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Armageddon Looms over World Chess Champs after Carlsen’s Shocking Decision

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Re: Armageddon Looms over World Chess Champs after Carlsen’s Shocking Decision

#31

Post by dmurray »

gregorymichael wrote: post #6

tl;dr after 11 draws, Carlsen offered a draw from a superior position in the final game to head into the short-format tiebreaks, where: > he is ranked No. 1 in all three formats (classical, rapid, and blitz). Caruana is ranked 10th and 18th in rapid and blitz respectively. Critics are appalled that he didn't fight for the win out of sense of honor. I don't see how this is different than, for instance, fouling at the…

> Critics are appalled that he didn't fight for the win out of sense of honor. I don't see how this is different than, for instance, fouling at the end of a basketball game.

Not really. The consensus was that Carlsen really cost himself winning chances by taking a draw. In the basketball analogy, it's more like holding onto the ball to force overtime instead of shooting in the last few seconds and risking a turnover. That might be a good strategy in some circumstances, but it's rare.

Carlsen has said he didn't think it was as easy or risk free as the commentators and spectators thought, and despite the fact that they had computer assistance he's as good a judge of that as anyone in the world. Personally I think he got a little nervous here and doesn't like to have everything on the line in one game - which is consistent with his approach in game 12 two years ago where he appeared to intentionally draw with the white pieces.

Re: Armageddon Looms over World Chess Champs after Carlsen’s Shocking Decision

#32

Post by tux1968 »

z92 wrote: post #18
scrooched_moose wrote: post #3

If anyone doesn't know, "Armageddon" is a type of chess game that guarantees a victor; it's not just a click-bait title. It's the last tiebreaker after a series of other Rapid and Blitz games. (all this is covered, just way at the end of the article) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_chess#Armageddon fivethirtyeight has been covering the tournament and their rough calculation gives it a 1:5000 chance of making it to…

Armageddon : "the players proceed to a single game of Armageddon, where the parameters are set to so far as possible give each side a 50-percent chance of winning—White gets 5 minutes, Black gets 4 minutes, and a draw will make Black the World Champion."

That really seems to favor black by a rather large margin. Wonder if there are any stats on the win ratios for each color in this format. And how do they decide who get's each color?

Re: Armageddon Looms over World Chess Champs after Carlsen’s Shocking Decision

#33

Post by oh_sigh »

tux1968 wrote: post #32
z92 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Armageddon : "the players proceed to a single game of Armageddon, where the parameters are set to so far as possible give each side a 50-percent chance of winning—White gets 5 minutes, Black gets 4 minutes, and a draw will make Black the World Champion."

That really seems to favor black by a rather large margin. Wonder if there are any stats on the win ratios for each color in this format. And how do they decide who get's each color?

It doesn't though, because black has 20% less time than white.

Re: Armageddon Looms over World Chess Champs after Carlsen’s Shocking Decision

#34

Post by hackinthebochs »

mindgam3 wrote: post #20
hackinthebochs wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time pressure and the position being in flux guaranteed that Fabi would accept the draw. If he had waited a few more moves, Fabi might have decided to play on. While Magnus was on the attack, his king position wasn't secure. If Fabi could have secured his position, he might have chosen to play on, considering he knows Magnus is the favorite to win the tie break.

Fabi had no real chances for counterplay any time soon. This is why playing on for at least 5 more moves would have been advantageous. Virtually guaranteed fabi would accept a draw even if Carlsen makes no headway given Fabi having burned a few more minutes on the clock.

Fabi wasn't looking for counterplay, he was looking to secure his king. If he managed to do so in a few moves, he would have less to lose by playing on than Magnus. Giving Fabi a chance to fend off Magnus' attack only increases the chance that Fabi plays on.

Re: Armageddon Looms over World Chess Champs after Carlsen’s Shocking Decision

#35

Post by tux1968 »

oh_sigh wrote: post #33
tux1968 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really seems to favor black by a rather large margin. Wonder if there are any stats on the win ratios for each color in this format. And how do they decide who get's each color?

It doesn't though, because black has 20% less time than white.

Yeah, but these guys blitz out great moves like crazy, I just don't think an extra minute is enough time to capitalize on any slight inaccuracies induced by the time pressure black is under. I could be wrong of course, which is why I was interested to know if there are any win ratios for the format around.

Re: Armageddon Looms over World Chess Champs after Carlsen’s Shocking Decision

#36

Post by oh_sigh »

EGreg wrote: post #26
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has it not occurred to anyone that maybe Carlsen is just bored? It takes effort to tie 12 straight games between two world champions. Additionally, it is not in Carlsen's best interest to finish the tournament. During the tournament he is a super star. After the tournament he is just some guy who has a chess trophy (i.e. most people in real life don't care). Maybe he is just testing himself with some criteria that is…

Additionally, it is not in Carlsen's best interest to finish the tournament. During the tournament he is a super star. After the tournament he is just some guy who has a chess trophy (i.e. most people in real life don't care). This!

No, it doesn't make any sense at all. The only people that care about Carlsen during the tournament are the same people who care about Carlsen not during the tournament - chess fans.

Re: Armageddon Looms over World Chess Champs after Carlsen’s Shocking Decision

#38

Post by necubi »

tux1968 wrote: post #32
z92 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Armageddon : "the players proceed to a single game of Armageddon, where the parameters are set to so far as possible give each side a 50-percent chance of winning—White gets 5 minutes, Black gets 4 minutes, and a draw will make Black the World Champion."

That really seems to favor black by a rather large margin. Wonder if there are any stats on the win ratios for each color in this format. And how do they decide who get's each color?

Color is determined by random draw. I think most people feel that black has the advantage, but because there's no standardized timing it's hard to find relevant statistics. Armageddon is pretty much a thin chess-like veneer on top of a coin flip.

Re: Armageddon Looms over World Chess Champs after Carlsen’s Shocking Decision

#39

Post by gojomo »

tux1968 wrote: post #32
z92 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Armageddon : "the players proceed to a single game of Armageddon, where the parameters are set to so far as possible give each side a 50-percent chance of winning—White gets 5 minutes, Black gets 4 minutes, and a draw will make Black the World Champion."

That really seems to favor black by a rather large margin. Wonder if there are any stats on the win ratios for each color in this format. And how do they decide who get's each color?

It could make sense to instead let the players bid for black (ie, winning draws), in units of time-differential, similar to this idea for auctioning off 1st possession in a USA-Football overtime by starting yard-line:

https://slate.com/culture/2009/01/why-the-nfl-should-replace...

Re: Armageddon Looms over World Chess Champs after Carlsen’s Shocking Decision

#40

Post by gojomo »

scrooched_moose wrote: post #3

If anyone doesn't know, "Armageddon" is a type of chess game that guarantees a victor; it's not just a click-bait title. It's the last tiebreaker after a series of other Rapid and Blitz games. (all this is covered, just way at the end of the article) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_chess#Armageddon fivethirtyeight has been covering the tournament and their rough calculation gives it a 1:5000 chance of making it to…

It might spice-up the whole match to have this final-someone's-gotta-win tiebreaker before other tiebreaker matches, and then hold the result "in case it's needed". That'd be in the same spirit as this recommendation to have Soccer penalty-kick shootouts before overtime.

https://slate.com/culture/2016/06/how-to-fix-the-penalty-sho...

That is: you know who will win if all other tiebreakers draw, giving the side which didn't earn this final-tiebreaker the knowledge they have to be more aggressive, much earlier. (In the extreme, you could play this before every other match.)

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