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Today the World Chess Championship 2016 begins. The current World Champion, Magnus Carlsen, will take on the upstart challenger from Russia, Sergey Karjakin. This 12 game match will be a battle of youth with two of the youngest grandmasters in history squaring off in South Manhattan - New York, New York.
This is also the first time the Championship will be in the United States in over 30 years. The last time was in 1995 with Short vs. Kasparov. But, that was a divided championship with the Professional Chess Association running it's own championship apart from the world chess governing body FIDE. The top chess players have since made nice and the World Championship is now unified.
Now, these top two players will square off in a battle for the King of chess.
Predictions -
According to a host of top players on chess.com Carlsen is the unanimous favorite. He is not only the most accurate player in all of history but has considerable match experience over Karjakin. This is now Carlsen's 3rd world championship match; the previous two were blow outs over India's dominant 6 time World Champion, Viswanathan Anand. But, rather than give you 1 straight prediction that Carlsen will win, I will give you the odds for a few different scenarios:
Scenario 1 - Carlsen will win early and win in 10 games. It is likely that games 1-2 will be drawn as the players will be feeling each other out. But, if Karjakin cannot get an opening advantage by game 3, Carlsen will break him. If Karjakin loses as early as game 3, he will probably crumple under the pressure and not get a single win losing in 10. - 60% CHANCE
Scenario 2 - The match will be nearly bloodlesswith 1 win or less for both sides and go the full 12 games resulting in rapid tie breaks that Carlsen will win. - 20% CHANCE
Scenario 3 - The match will be a blood affair with at least 2 wins for each side resulting in a close 1 point win by Carlsen in 12 games. - 10% CHANCE
Scenario 4 - Karjakin will shake Carlsen through opening preparation squeeking out a 1 game win in 12 games. - 10% CHANCE
ALL PHOTOS ARE COURTESY OF BRIAN C GLOVER
