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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

#121
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

chess has a lot of draws, and plenty of drawish strategies. Playing to not lose will not at all lead to winning.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#122

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…

Gukesh took him into the deep water the entire time, putting every possible strain on Ding's energy and reserves. It was the unrelenting pressure of an 18yo badass that cracked Ding, whom I truly feel sorry for. He is a great player and a very, very nice human being. What is crazy is that Gukesh has only been playing chess for a little more than 11 years. ETA: And Ding fought like a lion!

"only 11 years"... that seems like a lot to me, although reading further down in the thread it seems like it might take twice or three times as long to get to a very high level.

Do people in the chess community measure players by number of years playing? Are there expectations of how long it takes to get to a certain level? (besides world champion)

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#123
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s not the most competitive world championship though, since Magnus opted out of playing it. If previous champions had similarly opted out of defending their championship at the age of 30 then maybe the average age of champions would have trended downward and this wouldn’t have been the first 18 year old champion.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#124

Remarkable to watch the reactions in real-time, of both players and fans from India at the moment the decisive move is played. https://www.youtube.com/live/5-uuDuGQLQA?t=14497s . Only started following chess due to the covid shutdowns, much for fun from a fans point of view than I had imagined it would be. Having the computer evaluation at the side really helps novices like me to know what's going on, interestingly a…

Wow. Thanks for this links. This is amazing.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#125
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was. But he had 9 minutes vs more than an hour for Gukesh. The entire match has been Ding defending miraculously, I thought it was a matter of time before he eventually failed. The fact that it happened on the last moves of the last game, it's definitely hard for Ding, but fair for Gukesh IMO.

Well it sounds like an instance of "your keys are always in the last place you look, because then you stop looking"

This was game 14, they were tied almost the whole way, and this was the only time Gukesh won with the black pieces.

Before the match, the expectation was that Gukesh would take an early lead and never look back, with the match ending before game 14. This morning, the expectation would be that Ding would make an easy draw with white (as he has done in 5 of his games as white already, winning the other), and it would go to tiebreaks.

Having the championship decided by a decisive final classical game is pretty rare. The last time it happened was 2010.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#126

What is the deal with Gukesh's last name? It's officially listed as just D on his FIDE profile. I asked a couple Indian coworkers who said it was probably just being abbreviated for being long, but honestly it's not that long of a name and Gukesh isn't from the same region as them. I've read elsewhere that Telugu speaking people don't really use last names.

Gukesh's last name is Dommaraju. It's his family surname. He is a Telugu person by birth, but he grew up in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. In the state of Tamil Nadu, people often take their father's given names as their last names, and always write it in abbreviation. Indian last names often disclose caste, and due to a widely influential movement in TN (see [0]), most people of TN gave up using caste-based surnames, and switched to solely using father's names. But, the father's name is often written as the first letter of that name, and the person is called like that in official places, too. Among friends, colleagues, teachers, etc., only the given name ever is used.

As Gukesh grew up in Chennai, he used his last name like that. His parents also use one name only.

Anecdote: my distant cousin, a Bengali, also grew up in TN. His parents also Tamilized his name. His name was, say, Rama Dass, and he went by and put his name as D. Rama, or Rama D.

When their family moved back to Bengal, his name was Rama Dass again.

Srinivasa Ramanujan's given name was Ramanujan, and Srinivasa was his father's name.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periyar

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because the ending was pretty meh. All this excitement, and then Ding just flubs up an end game that most super gm's should be able to draw against stockfish.

The best finale's are often when two players at their best duke it out, and one comes out on top. This was simply not Ding's best.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#128
It seems like Team Ding's strategy was to survive until tie breaks, where he would have been the favorite. Given Ding's form, they probably didn't believe he could reliably win games in classical versus an in-form Gukesh.

As such, Ding went for draws in multiple games with clearly superior positions that someone like e.g. Magnus Carlsen would have played out and won. I'm sure they regret that strategy now.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, so it's an anti-caste thing?

Historically yes. But in 2024 it's just a naming convention now. Being Telugu in Tamil Nadu, they probably adopted Tamil naming conventions to make life easier. States in India are basically different countries, and the existing state borders for most states don't make sense.

My distant cousing, a Bengali, named, say, Rama Dass, also grew up in Tamil Nadu. His name was Tamilized to D. Rama or Rama D.- even though Dass was a family surname.

> States in India are basically different countries, and the existing state borders for most states don't make sense.

No. Huge oversimplification there. It's not definitely like oblasts of Russian Federation. Although they are not close like OR and ID.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#130
post #49

Did Magnus not compete?

To add a little more color... Magnus, in recent years, has been expressing his dislike for chess under classical time controls, seeing it as a battle of prep vs prep at the SuperGM level rather than skill vs skill. He doesn't seem to be enthusiastic about doing that prep anymore, and that seems to have been a factor in his decision to no longer fight for the WC title.

No, he has been expressing his dislike for the format of the WCC. He has no major issues with Classical time controls.
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