The Week in Chess

The closing ceremony of the World Chess Championship took place in Sochi on Tuesday 25th November. The President of Russia Vladimir Putin attended the match for the first time and gave a speech on the match.

The prizes were awarded to the players by FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov rather than Vladimir Putin. Ilyumzhinov's main announcement was that the next World Championship match in 2016 would be in the United States of America. Earlier in an interview with VG's correspondent Nora Thorp Bjornstad Ilya Merenzon of AGON said "We have our hearts set on North America" (she also got a comment from Putin later where he said "Carlsen is a genius").

Both players received huge heavy solid silver medals (Carlsen's gold plated). Carlsen in addition received the traditional wreath and a wonderful cup. Carlsen made a short thankyou speach and the sore throat and cold he'd been hinting at during the match was obvious.

Carlsen talked about his teams in his successes of 2013 and 2014 in interview with Anastasiya Karlovich on the morning of the closing ceremony (see embeded link below).

This time it was Michael Adams (for the human touch), Laurent Fressinet and Jon Ludvig Hammer, all working in Norway in Kragero. Peter Heine Nielsen was Carlsen's man in Sochi and Carlsen also revealed he talked to Kasparov before the match (as one of the few people he could learn from) and that during the match Kasparov gave suggestions to Nielsen. Ian Nepomniachtchi and Vladimir Potkin (working in Sochi on Nepomniachtchi's preparation for the Russian Superfinal) also helped Carlsen. Carlsen also mentioned Pavel Eljanov's help for Chennai 2013.

"He has been a one of the very top players himself so he adds the human perspective." Carlsen on Adams.

Carlsen revealed he started the match very confidently but the loss in game three set him back and he only really recovered his balance when he had two whites in a row in the middle of the match. He also said that if in game 6 Anand had taken his chance the match would have been different.

There was also a very interesting Caruana interview on the match where he was critical of some of Anand's opening choices and also unhappy with the World Championship cycle and FIDE. He said he was not alone in these opinions.