsen was a pretty smart Germannic at that, he fired Kasparov! Or at least that was what they would have the world believe!
Fischer Redux:
It was now time for Fischer Part II. Thus began the Fischerization of Carlsen into the "greatest of all time", "crushing player", "dominating player", strongest player ever etc etc. But wait! That brown guy Anand was the world champ! Worse, he was still too strong to beat by the "Great white hope". What do you do when your "western player" cannot match the non-white champ as yet? Easy, wait it out, that is wait till the champ is past his prime, cook a story or two on how he won't compete in the candidates or any other assorted random reason and put off meeting the champ. In the meantime, Carlsen by his own hard work and talent would scale new heights. Full marks to him.
But wait! Here comes Caruana who is just as strong and who is "not white" enough. The Germannics were treated as barbarians by the Mediterranean and North African Romans, old scores were to be settled! What do you do when you have someone emerging from the "west" who is not a Germanic? Easy, just have your champ say that he does not consider Italy a western or a civilized country at that!! "we Norwegians do not regard Italy as a Western country, or a civilized country for that matter (sic)! That was easy!!
Come 2013 and it was easy for all to see that Anand had clearly gone past his prime and was now more drawn by family life and the joys associated with it. Now was the time to take him on! Thus began the next step of the process, to vilify Anand and show the world how much of a "minnow" he was in front of the great white hope. Some of the nicest things said were as below,
1. Anand was weaker than Carlsen.
2. Anand was never a worthy champion
3. Anand was poor champ as he dint play much tournaments
4. Anand was boring!
Of course no one would talk about how average Carlsen's performance in the candidates tournament was. While Carlsen was quick to point out Anand's unconvincing win over Gelfand he would not talk much on his own performance in the candidates and how there was injustice meted out to Kramnik. While rules are rules, for someone who derided the WCC process (and then went on to become part of it when the timing was right) there was not much questions asked by Carlsen on how he was better than Kramnik and why there should not have been a one on one with Kramnik to see who was better.
Things went worse from there on. Keyboard warriors who knew next to nothing in chess were making statements claiming Carlsen was stronger than Anand! What fool would make a statement like that? Anand was made out as an under dog to begin with. Poor Anand was so psyched out during the match that he was visibly nervous. Anand is no Kramnik. Put him through psychological pressure and he will crack easily as seen against Kasparov in 1995 and Karpov in 1998 though the latter was more due to physical exhaustion. Anand was rock steady in the first four games and the pressure and age caused him to crack resulting in uncharacteristic blunders and losing games which should have been drawn! Kasparov was brought in to psyche out Anand further. All the ingredients added to the pot!! Anand and family were upset with the vilification and why Anand was being put down so badly! Anand's mother said it right at the end of the match asking the world not to forget that Anand was a five time world champion!!!
That was it! The great white hope had arrived and scaled the summit! The west was superior again! Western fanboys went mad with joy on how Carlsen was now the "Greatest and strongest of all time"!! Carlsen went on to say that he would now teach Anand on Chess!! Fantastic! Very humble and respectful.
But Anand had a thing or two coming. He went on to win the candidates, defeated Carlsen in a one-on-one in Dubai, won the Bilboa masters and faced Carlsen in the 2014 match. The build up to the match had the usual ingredients,
1. Carlsen will crush Anand
2. If Anand beat all others in the candidates, it goes to show how strong Carlsen has become who beat Anand easily!
3. Anand will lost by a greater margin this time!
4. Anand should retire!
5. Anand will be torutured!! Nothing can save him!
Come match and post two average performances by Anand the world realized quickly that Anand not only held his own in games 3, 4 and 5 he also was able to defeat and dominate Carlsen easily! Poooof! There went the balloon of Carlsen's superiority. Of course the following were also thrown in,
1. Anand's victory was home preparation
2. Carlsen is out of form!
To be noticed is that not only did Anand out-prepare Carlsen, he also was able to endure the "grinds" against Carlsen with a bit of effort. Worse! Anand made it look easy and also made Carlsen look pretty average. Carlsen was bleeding elo points all along as well. Magnus was on the receiving end and in uncharted territory. The Carlsen fan boys went silent on the forums, the usual culprits and motor mouths now silent! They had expected 5-0 in favour of Carlsen and it was not to be. It is clear that Anand does not have it in him longer to win the match but the fight he is putting up is ensuring a lot of mouths remain shut! The match is indeed on!
