Twenty-Eight Hundred: Rarified Air

Double Click Images to Enlarge.  You will not be disappointed.  This is like a chess adult movie.  Similarly table below, which has quite a bit more records than shown.

Today at Dortmund with his brilliant win, essayed as Black in a uncharacteristic choice by Kramnik, against Meier, he is back above 2800.  A most selective group, not only at this time, but historically [1].

I have a particular dislike of dry personalities, but Kramnik is an exception.  First, he plays lively chess again.  This has been his pattern for years now.  Bravo.  Second, to get past his sardonic exterior, you need a simple clue.  He said to the affect that he maintains good relations with Lev Aronian, mainly based on exchanging sarcastic humor.

I also dislike sarcasm, but I probably have more of it than I care to admit, certainly in my, at times, more than acerbic writing.  Who can not be outraged at the world?  And you cannot speak it in public, for no one can hear it or wants to, so the web, notably the Blogosphere is the ideal place to do it.  So here, in no small way, particularly at my other blog, Heuristical Personae [2].

[1.] That Carlsen ascent to 2837.0 CANNOT be not quite near equivalent to Kasparov's once having attained an FIDE Elo of 2851 deserves reminding here.  Similarly Fischer's performance rating of 2881 calculated by bio-statistician, cum more than amateur, Jeff Sonas at his enchanting site, ChessMetrics.com cannot compare to Kasparov's.


Ratings have been inflated.  Carlsen in 2012 is off the mark of Kasparov in 1990,  The writer is aware of the many statistical sorts of factors which make Sonas perfectly consistent in his comparisons, linked here, as well as a Juggernaut beyond conception.


Further, Fischer in 1972 was on a stomping path of destruction never seen before, and most unlikely in the future, in the pre-super-prep era he and his colleagues were in, ever to be repeated.  Today, going 13-0 against three of the greatest or near best grandmasters of his day will never happen again.  It is unprecedented.


It is like Jordan taking that last shot in the NBA championships with the flu, Michelangelo at once given the freedom by the Pope to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling while at once prodding him, goading him, and near torturing him to do.  It is Mozart creating without notes, it is Durer's engravings, it is Eddington proving Einstein right, it is Lance Armstrong's seven wins with the juice or not, it is Michael Jackson live with or without the drugs and gas, its is the Man on the Moon, Homer, Dante, Goethe [4].

[2.] Nietzsche [3] said he correctly:  'The wisest of all ages have all agreed--it is no good'.  While this has indeed always been true, currently this has never been more true.  Larger, more dishonest, more isolated, more toxic, more sorrowful, more privileged, more psychologically dissociated if not fractured, more natural, more buffered, more capitalized, more confused, more angry, more abusive, exploitative.  Oy vey.  Celine or Jacques Ellul Marcuse, Mumfort, Wendel Berry's need to speak. Let us not forget Kafka, oh yes, he's the one [5].


[3.] Karl Jaspers said it best:  'Nietzsche was an obviously deeply disturbed mind, deeply discontent with his ["the"] world ["around him"]'.  Not sure if this was the particular book, but he said it.  Term that comes to mind is 'The axial philosophers'.


[4.] Some duly would not include his work here.  The man was great, not the work.

[5.] Knowing when to stop is a virtue.  dk:  'Can you please repeat that?'   My strength.  My weakness.  Dear lord.