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

deadspin.com

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

#111

Post by pandapower2 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #110
hug wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to imagine to find a sport with greater running distances, match lengths, and goals-without-a-goalie: Just go watch an Aussie Rules Football match. They have roughly 2 hours of play, and it's not unknown for players to run over 11 miles a match.

I imagine there aren't a lot of drawn games?

The scoring for Australian football is dramatically different. The final score in the last australian football grand final was 79 to 74. Its closer to basketball scores than it is soccer.

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

#112

Post by leesec »

ipsa wrote: post #77
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #37

An alternative opinion for why Carlsen offered the game 12 draw: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/11/ga...

I think he was annoyed/bored. He is basically playing against a computer for an increasing number of moves. By the time the theory ends, the game is near-decided. Chess960 reveals the natural talents over the memorizers. The chess lovers complain and complain, because everybody's style is starting to mimick closer to the objective best moves. It is also a psychological move in trolling Caruana (part of the game): "Yo…

Lol you don't know what you're talking about. Carlsen played a novel moved on like move 12. There is no memorizing the enormous game tree after after a novel move like that.

Caruana also obviously did try to win with white in his last game and got turned around into a pressured spot.

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

#113

Post by slowmovintarget »

ubernostrum wrote: post #22
lazyant wrote: post #4

In past World Chess Championships when they finished tied with points the current champion retained the title, which I found disappointing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1987#...

I believe Carlsen is on record as disliking the current format. The way it works right now, the reigning champion does nothing until a challenger has earned the right to face him by winning a candidates tournament. Then the winner of the candidates tournament faces the reigning champion in a match for the title. Carlsen, as I understand it, would prefer that the champion take part in a tournament. The women's champio…

What I don't understand is why there needs to be a separate women's tournament. It's chess, not football.

Edit: I suppose that makes sense to encourage more women to play if that was an issue. (I'm used to more casual clubs where membership requires only interest and showing up.)

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

#114

Post by pk2200 »

brownbat wrote: post #95

If one preferred the tie break conditions and sought to actively play for draws, how confidently could one force draws? Could you force draws consistently with someone 100 points stronger than you? 200?

You definitely can't force a draw against a higher rated player, but you can make one more likely by choosing quiet openings and simplifying in the middlegame. But it's often tricky to pull this off. If you make too many second-best moves in pursuit of simplification, you'll drift into a position that's both simple and bad. :)

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

#115

Post by amoorthy »

BurningFrog wrote: post #101
colmvp wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still irks me that something as rare and prestigious as the World Cup (and Olympic Hockey) can get decided by shootouts. I mean, I get it, football has a huge pitch and it'd probably be ridiculous to have guys exhausted, barely able to jog at the 150th minute. That said, one of the things I love about NHL playoff hockey is that without compromise, it's first goal wins overtime, where players are willing to do ever…

In hockey, players rest most of the time, and can keep playing much longer. Also skating takes much less effort than running. A soccer player must first of all be a decent mid distance runner: They run an average of 7 miles per game! In soccer, I think the longer they play, the more tired people get, the more it rewards defense, and you'd just see very few goals after 120 minutes. You could imagine things like removi…

I've played both hockey and soccer for a long time (not super-competitive though). Hockey is far more tiring even with short 60-90s shifts in a 60 min game vs. full time for a 90 min soccer game.

I'm not sure why but for me at least the short shifts mean I'm flat out when on the ice and never quite get a rhythm like I do in soccer where I eventually settle into a steady pace... like a long distance runner.

Anyway, agree with parent comment that penalties aren't a great way to settle a competition. One option that could be interesting in soccer is to drop to 9 players in overtime and allow a couple extra subs.

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

#116

Post by 8note »

thrower123 wrote: post #107
colmvp wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still irks me that something as rare and prestigious as the World Cup (and Olympic Hockey) can get decided by shootouts. I mean, I get it, football has a huge pitch and it'd probably be ridiculous to have guys exhausted, barely able to jog at the 150th minute. That said, one of the things I love about NHL playoff hockey is that without compromise, it's first goal wins overtime, where players are willing to do ever…

I fervently believe that soccer would be a much more entertaining game if the substitution rules were significantly loosened. When I played in high school, substitution was allowed on any dead ball situation, and we effectively used something like a hockey line shift, with midfielders shuttling in and out every five minutes. The result was that you could play at a much higher tempo than if you had to conserve energy…

you'd also spend a whole ton of time waiting for players to get on and off the field.

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

#117

Post by mousecorkkey »

hug wrote: post #108
BurningFrog wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In hockey, players rest most of the time, and can keep playing much longer. Also skating takes much less effort than running. A soccer player must first of all be a decent mid distance runner: They run an average of 7 miles per game! In soccer, I think the longer they play, the more tired people get, the more it rewards defense, and you'd just see very few goals after 120 minutes. You could imagine things like removi…

You don't have to imagine to find a sport with greater running distances, match lengths, and goals-without-a-goalie: Just go watch an Aussie Rules Football match. They have roughly 2 hours of play, and it's not unknown for players to run over 11 miles a match.

20min quarters with stoppages

120 interchanges per side for the match

different, but still equally intense as FIFA Football

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

#118

Post by cjbprime »

rtkwe wrote: post #51
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #37

An alternative opinion for why Carlsen offered the game 12 draw: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/11/ga...

Another is that Carlsen is very good at rapid (Carlsen 2880 vs Caruana 2789) and blitz (2939 vs 2767) formats compared Caruana so it makes sense to just take things to the tiebreakers where Carlsen has a significant advantage. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/carlsens-bizarre-decisi...

> So it actually is a draw! (sort of)

There's been a tournament of top engines playing out the position after the draw -- I think black (Carlsen) won 11 games and white won 2 games, with the rest draws. So this declaration of the lack of advantage just isn't true.

> just take things to the tiebreakers where Carlsen has a significant advantage.

But he had a significant advantage on the board, too. The question is the magnitude of the advantages. Caruana has previously been a world blitz champion too, so it seems unlikely that any advantage would be more than 60%-40% to Carlsen. Which seems smaller than the advantage we see from the computer tournament results.

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

#119

Post by Santosh83 »

rhacker wrote: post #92

Is any of this being livestreamed anywhere? Specifically tomorrow's matches? 7am just seems so worth it after reading the exciting tie-breaks today.

Chess.com also has a livestream on their Twitch channel (https://www.twitch.tv/chess) with the live board and analysis by IM Daniel Rensch and GM Robert Hess with other guests like GM Nakamura, GM Hou Yifan, GM Levon Aronian and so on.

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

#120

Post by Santosh83 »

freyir wrote: post #70
deepnotderp wrote: post #62

I don't understand the people saying that Carlsen was wrong for drawing there. Two engines (leela as carlsen, stockfish as caruana) playing it went to a draw

Leela is an inferior chess engine, and Leela and Stockfish were given equal time. In the human match, Carlsen and Caruana are closely matched and Carlsen had a significant clock advantage. The engines are playing out the position here: https://www.chess.com/computer-chess-championship

Why do you say Leela is an inferior engine? Genuinely curious. Is it just a matter of the neural net not up to speed (and thus a matter of time before Leela is on par with Stockfish), or something else that will always handicap it?
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