Carlsen or Anand ?

The 2014 World Chess Championship Final between Carlsen and Anand will start tomorrow. As we all know, the final is a

Carslen with his new secret "weapon" - Donald Duck's cap

repetition of  last year edition  where Carlsen convincingly beat Anand 6.5-3.5 at his opponent home ground - Chennai, India.

This time, FIDE have choose  Sochi, Russia as the venue and both player will not have a home ground "advantage" or "disadvantage". In my opinion, playing a chess match in your own country will give more stress and pressure  because of the high expectation from the home ground fans. Chess is not  a game ( or sport !?) where the fan can shout and give you moral support during a game. It is infact a very quite game and fans prefer to follow the game online in their house rather then to be present at the playing venue. At home, they can watch the game with "free" super duper GM analysis from chess engines such as Komodo, Houdini, Rybka, Fritz  etc....

With the help of this mighty chess engines, they can understand ( and critic) Anand or Carlsen move better.

As whom will i support, this time i will go for Anand. In last year edition, i pick Carlsen because i really want a new champ to overthrown the incumbent Anand who had held the title for 6 years (2007-2013). But now, i am really impress with Anand resurgence and really hope that he can give Carlsen - his much younger opponent ( by 21 years !) a run for his money.

and Anand not to be outdone though...

A really interesting point for the match is to guest who is the seconder pick by the  players. Last year , Carlsen  have keep this information secret. This year however, we have already know, Peter Heine Neilsen - Anand former second... has joint the Carlsen Camp!

Anand also has keep his mouth shut about his seconders but he did mentioned that he will reviled it at the match press conference.

In term of opening preparation, we will wait to see whether Anand will improve his play especially as white. Two out of three of his defeat in the final last year is when he played white?!

The official site is here

I hope we will have a great fight this time.