World Chess Champion Faces American Challenger, Grueling First Game, and Woody Harrelson (chess.com)

"It's the biggest chess event of the year as World Champion Magnus Carlsen will try to defend his title against the American challenger Fabiano Caruana," reports Chess.com -- which is webcasting game two right now (7 a.m. PST, 3 p.m. London/GMT).

After seven grueling hours and 115 moves on Friday, the first game of their 12-game competition ended in a draw -- though challenger Caruana acknowledged that "I was quite fortunate to end up with a draw... I was outplayed after the opening... I think I was clearly losing, for a long time I was losing." This was not the most pleasant experience to defend this extremely long game with white. I think I was quite fortunate to end up with a draw... There was definitely a lot of nerves. It is a very different feeling playing the first game of a world championship match.... Normally with white you shouldn't be too happy with a draw, but considering my position I am very happy. I am relieved to have escaped."
Slate reports Caruana has spent $50,000 on chess coaching just in 2018 in hopes of claiming the 1 million euro prize. Ironically, the match's "ceremonial starter", actor Woody Harrelson, bungled Caruana's first move by knocking over his king -- and then by moving the wrong pawn. "Caruana was ready to accept the mistake and continue with the match before officials gave Harrelson a third chance and he finally moved the correct piece."

Defending champion Magnus Carlsen later admitted that "I couldn't quite find the knockout before the time trouble.... I tried to find a way to exchange in order to play for a win, but I couldn't find it. Then I just moved around hoping to force a blunder, but I didn't succeed."

Comments

A better icon is needed

[Alain Williams]

showing Pacman next to a top chess story is insulting.

Re:A better icon is needed

[SlaveToTheGrind]

the illustrious position that chess holds over all other forms of game

Go called -- it wants its elitist snobbery back.

Re: A better icon is needed

[ffkom]

learned

So you've never a programming class.

You are right - I never attended programming classes, such were not existent at the time when I started programming, we had to get our knowledge from spec sheets and a few existing books.

But I did attend to English lessons in school, where I learned that sentences should contain verbs.

Kingpin

[Misagon]

Someone please tell Woody Harrelson that chess is not like bowling.
You are not supposed to knock over your king ...

Re:who picked woody?

[Kjella]

hold on a minute my husband just informed me of some very important news about Bill Cosby. it was his character Cliff Huxtable that played chess! not Cosby. So maybe hes not such a great pick

Plus he'd need really long hands to make his move from inside a prison cell. Then again...

Potentially a great match

[john83]

Carlsen is a remarkable player. He's been the top rated player since 2010, mostly by a margin comparable to Kasparov at his peak, and he's been World Champion since 2013. Carlsen's recent form hasn't been quite to his usual standards, and Caruana has matched that dip with gains of his own. In terms of elo rating, the statistical ranking used in chess, they're currently neck and neck. This means that an outright match victory (it's best of 12 games) would probably make Caruana not just World Champion but also the world #1 ranked player for the first time. At 27 and 26 years old respectively, they could be duking it out for a long time to come - pro chess players can retain almost all of their peak strength well into their 40s.

Re:Potentially a great match

[ffkom]

At 27 and 26 years old respectively, they could be duking it out for a long time to come - pro chess players can retain almost all of their peak strength well into their 40s.

Yes, but how boring would that be? I mean, those are two Mr. Nice Guys just playing chess. Where is the drama of a Bobby Fisher vs. Boris Spassky match in that? The crowd prefers weird cranks battling for the title!

What about a neural network AI?

[Gravis Zero]

Remember how the world champ of Go was obliterated by the "alien" neural network based AI? How do you think it would work out if we applied the same training concepts to chess? I know Deep Blue was new and amazing but I feel like we have advanced to the point where Deep Blue could get destroyed by a completely unconventional approach through neural network AI. I want to see that. I want to see human players completely obliterated and left dumbfounded.

Re:What about a neural network AI?

[ShanghaiBill]

Deep Blue is ancient history. You can download and run chess programs on your cell phone that would obliterate Deep Blue 100 times out of 100, and of course, do the same to any human player.