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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

#311

Post by hmm37 »

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…

It's strange/crazy because Ding even purposefully even gave up his B pawn, just so he could exchange queens and be in a 3 and 2 pawn game with a bishop and rook still in the game. Gukesh just tried playing out the game to the last second making easy moves while Ding suffered.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#312

Post by WJW »

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.

Even 1300s sometimes make the best move. Sometimes the best move is really easy to see or even mandatory, like if you are in check and MUST take that checking piece. Sometimes the best move is only obvious if you can look 20 moves ahead. Sometimes the best move is only obvious if you can look 5 moves ahead, but the line is so forcing that even 1300s can look that far ahead.

Despite decades of research, nobody has found a good way to make computers play like humans.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#313

Post by hmm37 »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #308
jeremyjh wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tr…

I think this is an unfair characterisation of how Ding played. The issue wasn't lack of ambition, but lack of confidence leading to misevaluation. Judging from the long thinks and how he's played in recent years, it's clear he doesn't fully trust his calculation. But I think he deserves credit for his ambition, actually. If he really wanted to play for draws he wouldn't be playing the French or the English. He'd be a…

His long thinks is thought to be due to the fact that he simply hasn't been preparing. He stated he prepared for about 3 weeks for the championship match which was considered insanely low amount of time. But Caruana has stated he would be amazed if he even preped that long based on his games, and he always just looked like he was winging it every game.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#315

Post by jeremyjh »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #308
jeremyjh wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tr…

I think this is an unfair characterisation of how Ding played. The issue wasn't lack of ambition, but lack of confidence leading to misevaluation. Judging from the long thinks and how he's played in recent years, it's clear he doesn't fully trust his calculation. But I think he deserves credit for his ambition, actually. If he really wanted to play for draws he wouldn't be playing the French or the English. He'd be a…

I watched the press conferences, and I agree that misevaluation was a big part of the problem. But even in game 6 for example, there is no way he could think he was not better after black refused the queen trade, and he just kept pressing for that trade. So yes, call that lack of confidence - but its still not what I want to see in the world champion.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#316

Post by SpaceManNabs »

School-Cotton wrote: post #298
SpaceManNabs wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not hard to make a chess bot that plays at a 1300 strength, i.e. its rating would converge to 1300 if it were allowed to compete. But it will not play like a 1300-rated human. It would play like a superhuman genius on most moves and then make beginner-level blunders at random moments. Making one that realistically plays like a human is an unsolved problem.

ah that makes sense. thanks!

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#317

Post by kelipso »

stormfather wrote: post #263
awongh wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5-22- so 17 years instead of 11. Quite a difference! Can any of that be put down to advances in training tech that wasn't around when Magnus started playing?

He's also not really the world champion. The world champion just got bored of winning so hard.

That’s his excuse anyway. If you can’t hold on to the title, no matter the actual or stated reasons, then you are simply not the World Champion.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#318

Post by jedberg »

judofyr wrote: post #231
jedberg wrote: post #201

Since there seem to be a lot of chess nerds in here, I have a question. Why didn't Fischer chess ever take off? A lot of comments in here amount to "he went slightly off book and it was amazing!". Wouldn't Fischer chess take the game to a whole new level, making it so that all the opening books are useless and the midgame requires much more improv?

Many different reasons: 1. The biggest one is probably that there is already so much interest and depth in regular chess. "Everyone" focuses on it, so that's what your friends know and where you can find competitions and community. This leads to a chicken-egg problem where it hard to kick it off. It's basically like another board game. 2. Some opening positions in Fischer chess are quite awkward: The pieces are on sq…

Interesting, I read that link. It looks like they specifically call out Fischer chess: "all matches are played under Fischer-Random (Chess960) rules,"

So he really is just trying to build a tournament format around Fischer chess. That's pretty cool. I hope it takes off.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#319

Post by mcmoor »

screye wrote: post #233
paulsutter wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chess really baffles me Most of the more sophisticated people I know are completely disinterested in sports. Not that they dislike sports, it just never occupies their mind. Sports is a purposeless activity for kids Chess is different from sports in only one way: the loss of very intelligent capable people who could be helping to create the future. Chess is even more tragic than the olympics.

Disagree, but I have a funny anecdote in your favor. My university's top Dota player was a 2.x GPA slacker who did nothing but play games all day. Guy was going to continue wasting-away by going to a mediocre foreign grad school, but he got his admit revoked because of stupid visa reasons. Life hits him in the face and for 1 year, he quits dota and studies. Goes in, bags 99.99 percentile score in exam with 300k appli…

Funnily one of the two times world champion is a doctor who only plays competitively whenever there's world championship (And not the regional tournaments)

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#320

Post by dhosek »

dhosek wrote: post #107
gnaman wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for anyone wondering hes 18

So my son has 7 years to set a new record. (I’m not really expecting that, of course.)

I told him about the match and told him he only had 7 years to be the new youngest chess world champion and he told me that he didn’t want to be a world champion, he just wanted to play. I approve of this philosophy.
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