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Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

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Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#111

Post by boringg »

nottorp wrote: post #73
boringg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like its not that big of an accomplishment relative to the way the headline makes it (obviously a big personal accomplishment). I figure 18 year old chess should have the mental abilities and maybe experience at that point to be able to rise to the top...

... but you can infer from the HN post title that it's unusual.

Agreed. I think all the people who don't like my take i offer this. Blasting a headline like that typically implies like a 13-14 year old. This is impressive but its not some massive upset - 18 is a grown adult for all intents and purposes (brain still developing true…)

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#112

Post by lxgr »

hbn wrote: post #5

For being the headline, they sure hid his age pretty well. Not at the opening paragraph nor end of the article, nor photo captions near the top or bottom. cmd+f "years" 0 results cmd+f "age" 0 results And scanning for numbers is useless since most of the article is chess moves written out.

The article seems geared towards people at least already somewhat invested in either chess or the world championship, given that it's on a chess website and everything.

That said, click either name in the article and you'll land on their respective Lichess profile, which prominently features their age.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#113

Post by codeulike »

seanhunter wrote: post #110
mindfulmark wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Gukesh was constantly putting pressure on Ding to find defensive moves and Ding finally made a mistake. The fact that it happened when it did just makes it even more dramatic. We know from the other matches that Ding is capable of finding them, and the fact that he didn't just highlights that they're both human, both under extreme pressure and that it's not just mindless computation.

I'm not sure we disagree at all. Gukesh's strategy throughout the match was to constantly ask difficult questions and the surprise really was that Ding didn't fold earlier.

So why call it a horrible finish?

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#114

Post by DevX101 »

alex1138 wrote: post #4

At 18, this is no small thing. Kasparov was 22, I don't see Gukesh's record being broken for a long while

We're still relatively early in the chess engine era and there was an explosion of new young talent discovering chess in the covid years. I expect to see more young chess prodigies.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#115

Post by mindfulmark »

seanhunter wrote: post #110
mindfulmark wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Gukesh was constantly putting pressure on Ding to find defensive moves and Ding finally made a mistake. The fact that it happened when it did just makes it even more dramatic. We know from the other matches that Ding is capable of finding them, and the fact that he didn't just highlights that they're both human, both under extreme pressure and that it's not just mindless computation.

I'm not sure we disagree at all. Gukesh's strategy throughout the match was to constantly ask difficult questions and the surprise really was that Ding didn't fold earlier.

I guess I was just disagreeing with your opening sentence, the rest was spot on.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#116

Post by dtquad »

zanellato19 wrote: post #85
boringg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like its not that big of an accomplishment relative to the way the headline makes it (obviously a big personal accomplishment). I figure 18 year old chess should have the mental abilities and maybe experience at that point to be able to rise to the top...

HAHAHA Only an HN comment could call the youngest person ever to do something would be said to "not that big of an accomplishment". How would you change that headline?

To really put it in perspective right now is the hardest and most competitive chess era in history thanks to computer-aided practice and international popularity.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#117

Post by taneq »

cyrillite wrote: post #82
seanhunter wrote: post #31

That was a absolutely horrible finish to a really exciting championship if you ask me. For anyone who doesn't know, there was a lot of drama because Gukesh was playing amazingly coming into this (eg winning the gold medal on board 1 at the olympiad in crushing style) and Ding had been playing terribly. Then there were 13 games of back and forth with stalwart defending and imaginative computer preparation by both side…

It felt much more like forced error than unforced error or, thematically, the closest thing I’ve seen to a milling strategy in chess. Just make them keep drawing until they’re out of ideas.

I'm explicitly not a chess player but this reminds me of Dave Sirlin's "Play To Win" where he starts by explaining that if doing a thing makes you not lose, you do that, and then eventually by definition you win.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#118

Post by chairmansteve »

MrMcCall wrote: post #32

Wow. What a match. Been watching with my son, a chess lover since we started watching the Magnus-Fabi match. Now, my son loves his chess club and has retired me from playing :-) Two thoughts: 1) Gukesh took Ding into the deep water the entire time. Few people realize how draining chess is, especially at that level for this time control. It's beyond gruelling. Only programming is more difficult ;-) 2) Gukesh had an ex…

"Only programming is more difficult....". Programming is definitely easier for me. In chess, my ego gets in the way. I hate to lose.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#119

Post by rybosworld »

This was a great match overall, with a very dramatic/surprising end.

But I disagree with other comments that are describing the overall championship in a favorable light.

To me, this was some of the most boring chess I've watched. Ding was certainly trying to force draws in every game, which makes for some very unexciting lines. It's been suggested that Ding felt he had better chances in rapid formats, so forcing draws makes sense in that light. But it led to some extremely uncreative chess imo.

Reminds me of many of the Magnus vs Fabi games in 2018.

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