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Magnus Carlsen Beats Fabiano Caruana to Win World Chess Championship

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Re: Magnus Carlsen Beats Fabiano Caruana to Win World Chess Championship

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even today in the first rapid, there was a comment (from Svidler/Giri) that early on Caruana played a move too fast, as if he was already in blitz mode, when he should have thought a bit more and found a better move.

I suspect this effect depends on who you are. Within the sphere of casual chess players, playing a lot of blitz or rapid chess will make you a better chess player across the board, and any specialisation towards the format will likely be offset by the increase in general skill. For International Grandmaster quality chess players, they're already very good, so specialisation might be unhelpful. Cf. a similar effect in…

> Cf. a similar effect in Google employees with programming competitions - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9324209

Interesting point. Competitive coding has virtually nothing to do with real world software engineering. But, since it's still coding, you could learn a lot of bad habits from doing it that might carry over into the real world. Better to get into instead.

Re: Magnus Carlsen Beats Fabiano Caruana to Win World Chess Championship

#82
post #5

I’d like to offer a few thoughts on this match as a former internationally competitive player/US Cadet U16 champion, current ~2400 bullet chess addict, and someone who has played bughouse with Fabiano as my partner at the Sinquefield Cup in 2017. First, hats off to both players for a hard fought match. To Magnus for successfully defending his title, and to Fabiano for pushing Magnus right to the brink. This was an ex…

I disagree so strongly. At some point in my life, I had distorted my thought process heavily by fast chess. I in particular played it like Tal would. The element of surprise plays a major factor.

I was never as good as you in chess. My best game ever with normal time constraints was a tie against a 2400, and my regular games are around 2000. But it was only a hobby.

What is troubling about chess in general is that it cannot be truly learnt. As computers have shown. With that in mind, let's also assume that intution plays a role. The classical offers the second best way of determining who has got it right. Fast chess kills your intuition as it offers incentives to play the more wrong game that your opponent might blunder to. When I play normal chess, I play in a way that is safe up to somewhere between 5 to 7 moves depth, at my best days. Magnus has more depth obviously. So if his opponents play for the win, they will lose. And under time control, he has a better full view of the board, so plays faster and that's all as much I can tell. But if his opponent has an different, perhaps intuitive, style, which I have no understanding of, he will lose. The key point being, that the move that is the best up to depth 7, can be the move that you could see how it loses you the game if you had more depth.

To my main concern about your comment, playing fast, particular bullet and blitz, indeed damages your right intuition if there is any. And if the person is anything like me, it might bleed into other aspects of their life, with consequences.

My advice to anyone who plays fast games and has a sharp and computing mind, is to spend time at a creative activity, such as writing, some sciences, and put chess aside for a year. Develop your creative skills, and then you'll notice the negative impact of bullet and blitz (With all due respect to your skills, the terms bullet and blitz makes me feel a turmoil now), which I consider to be quite serious.

Re: Magnus Carlsen Beats Fabiano Caruana to Win World Chess Championship

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's currently +3-18=14. That's 3 wins for Caruana's position, 18 wins for Carlsen's, and 14 draws. That's about as decisive a position as you can get in high-level chess. Yes, with perfect play, Caruana might have reached a draw, but Carlsen was in an overwhelmingly strong position. And this isn't even truly accounting for the time pressure Caruana put himself in. If this was not the game 12, they would have had a…

Sure, but we're kind of wandering off the point here. Carlsen is widely recognized to have been in a great, likely winning position in game 12, and arguably got himself into several other, if not cleanly decisive positions, very strong ones in several other games, where Caruana never quite seemed to. OP suggested they were dead even in play in "what he considers" chess (classical time controls). I'm suggesting that t…

> Carlsen is widely recognized to have been in a great, likely winning position in game 12, and arguably got himself into several other, if not cleanly decisive positions, very strong ones in several other games, where Caruana never quite seemed to.

Long time ago in a galaxy far away I played at a very high level.

Sometimes when I'm bored or lonely or cranky I play hustlers in the Union Sq in NYC. There's probably one guy (old cranky Russian) that can actually give me a run for my money and he is still going to be a several hundred points below me. Regardless, sometimes I wander into situations that I dont quite like -- no decisive advantage where I have to play carefully. Instead I quickly take it to a draw because the odds of me getting into a bad position multiple times in a row are smaller than the odds of me not tripping in a position that I do not like and since no money changes hands on a draw, drawing is nothing other than kicking a ball down the road.

For Carlsen kicking a ball into a tie breaker comes with a multiple hundred point advantage. It is the advantage that he does not have with classic time controls.

Re: Magnus Carlsen Beats Fabiano Caruana to Win World Chess Championship

#84
For anyone looking for a simpler recap of the event, there's been a 4-part series running at Deadspin that has been an awesome read for me. The last part covering the last 4 matches is here https://deadspin.com/armageddon-looms-over-the-world-chess-c... and there are links to earlier parts in the article. I'm sure there will be a final part covering this victory as well.

Re: Magnus Carlsen Beats Fabiano Caruana to Win World Chess Championship

#85

Strength in faster time controls strongly fits overall strength. Caruana knew he was the underdog in Tie-breaks, he had 12 chances to avoid that and he was unable to. Carlsen could have pressed in game 12 but he knew he was much stronger in faster controls, why risk anything? Using computer evals through the match, I felt that Carlsen was slightly stronger, and their head to head record suggests as much.

