Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match • Hacker News Board

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#121

Post by Andrew_nenakhov » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 2:14 PM UTC

CalChris wrote: post #4

Game 6 was pretty tight and pretty good. You have to realize they were playing the last moves after midnight and they were playing them on increment, 30 seconds a move, basically rapid. Nepo's 'blunder' is an extremely natural looking move, 130. .. Qe6 and it only loses in 49 moves. But as was predicted before the match, if Nepo lost one it'd be an avalanche. Nepo only squeezed in because the Candidates tournament wa…

> Nepo only squeezed in because ..

He "squeezed in" because he won the pretenders tournament, beating all other challengers who played on exact same schedule as him.

He also played incredibly well until that loss in Game 6 demoralised him, unfortunately.

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#122

Post by glenstein » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 2:15 PM UTC

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #55

wraptile wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd completely disagree with you here. Chess is only there because of history but it checks none of successful esport checkmarks. One might even argue that it has been a "solved" game for decades which is the opposite of what you want for a successful esports game. One of the most important esport features is updates be it meta changes or new patches. That's why our current esport games are so huge even though they a…

Chess is "solved by computers" today, as in they will outplay the best humans, but that's in part because chess provides you with perfect information about the enemy's position at all time. Most (all?) esport games use fog-of-war (RTS) or level design (FPS) or some other mechanism that hides the enemy from you. Without that, esports games have also been "solved by computers" for decades. There is of course a chess va…

Solved by computers has a formal meaning, pertaining to absolute knowledge of the best move in every situation. My understanding is that chess not solved in that sense.

I understand what you mean though, so fair enough. But I think it's generally only worth being nitpicky about definitions if it's important to maintain them and I think in this case formally solved is one of the important ones.

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#123

Post by Someone » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

ekabod wrote: post #29

disillusioned wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a not-even-really-observer casual observer, game 6 must have just broke him. Even in those rare moments where he had played to an advantage, he unforced-error-blundered it away mere moments later. There were at least two instances where Magnus was so stunned at the nature and plainness of the blunder that he had to collect himself in a "am I walking into a trap, you couldn't have just made that mistake" sort of wa…

Do you really think Nepo would be at that level without mental endurance?

Before the match, Carlsen said about Nepo:

“It remains to be seen, of course, if Ian will be more resilient than he has been in the past if he is down”

So yes, it seems he has a bit of a problem in that department.

(https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/nov/24/magnus-carlsen...)

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#124

Post by glenstein » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 2:22 PM UTC

WJW wrote: post #113

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chess is "solved by computers" today, as in they will outplay the best humans, but that's in part because chess provides you with perfect information about the enemy's position at all time. Most (all?) esport games use fog-of-war (RTS) or level design (FPS) or some other mechanism that hides the enemy from you. Without that, esports games have also been "solved by computers" for decades. There is of course a chess va…

If we take it outside the esports realm, you could say the vast majority of sports has been "solved" since cars are trivially faster than humans, trebuchets are way better for throwing things over long distances, hydraulic cylinders beat anyone at lifting heavy stuff, etc. Nobody is advocating to stop holding athletics events because machines can do the specific task better, so why should we stop holding chess events…

Well I agree with your conclusion, I do think chess is meaningfully different from your examples.

Chess is often played on software and tracked on software, and my understanding is that there are sometimes issues related to cheating.

You can't similarly use the strength of hydraulic cylinders to aid your strategic skills in a heavy lifting contest, or trebuchet skills, etc

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#125

Post by semi-extrinsic » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

glenstein wrote: post #122

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chess is "solved by computers" today, as in they will outplay the best humans, but that's in part because chess provides you with perfect information about the enemy's position at all time. Most (all?) esport games use fog-of-war (RTS) or level design (FPS) or some other mechanism that hides the enemy from you. Without that, esports games have also been "solved by computers" for decades. There is of course a chess va…

Solved by computers has a formal meaning, pertaining to absolute knowledge of the best move in every situation. My understanding is that chess not solved in that sense. I understand what you mean though, so fair enough. But I think it's generally only worth being nitpicky about definitions if it's important to maintain them and I think in this case formally solved is one of the important ones.

Yeah, you are absolutely right, this is why I put it in scare quotes. (I felt that this distinction, though important, was not relevant to the point I was making.)

