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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

#271

Post by nottorp »

hilux wrote: post #254
nottorp wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose in the usual lichess watchers bubble, everyone knows who Gukesh is and how old/young he is :)

Why the snark? Is it so surprising that spectators following a world championship match in any sport would know something about the competitors?

Because HN is a different bubble so whoever posted this could have elaborated.

The article itself is written assuming everyone knows who Gukesh is and says nothing about him, just his most recent matches that got him the title.

Definitely written for a bubble.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#272

Post by stormfather »

veidelis wrote: post #165

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.…

Absolutely. It would be AMAZING if no prep was possible. Memorizing engine lines 20 deep is nothing to be proud of.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#273

Post by qq66 »

dorgo wrote: post #253
qq66 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making a computer play like a 1300-rated human is harder than making a computer beat Magnus Carlsen.

Take the computer which beats Magnus and restrain it to never make the best move in a position. Expand this to N best moves as needed to reach 1300 rating.

That's kind of what they do for "training" bots and it produces something which plays NOTHING like a 1300-rated human.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#274

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

Just the World Champion. Youngest FIDE World Champion (the title Gukesh just won) was Ruslan Ponomaryov, at 6681 days old. Gukesh is currently 6772 days old.

(And no, we shouldn't go arguing that Ponomaryov wasn't a real champion because the indisputably best player chose not to play sometimes earlier and created all that mess, because currently we're in exactly same situation.)

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#275

Post by SpaceManNabs »

qq66 wrote: post #236
tomatovole wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 equal…

Making a computer play like a 1300-rated human is harder than making a computer beat Magnus Carlsen.

This is really interesting because i ran into a pokemon bot the other day were its training led to calibration of 50% winrste at all levels of play on Pokémon showdown. It was a complete accident.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#276

Post by jeremyjh »

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…

Yes and I think losing in this way is the most fair result. Ding has gone for a draw in every game where the score was tied, even with white (the first game, which he won as black was just a gift from Gukesh). Today, once again with white he could have pressed the position and played for more. Instead he sacrificed a pawn to play for a draw, and had the more difficult game to play even if it was always 0s. If he'd tried to play for a win today, almost certainly it would have been a draw anyway.

While I was really happy to see Ding's fighting spirit in this match, and to have recovered much of his former strength, I've been rooting for Gukesh since around the half-way point just because Ding has not been playing superior positions for a win. I just don't think thats how a champion plays, even if its a sound strategy to try to win in tie-breaks.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#277

Post by stormfather »

rybosworld wrote: post #119

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 dra…

I agree! It's a shame you're being downvoted just for expressing your opinion. Come on HN, downvoting is not for expressing disagreement...

And yeah. People saying this was exciting chess are lemmings. It was absolutely not. It was yet another boring draw-fest. The format incentivizes prep and penalizes creativity and risk-taking. If my child got very good at that it would be hard to be proud. What a waste of human spirit! Why would I want to watch two extremely smart young men waste months of their lives on this for the sake of boring us? It's perverse. Let's move on to Chess960 already. THAT would be exciting.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#278

Post by jeremyjh »

ANewFormation wrote: post #168
neaden wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

I've only heard of one person ever doing it, and that was in the 80s when the average age was older anyway.

I think you've got to reach 1800 by your mid or maybe late teens to have a chance really.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#279

Post by hilux »

glenstein wrote: post #270
hilux wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody says "Hey, at least this has a human touch! I'm sick of basketball video games." if the NBA finals are relatively boring one year. Complete strawman. You are one of very few people who think this match was "relatively boring."

I'm not seeing the strawman. You did say: >In reality, chess is a fighting contest between two flesh-and-blood humans And they weren't suggesting that the match was boring so far as I can tell, but more generally, they were responding to your idea that high level play is intellectualized in a way that loses the human touch.

By "strawman" I'm referring to use of "relatively boring" in the NBA parallel, as if that's a generally accepted description of this match.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#280

Post by nurettin »

neaden wrote: post #147
optimalsolver wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone tried playing one of these "chess engines" against a human? We may have an opportunity to cut out the middleman here (no pun intended).

To be clear the high level chess engines are so far above the best humans that there isn't a point anymore.

Engines are unbelievable in open positions, so GMs who know that they are up against an engine usually just pawn lock the center and wait for the engine to start sacrificing in order to avoid a draw.
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