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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

#461
post #335
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but it's a start on adding nuance to eval beyond minmax

Is it? TBH it sounds like "climbing a tree is a start on getting to the moon beyond just jumping up and down". Yes, it does "more". But whether it will actually get you to the desired end state is highly dubious. Nobody knows if that will make chess bots more human-like, despite decades of research into the topic.

This is about eval nuance, not how bots play

Bots playing like humans is done by training them to play like humans: https://lichess.org/@/lichess/blog/introducing-maia-a-human-...

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#462
post #103
post #39

I was struck by Ding's thoughtfulness, objectivity and humility when asked how he felt after the match (while clearly utterly dejected): > How do you feel? > I think I played my best tournament of the year. I think it was a fair tournament in the end. I have no regrets. > Any message for fans? > Thank you, I will continue to play, I hope I can show strength like this time. Gukesh was equally as objective, humble, and…

> These attributes are what makes chess and its superstars so appealing. I would say that what you just described is usually called "sportsmanship" and is pretty common in most sports (with exceptions of course, but at least most would agree that it's an ideal worth aspiring to)

Not when Hans or Hikaru are playing.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must not follow the NBA or MLB then. One of the major narratives of the most recent NBA postseason was how unfortunate it was that the Eastern Conference was so plagued with injuries that it limited the quality of competition, and it frequently has been a major narrative. Off the top of my head the recent Milwaukee Bucks championship was noted as happening in a context where their strongest competitor, the Brookl…

> You must not follow the NBA or MLB then. On the contrary, the NBA was one of the sports I had in mind when I made my comment. (frankly I'm not clear which part of that comment you found factually incorrect, such that you would write something like this) > One of the major narratives of the most recent NBA postseason was how unfortunate it was that the Eastern Conference was so plagued with injuries that it limited…

Looks to be the difference between few and a few. A small parse error that wasn't caught later on. I've had that happen to me.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 is literally ~50 ELO above Gukesh. Do you have any concept of how much that is at the very top? EDIT: Just to preempt: This is not say that Gukesh doesn't have a very bright future or couldn't surpass Magnus' top rating. Gukesh could definitely do that... but currently neither Gukesh or Ding are even particularly close to Magnus' (current!) level.

Ironically, in the match that Gukesh won and that made him world champion, he lost rating points, inceasing his distance to Magnus.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#466
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Again I don't see them saying that about this match. They were using that as an example to illustrate that this distinction, between intellectualized high level play on the one hand, in a human touch on the other, is not something that shows up in the context of the NBA. They were not suggesting this was a description of the chess match between Gukesh and Liren.

I was suggesting that this year's chess championship was relatively boring, and that’s OK. However there are multiple dimensions between boring and exciting and in some ways this match was very far from relatively boring. And I wouldn’t say that it is boring without the relatively qualifier, no way.

It was relatively boring on the level of the momentum shifting back and forth. That is, if you sampled the game every hour, you would find more excitement in the median on some other chess championships. That doesn't make it less impressive or the outcome less inspiring, or the story of the players. Momentum shifting a lot makes for an exciting championship. The 2018 championships between Carlsen & Caruana were much more exciting IMO, despite having a more predictable outcome also IMO.

Now, really none of these championships are boring, unless you start comparing them and introduce the term relatively boring. All the players are playing with spirit, or else they wouldn't be playing at this level. Any perceived methodicalness doesn't make some player too much like an AI.

Of course, not everyone is going to agree with me, and I accept that. I also think that it’s totally fine that Magnus Carlsen stopped participating, but another commenter thinks it’s a travesty. I agree to disagree.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

Your couple of comments on this thread are insightful, I will be watching that documentary! Cheers! What have you focused on in your chess learning to get to where you've gotten? I presume - everything?

It depends on the level. The big early gains to get to let's say 2200+ were basically exclusively tactics. You really have to get your board vision to quite a decent level before the other parts of learning really start kicking in, and that's going to take thousands of hours of tactics. An important part of tactics is to ensure you actually work out the entire line - instead of just playing the obvious tactical idea, like Bxh7 or whatever, and going from there.

This was paired with 'analyzing' games of classical master (Alekhine, Capablanca, and so on) and then comparing my analysis against master analysis in plain English. Older books like Alekhine's best games books, or the various master vs amateur books (Euwe's is amazing) are a great resource here. Chessbase also now has a feature 'replay training' built in that would be really good for this. Load up a game, click on replay training, and you can basically play guess-the-move with automatic feedback in terms of how your move compares to the game as played (without revealing that move), as well as the top computer move.

It's also important to start appreciating typical piece repositioning ideas - for instance the rook lift is something that isn't very intuitive at first but radically reshapes many positions. If that rook on a1 heads to a3 and then on over to g3, a quiet Italian position can go from uninspiring to an unstoppable kingside attack really fast. The same is true of all the other pieces - for instance in the typical Najdorf structure with pawns on e5 and d6, knights on f6/d7, and bishop on e7 - if that bishop can go from e7 to e.g. b6 (so long as d6 remains solid enough), it can suddenly become a monster piece.

A key is to avoid excessive opening study until much later. It's a trap because you can spend an infinite amount of time learning openings, and you will get some wins without ever even leaving book, which feels pretty dang rewarding, but in the longrun it will stunt your growth. I remember at one point, sometime around 1800, delusionally thinking that the main difference between me and Kasparov was his encyclopedic opening knowledge. A quick glance at Hikaru doing puzzle rush will emphasize that's not quite right, of course this was long before GMs streaming was a thing! On the equal but opposite side, I also would recommend avoiding 'system' openings as a means of not having to worry about openings because the ideas and plans you see and learn in classical openings help improve your understanding much more than seeing an e.g. Colle each and every game.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

Your examples are all people from 100 years ago when the game was completely different. Not a ringing endorsement of the claim that it's 100% possible (present tense). If Chigorin were magically transported to the present day he would not be a professional level player.

I don't know what you mean by "professional level" which is quite the shift from titled player, as you originally proposed. Kramnik, for instance, has estimated Steinitz (in modern times) would be around 2400 and Lasker around 2700. [1] Chigorin was +24−27=8 against Steinitz, and +1 -8 =4 against Lasker. He would definitely be a master.

There are plenty of examples in modern times as well, but the problem we face is you're only going to run into people who publicize themselves unless you just dig through each master level player in the USCF, FIDE or whatever database. For instance I know Rolf Wetzell wrote a book about his journey from class player to becoming a master at the age of 50! Then there was Michael de la Maza who wrote a book about going from 1100 or something to 2000 as an adult, but retired at that point because he didn't want to put in the work to go further. I'm sure if you dig through the databases, you can find far more striking examples than these two - again those two I only know because they both wrote books, and of all people who achieve significant success as adults and write, only a tiny percent will publish books about it!

And in modern times another group you might run into is people like me. I started as an adult, have only played one rated tournament otb, but am around 2500 blitz online and would certainly hit master if I actually bothered to play more rated events, but have never really gotten around to it for a mixture of cost (living outside of major chess events means $$$ for travel + housing + tourney costs) and time, even moreso now a days with children!

[1] - https://www.chess.com/blog/Spektrowski/vladimir-kramnik-from...

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#469

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 is a stereotype of a prima donna. He’s always condescending and tried to destroy Hans Niemann’s career because Hans had the nerve to beat him once. I think he wants to be crowned World Champion without going through all the trouble of playing the games, and he’s annoyed that it’s not turning out like that.

Re: Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

#470

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?

Doesn’t seem fair to have unequal starting points.
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