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After 12 Draws and a Day of Tiebreakers, Magnus Carlsen Beats Fabiano Caruana To Win World Chess Championship (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: After three weeks, 12 straight draws and a day of tiebreakers, Norway's Magnus Carlsen finally retained the world chess championship in London on Wednesday with a victory against Fabiano Caruana (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source), his American challenger. Carlsen's victory came in what amounted to sudden-death chess: a scheduled series of four so-called rapid games in which the players started with 25 minutes to make their moves. The speedier pace of the games, after the far more deliberate matchups of the previous three weeks, meant players were more likely to make blunders. And that increased the chance of a victory by one player. Carlsen won the first two games, then closed out Caruana in Game 3.
Caruana, 26, was bidding to become the first American champion since Bobby Fischer beat Boris Spassky to win the world title in 1972. The famously cantankerous Fischer forfeited his title in 1975 amid a dispute with the world chess federation, and the sport has been dominated by Russians and Eastern Europeans in the decades since then. The tiebreaker result was not a shock. While Carlsen, 27, and Caruana, 26, are closely matched in longer conventional chess games, known as classical chess, Carlsen had been considered the favorite in the tiebreaker because he has had better rapid chess results than Caruana. "It was the first time in the history of the world championship, which dates to the 1800s, that regulation play ended with every game a draw," the report notes.
Caruana, 26, was bidding to become the first American champion since Bobby Fischer beat Boris Spassky to win the world title in 1972. The famously cantankerous Fischer forfeited his title in 1975 amid a dispute with the world chess federation, and the sport has been dominated by Russians and Eastern Europeans in the decades since then. The tiebreaker result was not a shock. While Carlsen, 27, and Caruana, 26, are closely matched in longer conventional chess games, known as classical chess, Carlsen had been considered the favorite in the tiebreaker because he has had better rapid chess results than Caruana. "It was the first time in the history of the world championship, which dates to the 1800s, that regulation play ended with every game a draw," the report notes.
How does this affect anyone or than the two participants at all? Why should I or anyone else care about a chess championship? How does this solve any problems or make anyone's life better? There are far better things to be concerned with, like the impending war in Ukraine or man-made climate change. Priorities matter, and this seems utterly useless.
Why are you wasting your and every one else's time posting on /. instead of volunteering to peacekeeping missions in Ukraine or working on reversing climate change? Priorities matter, and this seems utterly useless.
So can anyone explain to me why a chess championship is worthwhile at all? I suspect I'll be censored to -1 because I'm not supposed to ask the tough questions, but someone needs to do it. Why would anyone at all consider chess championships a worthwhile thing? Rather than answer my important question, this will be swept under the rug by censoring my post to -1. Prove me wrong and answer my simple question about why I or anyone else should care about chess championships.
I could try making you understand, but I have better things to do with my time. After all, priorities matter, and this seems utterly useless.