Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Magnus Carlsen Beats Fabiano Caruana to Win World Chess Championship

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 225 posts

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

#121

Post by gpm »

michalu wrote: post #106

In the end, Carlsen is the man who knows the best how to win in chess. Regardless of all critics. He played the 12th game safe knowing he's a huge favourite in rapid and blitz. Like Kasparov and Grischuk pointed out today, every other chess player gets worse playing rapid/blitz but Carlsen is the only one who actually improves. Under these conditions it's more than sensible to move into the terrain where you have an…

We expect people to play to win.

In other sports we have rules against playing to draw/stall (e.g. see delay of game in hockey). Likewise in chess (or this and a number of other tournaments anyways), we have rules against agreeing to draw within the first 30 moves to attempt to discourage this sort of behavior.

Not only did Carlsen not play to win the game, he didn't even play to win the championship. Instead he chose to draw, explicitly deciding to split the prize with his opponent.

I, for one, am highly unimpressed.

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

#122

Post by sytelus »

michalu wrote: post #106

In the end, Carlsen is the man who knows the best how to win in chess. Regardless of all critics. He played the 12th game safe knowing he's a huge favourite in rapid and blitz. Like Kasparov and Grischuk pointed out today, every other chess player gets worse playing rapid/blitz but Carlsen is the only one who actually improves. Under these conditions it's more than sensible to move into the terrain where you have an…

This is quite funny thread. I often marvel at folks dissecting sport game outcome for hours retrospectively as if everything was perfectly explainable only after outcome was seen. We don't see this in HN threads much - well, except for chess games :).

In reality, pro games have such strong contenders that each have very thin edge, if at all, and the outcome is usually just same as throwing dice.

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

#123

Post by mindgam3 »

xenihn wrote: post #110
mindgam3 wrote: 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'm an iOS dev and I would potentially be interested in contributing. I can email you later if you'd like (I see your email is in your profile).

Please do email me! We have a killer mobile app designed and a bunch of other tech pieces including ML/CV in good shape, but iOS is the one area where we are weakest at the moment.

I play 95% my online bullet on my phone and even rely on mobile for ChessBase and training prep, so nailing the mobile UX is critical to this thing being habit-forming enough to become a viable daily training tool.

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

#124

Post by monadgonad »

gpm wrote: post #121
michalu wrote: post #106

In the end, Carlsen is the man who knows the best how to win in chess. Regardless of all critics. He played the 12th game safe knowing he's a huge favourite in rapid and blitz. Like Kasparov and Grischuk pointed out today, every other chess player gets worse playing rapid/blitz but Carlsen is the only one who actually improves. Under these conditions it's more than sensible to move into the terrain where you have an…

We expect people to play to win. In other sports we have rules against playing to draw/stall (e.g. see delay of game in hockey). Likewise in chess (or this and a number of other tournaments anyways), we have rules against agreeing to draw within the first 30 moves to attempt to discourage this sort of behavior. Not only did Carlsen not play to win the game, he didn't even play to win the championship. Instead he chos…

He made a sacrifice and "conceded" one game to a draw in order to increase his chances of winning the championship via his superior rapid play. He lost the battle to win the war. That is complely playing to win.

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

#125

Post by whymauri »

mindgam3 wrote: post #115
michalu wrote: post #106

In the end, Carlsen is the man who knows the best how to win in chess. Regardless of all critics. He played the 12th game safe knowing he's a huge favourite in rapid and blitz. Like Kasparov and Grischuk pointed out today, every other chess player gets worse playing rapid/blitz but Carlsen is the only one who actually improves. Under these conditions it's more than sensible to move into the terrain where you have an…

I can't argue with your first premise. Your following points, however, are less convincing. "Like Kasparov and Grischuk pointed out today, every other chess player gets worse playing rapid/blitz but Carlsen is the only one who actually improves." Even if Kasparov and Grischuk said this today (citation please?), it doesn't make it true. There are many players who get better playing rapid and blitz. Look at the traject…

Calling the series "marred" feels a little dramatic.

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

#126

Post by mindgam3 »

johnb wrote: post #119
mindgam3 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't argue with your first premise. Your following points, however, are less convincing. "Like Kasparov and Grischuk pointed out today, every other chess player gets worse playing rapid/blitz but Carlsen is the only one who actually improves." Even if Kasparov and Grischuk said this today (citation please?), it doesn't make it true. There are many players who get better playing rapid and blitz. Look at the traject…

Kasparov had said that all players are worse in blitz, but that Carlsen gets least worst https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/1067826806823297029

Thank you! With that nuance added, I believe it now. Kasparov generally isn't the kind of person to make sweeping statements that I know are false.

