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Carlsen–Karjakin World Championship

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Re: Carlsen–Karjakin World Championship

#11

Post by conistonwater »

This time around there was an unusual amount of match strategy involved. In fact, what's interesting is that they always played the Spanish or the Italian, but in the one game where Karjakin wanted to (had to) win, he played the Najdorf.

Peter Svidler mentioned a very interesting suggestion that the players should play the tie-breaks before the match, which should produce more interesting games (in particular, it should avoid game-12-style games). But in any case, I think determining the structure of the championship match is a rather neat test-case of mechanism design.

Re: Carlsen–Karjakin World Championship

#12

Post by mjhoy »

conistonwater wrote: post #10
dswalter wrote: post #8

After all the draws, it was nice to see some actual wins. For those less familiar with chess, the final game was kind of fun. Carlsen's final play was to sacrifice his queen to draw the king into a trap, when Karjakin was one free move from putting Carlsen into an inextricably losing situation.

I don't think that's accurate: Carlsen could have gotten a winning advantage just by defending everything with Qg3. On chess24's broadcast, Svidler even thought Carlsen might not go for the mate just because Qg3 was safely good enough.

The trick is that he was under time pressure and if he miscalculated faced a mate in one, so it was somewhat risky (and why Svidler was surprised he played it).

Re: Carlsen–Karjakin World Championship

#13

Post by lacker »

The rapid games are starting to become more interesting than the full-length games. I would not be surprised if rapid chess starts to become the more popular form of top-level chess.

If you're just thinking about "playing the best possible game", the computers are doing that already. If you want to see two individuals intensely competing in a mental challenge, why not speed things up so that it's actually watchable? Similar to Twenty20 cricket.

Re: Carlsen–Karjakin World Championship

#14

Post by stouset »

conistonwater wrote: post #11

This time around there was an unusual amount of match strategy involved. In fact, what's interesting is that they always played the Spanish or the Italian, but in the one game where Karjakin wanted to (had to) win, he played the Najdorf. Peter Svidler mentioned a very interesting suggestion that the players should play the tie-breaks before the match, which should produce more interesting games (in particular, it sho…

> Peter Svidler mentioned a very interesting suggestion that the players should play the tie-breaks before the match, which should produce more interesting games.

This is the first such suggestion I've heard that I actually like.

Re: Carlsen–Karjakin World Championship

#15

Post by tbrake »

CalChris wrote: post #4
slm_HN wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The queen sac itself was a mate in two, which is pretty simple even in a rapid game. However he did need to see the mate in 8 before committing to Rc8+. In the end Magnus was much stronger in the rapid games. He was winning in three of the four even though he let one slip to a draw.

Game two of the rapids playoff was a fine ending by Karjakin, a stalemate after sacking everything. But MC the WC was much stronger at rapid.

I wonder if either or both players smirked at the end of game 2 as it was stalemate by en passant, which absolutely can't be that common and almost seems a little indulgent. I can only recall one other stalemate in WC play, Korchnoi vs Karpov in 1978.

Re: Carlsen–Karjakin World Championship

#16

Post by conistonwater »

tbrake wrote: post #15
CalChris wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game two of the rapids playoff was a fine ending by Karjakin, a stalemate after sacking everything. But MC the WC was much stronger at rapid.

I wonder if either or both players smirked at the end of game 2 as it was stalemate by en passant, which absolutely can't be that common and almost seems a little indulgent. I can only recall one other stalemate in WC play, Korchnoi vs Karpov in 1978.

It was a draw the moment White had only h-pawns, which happened earlier, because the remaining bishop was the wrong colour.

Re: Carlsen–Karjakin World Championship

#17

Post by sgeisenh »

lacker wrote: post #13

The rapid games are starting to become more interesting than the full-length games. I would not be surprised if rapid chess starts to become the more popular form of top-level chess. If you're just thinking about "playing the best possible game", the computers are doing that already. If you want to see two individuals intensely competing in a mental challenge, why not speed things up so that it's actually watchable?…

Rapid and classical are totally different beasts. Rapid is more fun to watch in real time, but doesn't usually produce high quality games. On the other hand, classical can often be miserable to watch, but typically yields games worth of study for years to come.

Watching computers is valuable to a point, but completely different from watching humans. The search space that humans can cover is much smaller, so the games end up being more positional, and easier to understand for a spectator. I wish that they would build a chess engine that emulated a human thought process so that it could be used as part of following a game in progress. The way they used the engine in the official world championship broadcast was frustrating. I don't care if white has a forced mate in 83 moves, I want to know how the position seems based on a shallower but more positional analysis.

Re: Carlsen–Karjakin World Championship

#18

Post by tbrake »

conistonwater wrote: post #16
tbrake wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if either or both players smirked at the end of game 2 as it was stalemate by en passant, which absolutely can't be that common and almost seems a little indulgent. I can only recall one other stalemate in WC play, Korchnoi vs Karpov in 1978.

It was a draw the moment White had only h-pawns, which happened earlier, because the remaining bishop was the wrong colour.

I'm aware of all that. I'm speaking about the oddity/uniqueness of forcing a stalemate via en passant.

Re: Carlsen–Karjakin World Championship

#19

Post by Gustomaximus »

conistonwater wrote: post #11

This time around there was an unusual amount of match strategy involved. In fact, what's interesting is that they always played the Spanish or the Italian, but in the one game where Karjakin wanted to (had to) win, he played the Najdorf. Peter Svidler mentioned a very interesting suggestion that the players should play the tie-breaks before the match, which should produce more interesting games (in particular, it sho…

> the players should play the tie-breaks before the match

But then wouldn't the game before the 'tie break', essentially become the tie break in pressure/strategy etc?

Re: Carlsen–Karjakin World Championship

#20

Post by conistonwater »

tbrake wrote: post #18
conistonwater wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a draw the moment White had only h-pawns, which happened earlier, because the remaining bishop was the wrong colour.

I'm aware of all that. I'm speaking about the oddity/uniqueness of forcing a stalemate via en passant.

Oh okay. I thought you meant it like one of those crazy "suicidal rook"-type stalemates, where stalemate isn't the "fair" outcome.
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