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Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title

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Re: Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title

#141

Post by toolz »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #84
matsemann wrote: post #2

Time to change the format. It's understandable you don't want to spend your whole career preparing for these long matches all the time. For the challenger it's 6 months of preparing, but for Carlsen it would've been his 6th time of preparing for this in a few years. They have also become less entertaining. 12 matches is long (edit, 14 now), but no one dares to take any risks. Caruana was just defensive and all games…

> And against Nepo it was a steamroll, understandably meeting him again isn't that exciting. The first half of the match wasn't even close to a steamroll. It's just Ian broke mentally after that famous 6th game. The candidate tournament showed that he had more than recovered from that loss and I think he would be in a much better shape to challenge Carlsen again. Also, with Carlsen's current attitude, it is quite pos…

nepo at candidates was in my opinion favored to beat magnus...he dominated the candidates harder than anyone else has in the history of the candidate matches - and it was not an easy pool of candidates, either. Sure, there were a lot of sloppy games, but only a couple vs nepo - with one of them being after the 1st place spot had been guaranteed.

If nepo plays like he did in the candidates, I would not be so quick to favor magnus.

Re: Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title

#143

Post by arbitrage »

dwighttk wrote: post #120
sweezyjeezy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chess, in theory, with absolutely perfect play, is a draw. True, but that doesn't mean that you can't treat chess like other sports and try to incentivize wins - for example giving win/loss/draw a 3:1:0 point ratio. The world championship is not a good format to decide "who's the best at chess", and anyway we already know who that is right now. Might as well treat it as a spectator sport and add some drama in my op…

How would point ratio help if every game is a draw? Maybe if it was a round robin tournament that would help top two players competing for wins against less highly rated people and then drawing against each other. Like Liverpool and Man City

My feel is that from a game theoretical approach, a 3:1:0 scoring ratio would encourage enough players to at least try for a win sometimes that it would restore some of the interest and competitiveness to the sport.

Re: Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title

#144

Post by prionassembly »

smitty1e wrote: post #9

Props to MC for going out literally at the top of his game. As Kipling noted: "Once in a while / We can finish in style".

Oh, that's fancier than my ready-at-hand qute for these situations, which was 90s-girl-rocker Ani DiFranco: "so I'll walk the plank / and I'll jump with a smile / if I'm gonna go down / I'm gonna do it with style".

Re: Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title

#145

Post by stolenmerch »

SeanLuke wrote: post #92

It might be worth mentioning a famous abdication which caused a lot of consternation, albeit in another game. I love this story but may have gotten some details wrong. Marion Tinsley was world checkers champion from 1955-1958, then took a break, then again from 1975-1991, when he resigned in protest (at age 64 ). He was utterly dominant; indeed it is hard to think of a competitor in all of history more dominant over…

I just read this story in Jordan Ellenberg's book, "Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else" as part of the section on decision trees, evaluating state, etc. Tinsley is the GOAT.

Re: Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title

#146

Post by Lapsa »

rawoke083600 wrote: post #23

Honest question: Would somebody at this "level" be better than good at something like StarCraft ? Noted that SC takes more than "just strategy" i.e micro comes to mind. Like I would pay good money to see Serral Vs Magnus, maybe after some coaching sessions with Harstem ? :D ? EDIT: Just out of curiosity will there be anything else that someone at this level is "exceptional" good at besides chess ?

no, dude. it would take at least couple years of intense training for Serral v Magnus to be somewhat interesting

Re: Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title

#147

Post by mbauman »

fairity wrote: post #88

My read on the situation is that Magnus had two goals: 1) remain world champion 2) get to 2900 elo #1 got in the way of #2 because all the elite grandmasters constantly focus throughout the year on preparing for Magnus, which creates a headwind in the non-world champion tournaments where he must perform well to reach 2900. My guess is he will focus on 2900. Then, come back as world champion. Then, retire after 7 cham…

> #1 got in the way of #2 because all the elite grandmasters...

... also focus on grabbing draws. Draws against lower rated players (that is, everyone for Magnus) drop your elo. Winning the world championship may very well drop Mangus' elo score if it involves only a handful of wins and lots of draws.

Re: Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title

#148

Post by tzs »

mikaeluman wrote: post #61

The candidates might as well be the world championship. But they need to make sure wins give you e.g. 3 points and draws only 0.5. Even in the candidates this year Ian - having obtained a nice lead - played drawing lines with white to perfection. I don't blame him, it was the right decision. The incentive structure needs to change. Even after a draw, the concept of Armageddon games to give another half point would be…

> But they need to make sure wins give you e.g. 3 points and draws only 0.5.

As black under such a system I might be more strongly incentivized to go for the draw than under the current system. I'm already starting at a disadvantage by having black, so pressing for the win is extra risky, and if I do go for it and lose my opponent gains 3 points on me.

If you want to reduce draws by playing with points you probably should included something that takes into accounts white's advantage. You want to make sure white has a strong incentive to push for the win, which in turn also increases the chances white will go too far, giving black a good chance to also push for the win.

For example, asymmetric scoring such as black gets 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, and white gets 2 points for a win, 0 points for a draw. That system was tried in a couple or so tournaments around 2005 or so.

As far as the format goes, I wonder if a small tournament coupled with something like the promotion/relegation system used in many soccer leagues would be good?

Have a Champions Tournament that consists of 4 players that play a double round robin (or maybe a quadruple round robin?) for the World Championship. The participants are the current Champion, the runner-up from the prior Champions Tournament, and the top two from the Candidates Tournament.

The Candidates Tournament would include the 3rd and 4th place players from the prior Champions Tournament, the 3rd and 4th place players from the prior Candidates Tournament, and some players who are invited based on rating, World Cup, and Grand Prix results.

Maybe also make the Candidates bigger than it is now, say 10 or 12 players. That would be too long to hold as a single event, so split it. Play some of the games as part of the World Cup event and some as part of the Grand Prix events.

Re: Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title

#149

Post by jonahbenton »

stolenmerch wrote: post #145
SeanLuke wrote: post #92

It might be worth mentioning a famous abdication which caused a lot of consternation, albeit in another game. I love this story but may have gotten some details wrong. Marion Tinsley was world checkers champion from 1955-1958, then took a break, then again from 1975-1991, when he resigned in protest (at age 64 ). He was utterly dominant; indeed it is hard to think of a competitor in all of history more dominant over…

I just read this story in Jordan Ellenberg's book, "Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else" as part of the section on decision trees, evaluating state, etc. Tinsley is the GOAT.

Oh, intriguing title. How is the book?

Re: Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title

#150

Post by chongli »

NhanH wrote: post #55
enugu wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a very short gap, say a week, after the Candidates tournament to the Championship match to avoid long opening preparations?

That just forces 8 players in the candidates to do their preparation BEFORE the tournament. Economically speaking, that won't be enough time for advertising, setting the venue or getting sponsor up either. It matters who plays in the WCC match before you can do either of those things. We still don't know when or where the match for this cycle will happen even now.

Not only does it force the 8 players to prepare before the tournament, it forces the champion to prepare against all 8 players, making their task even worse!
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