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Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

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Re: Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

#161

Post by light_hue_1 »

Chess is in such a sad situation again.

The world champion (which is determined for classical chess) isn't even remotely the best player. He's barely even in the top 10 and may soon fall out of that too. In terms of strength he's the weakest player to win in half a century even in absolute terms. And I can't think of any time in modern history of chess when such a low ranked player won.

We really need to do something to reinvigorate the game. Chess world championships used to be front page events. The winners would be stars and everyone knew their name. Now, even I don't bother to follow anymore.

Re: Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

#163

Post by BrtByte »

freetime2 wrote: post #28

How long do chess players typically remain at their peak for? According to wikipedia, Magnus is currently 35. Is it impressive to be winning at 35? Would we expect to see his performance drop off in the next 5-10 years? Even if he is still capable mentally and physically, I would think the stress of training and competing at that level must get old after a while.

I wouldn't be surprised if Carlsen remains competitive for another decade, especially in formats that rely more on intuition and less on memorizing massive opening prep

Re: Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

#164

Post by BrtByte »

somenameforme wrote: post #77
freetime2 wrote: post #28

How long do chess players typically remain at their peak for? According to wikipedia, Magnus is currently 35. Is it impressive to be winning at 35? Would we expect to see his performance drop off in the next 5-10 years? Even if he is still capable mentally and physically, I would think the stress of training and competing at that level must get old after a while.

On average players start declining in their mid to late thirties, just about the age of Magnus (and Hikaru). But even with that decline, it's not like they simply can't play anymore. Drag Kasparov out of retirement and he's still going to be an extremely strong player, even in his 60s. And a lot probably comes with environmental rather than physical issues. Staying at the highest level in chess requires never-ending…

Yeah, I think the motivation angle is hugely underrated. At that level everyone is already insanely strong, so the difference often comes down to who's still willing to grind 6-8 hours a day on prep for marginal gains

Re: Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

#165

Post by BrtByte »

saucymew wrote: post #9

It feels like the cohort GM player pool is mentally cooked against Magnus. Youngsters like Lazavik during the Speed Chess Championship or Sindarov in Freestyle were the most recent convincing wins against Magnus, but the historical mental edge that Magnus comes into each game after beating the brakes out of everyone is hard to overcome. Magnus' time will come! But not today.

Magnus it often feels like opponents aren't just playing the position, they're playing the idea of Magnus

Re: Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

#166

Post by bjourne »

freetime2 wrote: post #28

How long do chess players typically remain at their peak for? According to wikipedia, Magnus is currently 35. Is it impressive to be winning at 35? Would we expect to see his performance drop off in the next 5-10 years? Even if he is still capable mentally and physically, I would think the stress of training and competing at that level must get old after a while.

He relinquished the world champion title because he thought defending it was boring (and not paying well). So one can say he is already past his peak. Chess is a mental game after all. But it will take many years before his rating drops noticeably though.

Re: Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

#167

Post by BrtByte »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #161

Chess is in such a sad situation again. The world champion (which is determined for classical chess) isn't even remotely the best player. He's barely even in the top 10 and may soon fall out of that too. In terms of strength he's the weakest player to win in half a century even in absolute terms. And I can't think of any time in modern history of chess when such a low ranked player won. We really need to do something…

The title has always been about winning a specific match under specific conditions, not necessarily about who's 1 on rating at that exact moment

Re: Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

#168

Post by nilslindemann »

squigz wrote: post #158
nilslindemann wrote: post #72

It is not freestyle, it is "play a random position chosen by an algorithm" style. This is boring. Let the players freely place their pieces in the start position, that would be of interest.

I wouldn't say it's "boring" (hence the downvotes, I imagine) - but this does seem like an interesting idea, to let the players choose their positions. Does such a style exist?

It is called Placement chess, you can play it on PyChess. [1]

As far as I know no tournament ever used this rule.

[1] https://www.pychess.org/variants/placement

Re: Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

#169

Post by mhitza »

haunter wrote: post #10

Here are the replays https://lichess.org/broadcast/fide-freestyle-chess-world-cha...

What are the rules of castling in chess, and why is there castling in chess 960!?

I somewhat remeber reading that this format is about playing against book opening, and I thought there is no castling.

Magnus does a castling from king d1 rook h1 which I didn't even know its an allowed move! https://lichess.org/broadcast/fide-freestyle-chess-world-cha...

Re: Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

#170

Post by matwood »

somenameforme wrote: post #102
epolanski wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's merely mental albeit it seems like even nervous Carlsen is cooler than his very focused opponents (see game 3 vs Fabiano where caruana had a completely winning position after carlsens blunder). Carlsen has spent the core of his career mastering two aspects historically underlooked aspects of the game. The first is the endgame, and there isn't much to say there. He's by far the best end game player…

They had a heart rate monitor at one of the freestyle events which physically affirms what you're saying here. Carlsen's heart rate was barely above resting while his opponents were invariably like they were running a marathon. Even when he was losing, he remained calmer than when his opponents were in normal positions. I think that should be a normal part of chess competition. It provides some really interesting met…

> When your heart is pounding for hours and the cortisol flowing, you literally get physically exhausted.

Not only that, when the body enters flight response the brain makes mistakes.

When I started jiujitsu many years ago someone asked the professor what's the biggest difference between a white belt and black belt. He thought for a second and said something along the lines that everyone loses, even black belts. The difference is that a black belt will be calm and able to think of solutions until the very end, whereas someone who is untrained panics, isn't able to think, and makes mistakes.

Staying calm is a lesson for life really.

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