The other way of looking at this is that twice in a row Carlsen has been unable to defend the title in classical controls and has relied on rapid time controls to win. In both cases, it's unclear if Carlsen could have retained the title had more classical games been played.

Re: Magnus Carlsen Beats Fabiano Caruana to Win World Chess Championship

#86
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My aspirations for Chess are pretty low these days (my estimated ELO max was around a mere 1500 over a decade ago when I played regularly..) but I'm curious how your web interface actually works to improve play and whether it would translate to other games. I've heard conflicting advice about the value of blitz games for Go as well, though the strongest person I've played in person (5dan amateur chinese) thought that…

I barely know the rules of Go, but I have great respect for the game and I believe it would apply there as well. The interface is based on the fact that chess is primarily a game of visual pattern recognition. Tactics like forks and pins, positional concepts like isolated pawns and weak squares, these are captured and processed visually. Getting good at chess is as much about learning how to literally see the pattern…

Ah, so is the interface mainly to help point out the common patterns (especially if you missed them) during review? Or during play itself? Go has its patterns too, so you might be right that it would apply well there.

Re: Magnus Carlsen Beats Fabiano Caruana to Win World Chess Championship

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You’re dramatically overstating the advantage Carlsen had in Game 12. It was not decisive or obvious in any way and afterwards various engines played out the position to a draw. You're misstating the results of the Game 12 replays (see: https://www.chess.com/computer-chess-championship , which is pitting numerous engines against each other in the position at Game 12's resignation). It's currently +3-18=14. That's 3…

> It's currently +3-18=14. That's 3 wins for Caruana's position, 18 wins for Carlsen's, and 14 draws. That's about as decisive a position as you can get in high-level chess. Yes, with perfect play, Caruana might have reached a draw, but Carlsen was in an overwhelmingly strong position. And this isn't even truly accounting for the time pressure Caruana put himself in. If this was not the game 12, they would have had a…

Humans are not computers. And the fact that computers won some of those games is further evidence that, while Carlsen had winning chances, the position was complicated enough that one or two suboptimal moves might be enough for Fabi to capitalize and win.

A slight advantage in a complicated position with lots of tension and many ways for the game to continue is wildly different from a slight advantage in a quieter position with many of the pieces traded down. In the latter, a mistake might cause you to draw rather than win. In the former, a mistake might cause you to lose outright.

Re: Magnus Carlsen Beats Fabiano Caruana to Win World Chess Championship

#88
post #85

Strength in faster time controls strongly fits overall strength. Caruana knew he was the underdog in Tie-breaks, he had 12 chances to avoid that and he was unable to. Carlsen could have pressed in game 12 but he knew he was much stronger in faster controls, why risk anything? Using computer evals through the match, I felt that Carlsen was slightly stronger, and their head to head record suggests as much.

The other way of looking at this is that twice in a row Carlsen has been unable to defend the title in classical controls and has relied on rapid time controls to win. In both cases, it's unclear if Carlsen could have retained the title had more classical games been played.

Does that say more about Carlsen or the modern classical game?

Classical these days is heavily reliant on technology for preparation. The world championship match gives both players a huge amount of time to research strong lines using an engine. When players finally do get out of prep, they have plenty of time on the clock to make a draw if they're not in a winning position. In shorter time controls it becomes a lot more difficult to avoid mistakes out of book. Then it becomes more about vision and calculation and less about preparation.

Re: Magnus Carlsen Beats Fabiano Caruana to Win World Chess Championship

#89

I just want to give a mention to ChessNetwork on Twitch[1]. I watched many of the games of this series live via this channel, and it was great how the commentator had his own board to demonstrate the next few moves and explain the players' thinking. It was really interesting and relaxing. https://www.twitch.tv/chessnetwork

Jerry is a phenomenal chess instructor. His latest video on tactical awareness[1] explains more in 2 hours than you might learn in a thousand games at the board. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzGKPxJ5NYI

Wow, you’re not kidding. He’s basically ticking off many of my lingering questions one by one.

Re: Magnus Carlsen Beats Fabiano Caruana to Win World Chess Championship

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but we're kind of wandering off the point here. Carlsen is widely recognized to have been in a great, likely winning position in game 12, and arguably got himself into several other, if not cleanly decisive positions, very strong ones in several other games, where Caruana never quite seemed to. OP suggested they were dead even in play in "what he considers" chess (classical time controls). I'm suggesting that t…

> Carlsen is widely recognized to have been in a great, likely winning position in game 12, and arguably got himself into several other, if not cleanly decisive positions, very strong ones in several other games, where Caruana never quite seemed to. Long time ago in a galaxy far away I played at a very high level. Sometimes when I'm bored or lonely or cranky I play hustlers in the Union Sq in NYC. There's probably on…

Precisely. After eleven games, these guys are mentally exhausted. Having an edge in a complex position isn’t yet a win, and Carlsen obviously decided that the odds that he would make a mistake that loses were higher than the odds that he would lose to Fabi in rapid after two days of mental recovery.
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