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Chess: Magnus Carlsen to meet top teens in pursuit of record unbeaten run:
Magnus Carlsen, the world champion, will face five opponents aged 21 or younger when he bids for a record eighth victory at Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee in January. The traditional Dutch tournament at the small windswept North Sea town is by general consensus the best all-play-all annual event on the chess calendar and the invited entry for its 2020 version is bold and imaginative.
Fabiano Caruana, the world No 2, and Wesley So, who crushed Carlsen 13.5-2.5 at Fischer Random earlier this month, are in the field, but many dedicated fans will be watching Alireza Firouzja, who at 16 is receiving rave reviews comparing the Iranian teen to the legendary attacking genius Mikhail Tal. Jeffery Xiong, 19, the No 1 US junior, also has a breakthrough opportunity.
For Carlsen, the fifth round at Wijk, which will be played on tour at Eindhoven, could be the day when he sets a world record for the longest run of classical games without defeat. The Norwegian thought he had reached his target when he surpassed Ding Liren's 100 mark but then there was publicity for the Russian-Dutch GM Sergey Tiviakov's 110 against weaker opposition. So Carlsen still needs to stay unbeaten in four games at the Grand Tour final at London Olympia on 2-8 December and his first five rounds at Wijk.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday November 20 2019, @03:43PM
Often, yes. And sometimes the full team members aren't revealed, so that the other side doesn't have that information. GM Magnus Carlsen has used 4-7 Grandmaster seconds at each World Chapmionship match during and since his successful bids. It's also been said that he's leased time on supercomputers to run analysis using engines. The only limitation there is that the engines, while generally recognized as being stronger than any human (they aren't truly parallel but one has to reach number 82 on the CCRL 40/40 list [computerchess.org.uk] before getting to Carlsen's FIDE Elo rating), are still running algorithms designed by humans. Grandmasters still beat computers by finding board conditions that the engine rates as inferior but have advantages. Still, a very useful force enhancer for confirming or rejecting potential strategies especially in deep opening variations or midgames.
This sig for rent.