Carlsen wins Pearl Spring with 3002 performance

[lonola]

I do not think that it is a question of experience but a question of knowledge about chess and my opinion is that Carlsen has enough knowledge.

Carlsen won 8-2 against players at 2700+ level and my guess is that he can beat every human in a match 6-4 or higher.

Uri

You are actually insulting the Russian chess school model if you claim that Carlsen who has been receiving tuition from Kasparov for probably a few months has learnt more than what real world champions learned from the Russian chess school over many years if not decades. This just proves you don't know jack about how the likes of Karpov and Kasparov underwent their chess schooling.

[Dirt]

... Carlsen has achieved that can compare him to Tal, Fischer, Karpov or Kasparov and be called the "best player in the world today".

I haven't seen anyone claim that Carlsen is better than Kasparov, Karpov or Fischer. Or even Tal. The question is whether he is better than Topalov, Anand, Kramnik and Aronian.

Personally, I would still give the nod to Topalov by a hair's breadth, even though I think Carlsen would have the advantage in a match between the two. (Matches are a terrible way to choose the best player because of the transitivity problem.) The top several players right now look like they are very close in strength, but Carlsen clearly shows the most promise for the future.

[shiv]

The last match where Kramnik lost to Deep Fritz emanated from a game where he blundered to a mate in one against Fritz in game 2. He then tried hard to win game 6 but lost. If he had not lost game 2, he could have probably drawn game 6 and the match.

That version of Fritz was broken, and did not play well on a quad. Beyond that, Kramnik had the following advantages:

• Even a fixed Fritz was much weaker than the best programs.
  
  The hardware Fritz used was far from the best available.
  
  Kramnik got to peek at Fritz' book.
  
  Fritz was not allowed to win if a tablebase drawn end game was reached.

Maybe Kramnik would still have had a good chance of drawing without those advantages, but personally I doubt it.

In earlier matches, the human did not have that much given to them including the book and Kasparov, Kramnik were still able to draw the matches. Sergei Markoff summarized it well in http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30136 by stating that the improvements to elo of computer programs is calibrated against other programs and not against humans. Thus a 100 elo improvement against computers may be only equivalent to a 30 elo or less improvement against humans.

I do not see much improvements in long range positional play or endgames in newer engines. I can show the engines a drawn rook endgame where one side happens to be a pawn down but with an active rook. All humans know this is equal but even the best engine will say at least +0.5.

All that being said, Rybka and comparable engines are very good at tactics, and for a human to beat/draw an engine is similar to stepping onto a minefield. I think the top players of the world can handle it well, but how well is open to debate and will be best answered in a match.

[Uri Blass]

... Carlsen has achieved that can compare him to Tal, Fischer, Karpov or Kasparov and be called the "best player in the world today".

I haven't seen anyone claim that Carlsen is better than Kasparov, Karpov or Fischer. Or even Tal. The question is whether he is better than Topalov, Anand, Kramnik and Aronian.

Personally, I would still give the nod to Topalov by a hair's breadth, even though I think Carlsen would have the advantage in a match between the two. (Matches are a terrible way to choose the best player because of the transitivity problem.) The top several players right now look like they are very close in strength, but Carlsen clearly shows the most promise for the future.

Carlsen looks like he is clearly stronger than topalov based on the last tournament,

8>5.5 by a big margin so it seems that Carlsen is better also against other players.

Uri

[Dirt]

Carlsen looks like he is clearly stronger than topalov based on the last tournament,

8>5.5 by a big margin so it seems that Carlsen is better also against other players.

Ten games just isn't enough for such a strong statement. I certainly don't think he's playing at a 3002 level.

Normally someone Carlsen's age can be expected to be under rated. However, a player who has just had an excellent result can be expected to be over rated, such as Ivanchuk was after M-Tel 2008. Where does that put Carlsen's true strength right now? It's rather uncertain, and different reasonable methodologies can come to significantly different best estimates.