It is at this point that one wonders if Carlsen will shake off the yoke of the western propaganda machinery and acquire a sense of humility and respect toward peers or go down the same route as Fischer or Kasparov. Carlsen did make conciliatory statements before the match that he was not playing well and it was time to be humble! Does he intend to be humbly when not in form and arrogant when he is doing well? That question needs to be answered. Carlsen will need to remember that his peers of his generation like Caruana and Karjakin are catching up with him and they have their heads on their shoulders!
Will Carlsen continue on his path to becoming a self obsessed megalomaniacal boorish boxer type Chess champ or tone down thus preventing himself from becoming another Kasparov or Fischer?? Time will tell. Maybe Caruana's recent comments on being compared to Karpov would be a role model for him. Hope Carlsen, the talented chess player also becomes a good human being and an independent one at that far outside the orbit of western hype. Who knows? After all history has a way of repeating itself!
Namaste, Regards, Indic Race Team
The decline of Anand: Let's face it! Anand of 2007-2008 was one of the most destructive chess forces in the world leaving a trail of destruction behind in matches and tournaments. He would not spare anyone, not even the genius who beat the motor mouth Kasparov. Kramnik was an equal of Anand in all aspects of chess. Kramnik is not someone you can beat through cheap psychological tricks or even opening preparation. The former is something Danialov/Topalov can vouch for and the latter is something that great pimp of the west, Kasparov, can vouch for. Still, Anand through a combination of out of the box preparation and dynamic on the board play beat his equal. It was just sheer chess pleasure. Problem for a guy like me who likes both Kramnik and Anand equally (also add Gelfand and Karjakin to the list) is that one of your favs won while another fav lost. Then in 2010 began the wane. The match against Topalov though a hard fought one was simply not a demonstration of the chess of prime Anand. It was at best a mediocre display not in line with his 2007-2008 standards. That he had to go through a lot of trouble to get the venue of the match is another matter. Anand did show his pedigree when he still beat Topalov convincingly preventing a tie after game 12 thus leading to rapid games where he would have had the edge. Anand was the best rapid player of his generation to which Topalov also belongs. Here in Indic race we do not believe in saying things such as "greatest of all time" as easily and freely done by the fan-boys of the west, especially the Germanic descendant ones!
If we look at it deeply, Anand's son came along. Here in India, family comes first, before everything else. In Family we see God and all that is good in him. Fatherhood is more important to an Indian man than wealth or cheap allures of Kama. Somewhere during that time his tournament playing slowed down and Carlsen was the new number one. Anand did challenge Carlsen to reclaim the number one tag which he did achieve successfully but then Anand's priorities clearly changed. He was content playing what he does best, play matches! He reduced his tournament play and that impacted his ratings. He peaked at 2817-2820. He could have easily gone past it but simply chose not to for other priorities beckoned. Carlsen made full use of Anand's decline. The young genius went on to scale new heights and beat everyone until there was no one else to beat.
Then 2012 happened. Gelfand at his best! This master of theory and no less a player in practice scaled the peak and at that time was one of the best, easily winning the candidates to challenge Anand. Here were two gentlemen, my two favourite players, from my two most favourite nations, India and Israel. Who do you support? Its a tough ask! Both of them put western-pimp Kasparov in his place. Smack came the two slaps on the old motor mouth who was as eccentric as Fissure...er..Fischer. Anand beat Gelfand by a narrow margin. It was not a convincing win by most standards. Anand kept saying that Gelfand was at his best and he was a very tough opponent. Anand was vindicated when Gelfand raked up win after win in strong tournaments in the very same year.
The thing with competitive sport is that once you wind down its very difficult to remain at the top. By 2013 it was easily clear that Anand was definitely not the best but still had substantial ability and drive in him to make a big bang if he were to so chose. All that he needed was motivation! Achieving all that he did, what else could motivate someone who achieved it all?
The (hyped up) rise of Carlsen: Magnus Carlsen is a great chess player, no doubt. He has won the right to be number one and has worked hard to achieve all that he has! But wait, is he a genius on the same level of Anand, Kramnik or Karpov or Botvinnik or Capablanca? Hell no!
Let me explain. It is one thing to slowly grind your opponents and win games as against producing beauties on the board. Ivanchuk, Kramnik, Anand, Topalov, Fischer all produced beauties on the board. There are very many beautiful games of these geniuses that can be cherished by chess lovers for the very beauty of the tactics and strategy bring out the beauty of chess! The quality of the game matters more than if you went up a pawn. Kasparov's immortal is remembered not because Kasparov won or Topalov lost, it is remembered for the beauty of the game. Coming back to the point, Carlsen simply does not produce such beauties at the rate of his predecessors. Please let's not point to his age, he has been a grandmaster now for 10 years and is quite a senior given how young GMs of today start.