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#126

Post by NohatCoder » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 3:18 PM UTC

v64 wrote: post #2

This match was notable for a number of reasons: 1) Game 6 lasted 136 moves, making it the longest game in world championship history, surpassing the 124 move game 5 of Korchnoi-Karpov in 1978. 2) Carlsen's victory in game 6 was also the first decisive match game (excluding tiebreakers) since game 10 of Carlsen's defense against Karjakin in 2016. Carlsen's defense against Caruana in 2018 featured 12 draws before movin…

3) That depends on what games you count and how you define lopsided. I'd say a reasonable quantification of lopsidedness is [winning score]/[games played].

By that metric Carlsen-Nepomniachtchi is fairly lopsided at 68.2%, Capablanca-Lasker is only 64.3%.

The disputed era FIDE world championship final in 2000 had Anand beating Shirov with 3.5 of 4, a whooping 87.5%. But you might no count that as it was not a traditional long 1v1 match.

So if we discount that we have to go all the way back to 1910 Lasker-Janowski, 9.5 of 11, 86.4% to find a more lopsided match.

The only other 1v1 world championship matches that have been more lopsided are:

1896-1897 Lasker-Steinitz 12.5 of 17, 73.5%.

1907 Lasker-Marshall 11.5 of 15, 76,7%.

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#127

Post by l33t2328 » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

nvarsj wrote: post #91

magpi3 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously it did in this case. I think the use of GOAT is common in the U.S. but not elsewhere, and HN draws an international community.

It’s common in esports, internationally.

It’s common in all sports internationally.

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#128

Post by manquer » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

lofatdairy wrote: post #62

manquer wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing for draws is easier than playing for wins. At the world top level it is easier to try and draw games, so it doesn't that say that much really, Caruana's draws were not that remarkable or memorable as well. He is a skilled player no doubt, and impressiven in his own right, but his 2018 performance is not a good way to gauge that .

I think this comment underrates not only Caruana's strength but also Carlsen's ability to navigate the incredibly difficult positions Caruana placed him in. Sure, no game from 2018 can compare against game 6 from this year, but game 6 was a historic game, but it arose from a subtle position that just as easily could have been played in 2018. I think game 8 most easily demonstrates how Caruana fought incredibly hard t…

Players play not to loose all the time that is nothing wrong or unusual about it, if both players play not to lose most of the game you are going to likely have a draw at the top level.

Playing conservatively or defensively doesn't mean no prep or less work or less talent, it means only taking less risk.

Magnus is unusual for his aggressive playing style and makes piece sacrifices for activity while also being able to compute precisely better than most especially in the middle game.

The play styles become very different when same players play Armageddon ( black has draw odds , i.e. wins if it's a draw) so they can play more aggressively if they have more to lose .

IMO chess should default to armageddon if it wants to be better spectator sport.

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#129

Post by manquer » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

busyant wrote: post #105

manquer wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing for draws is easier than playing for wins. At the world top level it is easier to try and draw games, so it doesn't that say that much really, Caruana's draws were not that remarkable or memorable as well. He is a skilled player no doubt, and impressiven in his own right, but his 2018 performance is not a good way to gauge that .

> Playing for draws is easier than playing for wins. This is nonsense. Neither Caruana nor Carlsen were playing for draws.

Not playing for the win aggressivly enough ends up becoming playing for a draw ? .

At the world championship you would want to play conservatively , defensively and wait for a mistake to strike, there is a lot to lose if you try to force a mistake and play more aggressively.

It is not cheating or against the spirit of the game to do so, world championship matches have almost always been filled with draws.

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#130

Post by manquer » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 5:24 PM UTC

usehackernews wrote: post #51

manquer wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perfect ? It is the one of easiest online games to cheat! Very hard to play professionally online when it so easy to cheat . Online chess( pandemic apart) would never be considered equivalent to tournaments over a board

Its easy to cheat, but also easy to get caught. You can’t cheat yourself to a high score. The same engines that people cheat with are the same engines used to detect cheating. If you’re using an engine to play your moves, you’ll be caught very quickly.

I can imagine training ML models that can imitate human play closely enough and even your play specifically to increase the odds you win.

Detecting a stockfish moves over enough sample size is easy sure, but detecting a engine which is designed to imitate human play not make the best move everytime is not easy with number of moves a human would play in their lifetime.