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

#127

Post by mindgam3 »

whymauri wrote: post #125
mindgam3 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't argue with your first premise. Your following points, however, are less convincing. "Like Kasparov and Grischuk pointed out today, every other chess player gets worse playing rapid/blitz but Carlsen is the only one who actually improves." Even if Kasparov and Grischuk said this today (citation please?), it doesn't make it true. There are many players who get better playing rapid and blitz. Look at the traject…

Calling the series "marred" feels a little dramatic.

The fact is that all of the major coverage of this event is going to inevitably mention game 12 as much as the final result.

Perhaps "marred" is a bit too strong. Could we at least agree on "besmirched"?

Here's the first paragraph from LiChess coverage:

'It is not often that the chess world unites to criticise Magnus Carlsen, but on Monday evening in London the World Champion had few supporters after his decision to squander a highly favourable position and offer a draw to his challenger Fabiano Caruana as soon as legally permissible in the final classical game of the world title match in London.

“Cowardly” said Carlsen’s compatriot and former coach Simen Agdestein. “Lazy” was Kramnik’s description of Carlsen’s play leading up to the draw offer. “I think he knows he is not playing the best moves,” the former World Champion added. “Shocking” said Kasparov, declaring that because he seemed to be losing his nerve, Carlsen was no longer his favourite to win the tiebreakers.'

https://lichess.org/blog/W_yTNhUAAC0A1JxI/cautious-carlsen-s...

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

#128

Post by Retric »

sytelus wrote: post #122
michalu wrote: post #106

In the end, Carlsen is the man who knows the best how to win in chess. Regardless of all critics. He played the 12th game safe knowing he's a huge favourite in rapid and blitz. Like Kasparov and Grischuk pointed out today, every other chess player gets worse playing rapid/blitz but Carlsen is the only one who actually improves. Under these conditions it's more than sensible to move into the terrain where you have an…

This is quite funny thread. I often marvel at folks dissecting sport game outcome for hours retrospectively as if everything was perfectly explainable only after outcome was seen. We don't see this in HN threads much - well, except for chess games :). In reality, pro games have such strong contenders that each have very thin edge, if at all, and the outcome is usually just same as throwing dice.

That does not really hold up.

Serral for example is the current best StarCraft 2 player in the world. They operate in tournaments where X players face off usually starting with 16+ players doing single elimination. He won 4 regional, and 2 international tournaments in a row. The odds of him pulling that off if the odds of each win where close to 50/50 would be ~1/(2^30) aka 1 billion to 1. Instead, he was heavily favored in most of these match ups.

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

#129

Post by gpm »

monadgonad wrote: post #124
gpm wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We expect people to play to win. In other sports we have rules against playing to draw/stall (e.g. see delay of game in hockey). Likewise in chess (or this and a number of other tournaments anyways), we have rules against agreeing to draw within the first 30 moves to attempt to discourage this sort of behavior. Not only did Carlsen not play to win the game, he didn't even play to win the championship. Instead he chos…

He made a sacrifice and "conceded" one game to a draw in order to increase his chances of winning the championship via his superior rapid play. He lost the battle to win the war. That is complely playing to win.

I dispute this on two points.

He did not fully "win" the championship. Sure, they had to give the title to somebody, so it's him, but splitting half of the prize is not a complete win.

Even if he had fully won, I don't view it as a sportsmanlike strategy to give up a game to put yourself in an advantageous position. That's why we have a rule against agreeing to a draw to early. That's why in hockey stopping trying to score and just passing the puck in circles at center is against the rules (delay of game) - even when it's the best way to win.

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

#130

Post by Bud »

ubernostrum wrote: post #97
nevi-me wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, their ELOs are just about the same, so I agree with the spirit of your viewpoint. I'd argue that he's better because he has mastered more than just one format. If we have a tie in one category, and one of the players has a strong advantage in another category; then they'll come out as "better".

Quick reminder that it's "Elo", not "ELO". It's not an acronym or initialism. It's named after its inventor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arpad_Elo

Always important to avoid ambiguity with Electric Light Orchestra. ;)
Post reply on HN