Carlsen is a winner on the board, no doubt, but to chess connoisseurs like me he hardly evokes admiration. He wins games, not hearts of chess lovers. Capa could, Alyokhin could, Lasker could, not Carlsen! Chucky could, Kasparov could, Karpov could, Spassky could but not Carlsen, at least at the rate of his predecessors. Caruana is able to though! I rate Caruana and Karjakin better than Carlsen in this aspect, even Giri!
Those comparing Karpov to Carlsen are insulting the former. The former had respect for his opponents, something Carlsen or Fischer for that matter had. Anand or Kramnik or Kasparov on realizing that the game is drawn would agree for one and look forward to the next match! Carlsen has this sadistic pleasure in "grinding" games. The so called "torture" of his opponents hour after hour hoping to generate blunders of the first order in order to seal a win! Sure there are victories to be seen but where is the honour I ask? To win at any rate, even dubious means? Like Fischer, the great megalomaniac said "I want to destory the ego of my opponent". This represents all that is wrong in the Neanderthal gene infested Germannic tribes of today. The need to "crush" or "torture" others.
The cultural moorings on the hype behind Carlsen: Civilizations and cultures with inferiority complexes relish destroying other superior breed civilizations around them using horde tactics. Take the barbarian Germannics or the Huns for example. Or let's take the case of the Arabs and Turks or even the Mongols. The Germannics took down the non-white Romans and Greeks down (latter more by Slavs). The Arabs took out the Persians and the Turks came very close to destroying India. The Indians of course fought back and took the fight into the Islamic lands right before the last of the barbarians, the British sacked India.
You can clearly see this trend continuing to this day where the Germannic tribe infested nations take great pride in bringing down other civilizations which are clearly superior to them in breeding and culture. Like the way the British enjoyed destroying the underpinnings of Indian education and culture, the way the Americans relished the defeat of the Japanese etc. Where the Germannic tribes cannot take down an enemy who is even superior militarily they engage in a war of attrition and propoganda. Take the cold war for example, the Americans never dared the Soviets into a fight but kept up the propoganda machine running full time. Even the Indians were not spared. Any sport occassion is an opportunity to somehow "demonstrate" the "superiority" of the "West aka Germannic tribes. The trend to this usually is as below,
1. Ignore any sport where they don't have world beaters, read Chess before 1970s.
2. When a promising player comes along, make a larger than life figure out of them. Fischer is the best example of this. They hyped him so much that the fool actually started believing it. His streak against others was impressive but one short burst of victories and the Americans started calling him the "greatest chess player of ALL time". Reminds you of Carlsen? Hold on we will get to it.
3. Inject propoganda, dirty tactics, sleaze, espionage into the event. Damn the sport, it is the "western superiority" that matters.
4. Psyche out the gentlemen opponents to a point where its no longer about only the sport. The opponent wants to be just left out of the media glare at this point.
Fischer was eventually hyped up to such a point that the man was now dead scared to smell defeat. Other rising stars (and level headed) ones at that would eventually unseat him in what is the history cycle of sport where champions rise, dominate, wane and are unseated by challengers. Fischer now petrified about the prospect of losing to Karpov should he chose to compete simply ran away from doing so. To Fischer's credit he was a worthy champion and a very good one at that. Defeating Spassky is no mean task which he accomplished. The propaganda machine was so destructful that it made a complete eccentric of Fischer. Fischer saw through this, became a rebel and eventually died a lonely death fighting to the last minute the very nation and its apparatus which brought things to such a pass to him. The media loved eccentric champions all the more, it brought in the $$$ for people loved the whacko ones all the more than the gentlemen. That's one reason Anand sells far less than Kasparov or Carlsen.
With the rise of Karpov, a staunch gentleman and a patriot at that the "West" lost all stake it had in the system. Karpov was a normal guy at that, hardly the ones which evoke the interest of the papparazzi. Worse there was no "Western champ" around as well. What do you do when you dont have talent of your own but still want to go around town claiming your system produced the "latest and greatest"? Simple, appropriate one, even if it is one from the enemy camp.
