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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

#401

Post by moi2388 »

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…

But in the last game it wasn’t about engine evaluation. It was a move that within 2 moves led to a known lost endgame..

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#402

Post by sireat »

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…

You will have to qualify this statement heavily.

We do not have any examples of a grandmaster who learned rules past age 20.

One of the 19th century greats presumably learned at 17, it was Blackburne - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Henry_Blackburne - he was GM strength.

There are a few late bloomer GMs today but what is common with them is that they were already decent just below expert players before 20.

You need 3 things to become a masters and up level player.

1. Grit - conscious mastery everyone agrees on that

2. Some natural talent - certainly to become super GM

3. Start early enough - 6,7 is norm, 10 probably okay, 15 is already almost late.

There is something special going on in the brains of young teenagers learning certain skills - violin, chess, some others. As Fischer said - he "just became good" in one year from around 13 to 14. Of course he was already pretty good at 13 but the magic happens around that time.

Basically, you train hard, maybe you take a little bit of time off and then you gain this amazing "unconscious mastery". This happens around ages 11-16 or so, depending how early you start.

Every good chess player has this "unconscious mastery" - that is they can play pretty well (2200+) even if drunk, dead tired, 1-min blitz, playing simul, etc etc - in other words without "thinking".

For some reason adult starters are unable to develop this unconscious mastery.

Apparently there are certain limits to neuroplasticity in adults. Of course I'd love to be proven wrong.

Disclaimer: I am an aging Fide Master who needed 1 point in 2 games(ie 2 draws) to become IM some years ago. I went out swinging but failed.

I also know many people who took up chess late in life and did not break 1800.

Also I know many people who are full time trainers and live chess full time, but they themselves can not go above 2200.

If pure grit was sufficient at later stages in life, we'd see a lot more progress, but we do not.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#403

Post by bluecalm »

darepublic wrote: post #372
MrMcCall wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Nepo and Magnus seem to be cut from a different cloth, although Magnus has never had a moment where he could demonstrate whether or not he can be humble, because he has always just crushed. Anish Giri kind of took a shot at Magnus (with respect to his retiring from classical chess) in his early commentary with Petr Leko a few days ago. People are funny, and one doesn't usually get to be where Ding and Guk…

Magnus described Ding's abilities as a 4/10 in the lead up to the match. In match commentary he regularly called the games "baffling" (as in baffingly bad) and regularly said they weren't strong grandmaster calibre. He is definitely very conceited and resents not being the world champion, even if it's only because of his absence.

Magnus was just being honest man. You seem to succumb to a common thinking fallacy that people who express criticism or negative opinions about something or someone must be jealous, conceited or just negative people in general. Meanwhile he was just expressing what is obvious to any strong player: Ding's level of play was subpar coming to the match, a league below elite at least. His play during the match was way below his peak level as well. Ding made 3 amateur player level blunders (hanging a bishop, missing basic tactics and missing transposition to a basic lost pawn endgame) in this match. Carlsen himself made 0 of those during 5 matches. Among his opponents Anand made 0 blunders of this caliber, Karjakin made 0, Caruana made 0 and Nepo made 2 (or 3 if you count the last game in which he was already playing for nothing as the match was decided)

Gukesh underperformed massively in comparison to his recent level (at the Candidates and the Olympiad). I am guessing due to nerves. That made the match closer than it should be. At the end of the day much better player won but it was way closer than it would normally be.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#404

Post by smolder »

paulsutter wrote: post #141
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…

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.

Okay, let's say we built the future to your satisfaction, and then what? We would probably play games. How much future do you need to build before it's okay to enjoy your time alive immersed in trivialities?

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#405

Post by rocho »

Sesse__ wrote: post #183
systemvoltage wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 is not a new request; many people, including engine authors, have suggested it throughout the years. The problem is that it's seemingly very hard to reliably quantify something like this and propagate it throughout the game tree.

You don't need to propagate it, you just need to show the gradient of the current position alongside with the classical evaluation, to give more context to the viewers.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#406

Post by somenameforme »

School-Cotton wrote: post #353
ANewFormation wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> It's 100% possible to become a master starting as an adult Do you have any examples of someone who has done it?

