Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history • Hacker News Board

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#161

Post by wavemode » Thu, Dec 12, 2024, 5:16 PM UTC

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 disagree. There were forced errors in this match, yes. But this final game's endgame wasn't an example of that. Ding collapsed of his own accord.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#162

Post by thom » Thu, Dec 12, 2024, 5:18 PM UTC

MrMcCall wrote: post #37

thom wrote: post #25

Well, Ding's prediction was right, it wasn't a short draw. Horrible end to a another pretty disappointing cycle. Ding's game 12 win to tie the match was a positional masterpiece but it ultimately seems fitting that his blunder decided the result. Hope he gets a long break from classical chess and finds his way back to enjoying the game.

Ding has nothing to be ashamed of. He fought like a true warrior. He was a great champion, with class and brilliance. I just don't think he was physically as strong as he could be, and that affects one's ability to think as they must at that level. All said, tho, it was definitely Gukesh's time, and being 18 has some serious benefits in terms of recovery and stamina.

I don't think 26. a4 was fighting like a true warrior, it was more giving up half your kingdom in the hope that your opponent will then accept a peace treaty.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#163

Post by neofrommatrix » Thu, Dec 12, 2024, 5:18 PM UTC

bmacho wrote: post #46

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.

For someone who has complained a LOT about this information not being readily available, you haven't put it here for us either.

18. The answer is 18.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#164

Post by tomatovole » Thu, Dec 12, 2024, 5:21 PM UTC

ANewFormation wrote: post #158

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…

This really misses the key drama of what happened in the last game. Ding had a perfectly safe position where he could try to squeeze Gukesh pretty much endlessly with basically 0 risk. He then, completely inexplicably, went down a forced line which led to the final phase of the game. In this phase the position was drawn with perfect play, but that is completely irrelevant because it is really tough to play. And more…

Is there a metric I can look at in engine evaluations to determine when a situation is "risky" for white or black (e.g., the situation above) even if it looks equal with perfect play?

I've always been interested in understanding situations where this is the case (and the opposite, where the engine favours one side but it seems to require a long, hard-to-find sequence of moves.

Playing out the top lines helps if equality requires perfect play from one side.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#165

Post by veidelis » Thu, Dec 12, 2024, 5:22 PM UTC

First of all, I have the greatest respect for the two individuals who played their hearts out in this event.

Personally, I'm on the side which thinks that this format is a total stagnation. Maybe the new no-increment under 40 moves is an improvement, but overall it does not count. I agree with Carlsen that the format has to be drastically changed to determine who is the better player. Much more games, shorter games. Fischer said a long time ago that chess is dead. Considering how deep some of the variations go into theoretical territory, I can surely relate. Magnus has also expressed that it's very hard to find novelties. I'm also totally on the side that Fischer Random (chess 960) has to be included in this tournament. I believe that ultimately it will happen - sooner or later. Magnus also said that he thinks that his match with Caruana was of extremely high quality - those 14 games were all draws. I totally understand why Magnus didn't want to defend his title. On the other hand I can't comprehend how FIDE let this happen because a lot of people don't think of current tournament as high as they maybe should be, just because Magnus is not participating. That's a shame. Not on Carlsen, not on chess. On FIDE.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#166

Post by systemvoltage » Thu, Dec 12, 2024, 5:24 PM UTC

ANewFormation wrote: post #158

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…

This really misses the key drama of what happened in the last game. Ding had a perfectly safe position where he could try to squeeze Gukesh pretty much endlessly with basically 0 risk. He then, completely inexplicably, went down a forced line which led to the final phase of the game. In this phase the position was drawn with perfect play, but that is completely irrelevant because it is really tough to play. And more…

Chess engines should come with another metric bar: "The twitchy-ness" of the position aka the gradient of primary eval metric as you pareto the possible moves from best to worst. The stronger this gradient, the more risky it is to play, and more changes to make a mistake.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#167

Post by vlovich123 » Thu, Dec 12, 2024, 5:24 PM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #156

BurningFrog wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programming is easy. There is no opponent!

...although that means you can't wear your opponent down. The computer will always still be there, not doing what you want, no matter how long you draw things out, it will never screw up and start working because it's tired. But I agree that programming is (usually) easier than chess, certainly at these levels.

When you’re programming it’s an open book exam where the opponent is reality. You have all sorts of resources available to you and even the computer itself can help you find problems in your solution and you generally have as much time as you need.

Chess is a closed book exam where your opponent is another human and you have a fixed amount of time to answer questions and managing that is as as important as asking and answering questions. The question asked is who prepared better and who understands the game better and playing the man is a better strategy typically than playing reality (ie they often make suboptimal moves to try to screw up preparation ideas).

Different kinds of taxation but programming would generally be easier because there’s not as much pressure.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#168

Post by ANewFormation » Thu, Dec 12, 2024, 5:25 PM UTC

neaden wrote: post #145

awongh wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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)

It's hard to put it in numbers since high level chess players start very young, it's basically considered impossible to become a titled player learning chess as an adult, with a slight exception for high level players from similar games transferring over. So becoming the youngest champ and becoming the champ in the shortest time are very similar. For comparison Magnus started playing chess at 5 and became WC at 22.

It's 100% possible to become a master starting as an adult, but it requires a certain sort of person - you're looking at thousands upon thousands of hours of difficult work paired alongside endless frustrations, obstacles, seriously low emotional lows the game can cause (think about how Ding feels right now, even if it wasn't a game for the title), and more.

The idea of becoming a master, especially as an adult, is far more appealing than the reality of it for most people.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#169

Post by wavemode » Thu, Dec 12, 2024, 5:26 PM UTC

tech_ken wrote: post #57

Why would you spoil match 14 for me like this T_T

I empathize. The first thing I did when I opened my eyes this morning was watch a recap of the game, since I knew something somewhere (social media, reddit, youtube, etc) would probably have a headline that would spoil it.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#170

Post by staunton » Thu, Dec 12, 2024, 5:28 PM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #166

ANewFormation wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really misses the key drama of what happened in the last game. Ding had a perfectly safe position where he could try to squeeze Gukesh pretty much endlessly with basically 0 risk. He then, completely inexplicably, went down a forced line which led to the final phase of the game. In this phase the position was drawn with perfect play, but that is completely irrelevant because it is really tough to play. And more…

Chess engines should come with another metric bar: "The twitchy-ness" of the position aka the gradient of primary eval metric as you pareto the possible moves from best to worst. The stronger this gradient, the more risky it is to play, and more changes to make a mistake.

This ignores the question how hard it is for a human to find the best (or a "good enough") move. It's easy to find games with 10 "only move" 's in a row where even a beginner could easily have played all if them.