We here in Indic race are no fans of the Soviets or the Americans, but in the comparison between the two the former come across as being more level-headed and less destructive even though they had pretty weird ideologies, even worse than the Americans at that. Then came along Kasparov. Here was this eccentric, self indulgent megalomaniac of a man who would even sell his nation to get what he wanted! "Western admiration and paens singing directed at him"! The perfect candidate to appropriate. While at it having Kamsky in the fray was also not a bad idea though the approach to him was a world apart which is outside of the scope of this post. Thus began the process of what would eventually end up in making a pimp of Kasparov to the west. Kasparov was projected as the "rebel" even though Kasparov was a member of the communist party of the Soviet Union. Kasparov the young rebel against the bad old communist boy Karpov. Immense resources went into Kasparov's home preparation to make sure he had somewhat of a chance against Karpov. To Kasparov's credit he was indeed a bright player but again in terms of pure chess he was no match to Karpov. Tame Kasparov's home preparation and you had a mediocre player. Western backed player against the mighty Soviet chess machine, this ought to be interesting!!!
Karpov would munch up tournament after tournament, winning more of those in the process than Kasparov. The matches, however, were the battleground to "prove western superiority". Match after match Kasparov managed to sneak in wafer thin victories on the basis of home preparation and somewhat average on the board chess play against the great Karpov. "All that is needed is a win", sounds familiar? Hold on. Kasparov thus became the next Fischer, larger than the life and a "close-to-white hope".
The strong hold of the Soviet Union and Russia on FIDE was just too strong. It was necessary to break that. Of course Kasparov was always around to do what the west wanted. What do you do when you cannot control a sport's superior governing body? Easy, create one yourself! Thus came around PCA sponsored by Intel!! That freak of an experiment lasted not very long eventually crashing after 2000. Ironically Kasparov was defeated in a PCA match!! By someone who outclassed him in home preparation. This unseating of Kasparov shattered the man who never went on to become world champion again, beaten in his own game by a combo of great chess talent and home prep. The Kramnik and Anand combo dominated Kasparov from then on until 2005 when Kasparov retired. Thus came crashing down what was one of the best support systems in Chess built up by Kasparov, of course with great Western help. Oh, and while at it, let us not forget to note how the western fanboys of Kasparov reacted to the defeat,
1. Beaten by home prep.
2. Kasparov had "personal" problems.
3. Freak victory, Kasparov is still better than Kramnik.
4. Kramnik was never the legal challenger, it was Shirov. After all Kasparov can beat Shirov who beat Kramnik.
Let us also keep in mind that Kasparov had had his career peak of 2856 in the same year. Kasparov, now the spent force that he was in chess was used for another purpose, to take over Russian politics, but thats another topic out of scope of this post.
The period between 2000 and 2008 was a period of great discomfort in "Western chess circles". Anand, Kramnik, Topalov and a host of non-whites were ruling the roost. Then comes along this North Germannic Carlsen :-)). See the trends? eh? The Germannics are funny ain't they? Problem was that this chap was too young and was being easily beaten by the likes of Kramnik and Anand who were well into their peaks. Worse, geniuses like Kramnik would could not be taken down by psych tactics made a "client" of Carlsen. Something had to be done.
Then comes to mind the remark of motor-mouth Kasparov on the Polgar sisters -- "Trained Dog!". What do you do when your next white hope needs to be made a dominant "Greatest of all time" player? Easy, make him a "trained Dog"!! Thus came Carlsen under the training of Kasparov. While there was some "chess", there was a lot of training in the "psych" aspects of the game. Who better than to train under for these nasty tricks? Suddenly emerged a new Carlsen who apart from his increased chess strength was armed with a host of new "tactics".
Kramnik, Anand and Gelfand would have none of it. They would ridicule Carlsen. Kramnik once joked on Carlsen on how worked up the lad was on fighting himself on whether he should play the move he wanted or the one he was "trained" to play by Kasparov! Carlsen was a pretty smart Germannic at that, he fired Kasparov! Or at least that was what they would have the world believe!
Fischer Redux:
It was now time for Fischer Part II. Thus began the Fischerization of Carlsen into the "greatest of all time", "crushing player", "dominating player", strongest player ever etc etc. But wait! That brown guy Anand was the world champ! Worse, he was still too strong to beat by the "Great white hope". What do you do when your "western player" cannot match the non-white champ as yet? Easy, wait it out, that is wait till the champ is past his prime, cook a story or two on how he won't compete in the candidates or any other assorted random reason and put off meeting the champ. In the meantime, Carlsen by his own hard work and talent would scale new heights. Full marks to him.
