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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.
Instead of speed chess, I would back a proposal I read once for more comprehensive scoring than just Win / Loss / Draw. Giving partial points for having more pieces than your opponent during a draw, being the one to force a stalemate, etc. With over 80% of World Championship Chess games ending in draws, either add a time element to all games or find a way to award a partial winner even in a draw.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
From this article:
Carlsen will play as white in Wednesday’s first tiebreak stage after the drawing of lots following Monday’s game: a best-of-four rapid match with 25 minutes for each player with an increment of 10 seconds after each move. (This is where the Norwegian was able to close the show after he was pushed to tie-breakers against Russia’s Sergey Karjakin two years ago in New York.)
If that is not enough to settle matters, they will play up to five mini-matches of two blitz games (five minutes for each player with a three-second increment). If all five mini-matches are drawn, it will come down to one sudden-death Armageddon match in which white receives five minutes, black receives four minutes and both will receive a three-second increment after the 60th move. If that game is drawn, black will be declared the winner.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
I'm rather curious what would have been used as the next form of tie-breaking if rapid chess proved no better at establishing a victor. Even more rapid chess?
Yes, after rapid then blitz and if still even then Armageddon - white gets a slight time advantage, black only has to draw to win.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If that happens, things start getting really interesting. They do play more rapid chess, but now one player gets 5 minutes on the clock and the other gets 4 minutes. If the one with 4 minutes can play to a draw, it's considered a win and that breaks the tie. This is known as "Armageddon". I'm not kidding.
Way back in the day before I lost my mind, I played competitive chess in ICF-sanctioned events, and those are still the rules.
Also, did you know that this was the first championship in history to have all the games in regulation-play drawn? By the way, the best coverage of this tournament was by Ben Tippett over at Deadspin.
https://deadspin.com/armageddo...
You are welcome on my lawn.
After Game 12 where Magnus clearly didn't even try to win, he deserved to lose the entire match, but it turns out he's the best player so sportsmanship doesn't matter.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Shot of vodka must be consumed after each game ending in a draw. Play until someone wins or someone is unable to play.
That probably just solidifies Russian and Easter European domination even more, but it would make for far more entertaining games.
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.
Yeah, the 1980s finished, people made Revenge of the Nerds films and stuff, and then the internet happened.
Now it's ok if you're into chess, anime, comic books, computer games, even computers! Guess what, even girls (shock, horror!) are.
But Grandpa, you just reminisce about your glory days of punching a kid in 1985 and thinking you were tough. You're not the first to peak in high school.
What is this "summary" that you speak of? And why weren't we told that there was going to be required reading?
You are welcome on my lawn.
My biggest problem with the current way of chess is opening theory.
So much analysis is done (especially now that computers have taken over that part), that it has become a game of memory rather than one of enthusiasm, calculation and daring.
Springing a surprise 15 moves deep - has now become a brilliance of memory, not of calculation.
My suggestion would be -
Use computers to run matches - until say 10-20 moves deep, where they give to humans.
When it is given to humans, the state should be exactly equal (maybe a negligible advantage to one - whatever it is, it will never be as advantageous as white moving first)
Let the humans start from that position, and then play. Remove the gargantuan exercises of memory, and make it one of calculation, mind set and daring.
rajmohan_h@yahoo.com
Yes, after rapid then blitz and if still even then Armageddon - white gets a slight time advantage, black only has to draw to win.
Magnus excels at speed chess, the faster the better. So it was widely presumed that he would have a bigger and bigger advantage as the games moved to faster and faster formats ... and that is what happened.
It is believed that he offered a draw in game 12, despite having a stronger position, because he figured a single blunder could cost him the championship if the game continued, and going to a 4 game rapid tie breaker would give him better odds.
Many contests in many sports are determined by some other means than to keep playing the same rules over and over again. Penalty kicks, shootouts, tiebreakers in tennis. Even baseball is talking about doing something to avoid long extra-inning games.
Chess is still chess. The longer time control they were originally playing is not built into the game and is not even constant from championship to championship. Nor is the number of games they play.
From the summary:
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.
While that may be true, that is because until recently (1985) the match winner was the first to reach a specific number of wins - 10 in the first World Chess Championship. In 1984-1985, the winner would be the first to 6 wins - but the the match was cancelled after 48 games, including 17 draws in a row. After this, the match was changed to "best of x games" - in the restarted match it was 24 games, now it's down to 12.
"No, my understanding is that he retained his crown in classic chess due to the fact that after an all-draw match in classic chess he won a match in speed chess, validating the OP's statement."
In fact, no, it doesn't. Historically, a challenger in chess must win the champion to take his title: a draw meant the 'statu quo' is to be preserved; the current champion retains his crown, that is. So, compared to past championships, Caruana would have already lost by the end of the "standard" phase, but he got another oportunity at the rapid games phase, which he also lost.
Reading the summary is overrated, it states Carlsen won the first two games, then closed out Caruana in Game 3 which implies he didn't win the third game as well. Caruana was desperately trying to keep the match alive and made a mistake which Carlsen jumped on to complete the sweep.
Carlsen defended his title in the tie-breaks the last time around as well, that time he finished the last game with an amazing queen sacrifice.
Caruana's strength is his preparation of openings, Carlsen tends to try off-beat openings so he can take opponents out of "the book" and outplay them over the board. Carlsen will even accept slightly inferior variations to that end. Both approaches yielded advantages during the "normal" part of the match but neither player managed to cash in and then Carlsen just went for draws in games 11 and 12. That worked.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.