We might bicker on the meaning of "starting", but Mikhail Chigorin is definitely the most famous example. He was taught the moves at age 16 by a school teacher but in no way pursued the game until well into his twenties. He would then go on to compete at the highest level, including for the world championship.

While he's the most famous example, many famous older masters also started quite late. And I think one big difference was culture. There's a really great film about chess from 1925 (!!) here [1]. The tournament footage there is real btw - it was the Moscow tournament of 1925, and it even has a cameo by Capablanca!

The image of chess, and chess players, was quite different in the past. It was very much an adult's game. Now a days it has quite a different stereotype, and I think this impacts people's decisions on whether or not to seriously pursue it, with consequent impact on overall outcomes. Because in chess one of the biggest difficulties is when you hit your first serious plateau, which happens to everybody - it even happened to Magnus where his rating only declined for more than a year. If you lose confidence or start working poorly, that plateau will be where your improvement ends. Self belief and confidence is extremely important to keep improving.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN6m711ddZk

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#407

Post by register »

Worst WCC in the history of chess. I would have been able to draw the endgame in the final game myself ( 1800 FIDE ) just by shuffling the rook around. Apart from game one, Ding was a shade of his former self, and played most of the time to swap pieces even when he had the initiative.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#408

Post by bothandeach »

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…

Put yourself in Ding's place. OMG

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#409

Post by register »

darepublic wrote: post #372
MrMcCall wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Nepo and Magnus seem to be cut from a different cloth, although Magnus has never had a moment where he could demonstrate whether or not he can be humble, because he has always just crushed. Anish Giri kind of took a shot at Magnus (with respect to his retiring from classical chess) in his early commentary with Petr Leko a few days ago. People are funny, and one doesn't usually get to be where Ding and Guk…

Magnus described Ding's abilities as a 4/10 in the lead up to the match. In match commentary he regularly called the games "baffling" (as in baffingly bad) and regularly said they weren't strong grandmaster calibre. He is definitely very conceited and resents not being the world champion, even if it's only because of his absence.

Unfortunately Magnus is 100% right. Some of the mistakes and choices that were made by Ding are at chess club level strength. Sad to say but this is the truth. The mistake on the final game is absolutely orrible, something never seen in a WCC before. Another example in game 5, Ding plays brillantly and gains a small initiative and gains a pawn then, instead of trying to press, he gives two pawns back with the intention of entering an opposite color bishop endgame. You are not supposed to play to drawn when you are better. And there are several other instances of this in the match. Gukesh deserved the win for the fighting spirit but honestly the games were not at WCC level. I believe that Gukesh will redeem himself as Karpov did after winning for forfait against Fischer but today it's a sad day for chess.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#410

Post by somenameforme »

sireat wrote: post #402
ANewFormation wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You will have to qualify this statement heavily. We do not have any examples of a grandmaster who learned rules past age 20. One of the 19th century greats presumably learned at 17, it was Blackburne - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Henry_Blackburne - he was GM strength. There are a few late bloomer GMs today but what is common with them is that they were already decent just below expert players before 20. You…

I think you are leaving out #4. You need to have basically unbreakable confidence. Dealing with that horrible plateau that we all go through often breaks adult players. This [1] is Magnus' rating chart. It looks like an unstoppable line to the top until you zoom in and actually look.

In April 2004 Magnus was 2552. 15 months and 162 classical games later he was 2528. When a 'normal' adult plays 162 classical games, which is often only done over a period of many years, and only loses rating points, they assume they've hit their peak and their spirit breaks, or they try to 'fix' their training routine and just end up completely breaking it. This is one reason it's so much easier for children to improve - they [usually] don't really think about such things in the same way and just keep grinding away.

Chess improvement is brutal. You don't put in 'x' effort and get some proportional reward back. Chess improvement is very stair-step, you wake up one day and you're suddenly much stronger than you were the day before. But until you hit that next stair-step, you see little to nothing.

In my own case I only learned how the pieces move as an adult, at least in so much as 18 counts as an adult, and feel I've gained at least a moderate level of unconscious mastery - around 2600 bullet and 2500 blitz, with the overwhelming majority of that improvement coming well after 30, and I'm still improving!

[1] - https://ratings.fide.com/profile/1503014/chart

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