But wait! Here comes Caruana who is just as strong and who is "not white" enough. The Germannics were treated as barbarians by the Mediterranean and North African Romans, old scores were to be settled! What do you do when you have someone emerging from the "west" who is not a Germanic? Easy, just have your champ say that he does not consider Italy a western or a civilized country at that!! "we Norwegians do not regard Italy as a Western country, or a civilized country for that matter (sic)! That was easy!!
Come 2013 and it was easy for all to see that Anand had clearly gone past his prime and was now more drawn by family life and the joys associated with it. Now was the time to take him on! Thus began the next step of the process, to vilify Anand and show the world how much of a "minnow" he was in front of the great white hope. Some of the nicest things said were as below,
1. Anand was weaker than Carlsen.
2. Anand was never a worthy champion
3. Anand was poor champ as he dint play much tournaments
4. Anand was boring!
Of course no one would talk about how average Carlsen's performance in the candidates tournament was. While Carlsen was quick to point out Anand's unconvincing win over Gelfand he would not talk much on his own performance in the candidates and how there was injustice meted out to Kramnik. While rules are rules, for someone who derided the WCC process (and then went on to become part of it when the timing was right) there was not much questions asked by Carlsen on how he was better than Kramnik and why there should not have been a one on one with Kramnik to see who was better.
Things went worse from there on. Keyboard warriors who knew next to nothing in chess were making statements claiming Carlsen was stronger than Anand! What fool would make a statement like that? Anand was made out as an under dog to begin with. Poor Anand was so psyched out during the match that he was visibly nervous. Anand is no Kramnik. Put him through psychological pressure and he will crack easily as seen against Kasparov in 1995 and Karpov in 1998 though the latter was more due to physical exhaustion. Anand was rock steady in the first four games and the pressure and age caused him to crack resulting in uncharacteristic blunders and losing games which should have been drawn! Kasparov was brought in to psyche out Anand further. All the ingredients added to the pot!! Anand and family were upset with the vilification and why Anand was being put down so badly! Anand's mother said it right at the end of the match asking the world not to forget that Anand was a five time world champion!!!
That was it! The great white hope had arrived and scaled the summit! The west was superior again! Western fanboys went mad with joy on how Carlsen was now the "Greatest and strongest of all time"!! Carlsen went on to say that he would now teach Anand on Chess!! Fantastic! Very humble and respectful.
But Anand had a thing or two coming. He went on to win the candidates, defeated Carlsen in a one-on-one in Dubai, won the Bilboa masters and faced Carlsen in the 2014 match. The build up to the match had the usual ingredients,
1. Carlsen will crush Anand
2. If Anand beat all others in the candidates, it goes to show how strong Carlsen has become who beat Anand easily!
3. Anand will lost by a greater margin this time!
4. Anand should retire!
5. Anand will be torutured!! Nothing can save him!
Come match and post two average performances by Anand the world realized quickly that Anand not only held his own in games 3, 4 and 5 he also was able to defeat and dominate Carlsen easily! Poooof! There went the balloon of Carlsen's superiority. Of course the following were also thrown in,
1. Anand's victory was home preparation
2. Carlsen is out of form!
To be noticed is that not only did Anand out-prepare Carlsen, he also was able to endure the "grinds" against Carlsen with a bit of effort. Worse! Anand made it look easy and also made Carlsen look pretty average. Carlsen was bleeding elo points all along as well. Magnus was on the receiving end and in uncharted territory. The Carlsen fan boys went silent on the forums, the usual culprits and motor mouths now silent! They had expected 5-0 in favour of Carlsen and it was not to be. It is clear that Anand does not have it in him longer to win the match but the fight he is putting up is ensuring a lot of mouths remain shut! The match is indeed on!
It is at this point that one wonders if Carlsen will shake off the yoke of the western propaganda machinery and acquire a sense of humility and respect toward peers or go down the same route as Fischer or Kasparov. Carlsen did make conciliatory statements before the match that he was not playing well and it was time to be humble! Does he intend to be humbly when not in form and arrogant when he is doing well? That question needs to be answered. Carlsen will need to remember that his peers of his generation like Caruana and Karjakin are catching up with him and they have their heads on their shoulders!
Will Carlsen continue on his path to becoming a self obsessed megalomaniacal boorish boxer type Chess champ or tone down thus preventing himself from becoming another Kasparov or Fischer?? Time will tell. Maybe Caruana's recent comments on being compared to Karpov would be a role model for him. Hope Carlsen, the talented chess player also becomes a good human being and an independent one at that far outside the orbit of western hype. Who knows? After all history has a way of repeating itself!
Namaste, Regards, Indic Race Team
