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

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#21

Post by CalChris » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 6:12 AM UTC

AmericanChopper wrote: post #12

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…

> But Magnus is still king and even Magnus would take another 10 years of dominance to claim GOAT from Kasparov. Some big opinions here. Magnus has 5 undisputed titles. Only Lasker is ahead of him on 6, and Botvinnik ties him on 5. Vishy also ties him on 5, but one of those was from when the title split in the 90s. Karpov and Kasparov each have 6 titles, but two of Kasparov’s and 3 of Karpov’s come from when the titl…

Kasparov has the longest tenure as world #1 from 1984 to 2005, 21 years. Magnus is currently at 12. Kasparov has the most consecutive tournament victories at 15 and 9 years of winning every super tournament.

Comparing Magnus to Kasparov is kind of like comparing Steph Curry to MJ. Could it happen? Yes. But Magnus has to go out and do it. I think if he can beat Firouzja he makes a better case but tying Caruana and Karjack at classical wasn't all that impressive. Beating the great Anand was.

(Actually, MJ is probably a bridge too far for even Curry. Maybe LeBron is a better comparison.)

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#22

Post by AmericanChopper » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 6:16 AM UTC

zarzavat wrote: post #17

Even if the quality of play in this match has been not great, one thing I really enjoyed was the extremely high class of commentary. Caruana, Giri, Anand, Svidler and Nakamura have been doing commentary (simultaneously!) throughout the match. It has been a real treat, I don't believe any match before has had such a deep level of live analysis. I have had five different streams open at times just to listen to them all…

I didn’t think the commentary was that good this year, too many awkward personalities. Anish was constantly talking over Judit. I tuned into to Vishy’s stream for a bit, but the person he had with him was incredibly awkward. I find Danny Rensch to be completely insufferable, which is a shame because Caruana is so good. Howell and Houska are pretty good, but they had some terrible guests on that stream, and all of the beard guys segments were incredibly cringe.

Jan and Svidler from the Karjaken match was the best commentary team we’ve had for a championship imo. I remember the main Chennai team being pretty decent as well, Tania’s a very good commentator, so I don’t know why they had her running around the event center interviewing people.

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#23

Post by clairity » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 6:26 AM UTC

CalChris wrote: post #21

AmericanChopper wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But Magnus is still king and even Magnus would take another 10 years of dominance to claim GOAT from Kasparov. Some big opinions here. Magnus has 5 undisputed titles. Only Lasker is ahead of him on 6, and Botvinnik ties him on 5. Vishy also ties him on 5, but one of those was from when the title split in the 90s. Karpov and Kasparov each have 6 titles, but two of Kasparov’s and 3 of Karpov’s come from when the titl…

Kasparov has the longest tenure as world #1 from 1984 to 2005, 21 years. Magnus is currently at 12. Kasparov has the most consecutive tournament victories at 15 and 9 years of winning every super tournament. Comparing Magnus to Kasparov is kind of like comparing Steph Curry to MJ. Could it happen? Yes. But Magnus has to go out and do it. I think if he can beat Firouzja he makes a better case but tying Caruana and Kar…

curry is easily the greatest shooter, but yah, no way he's gonna pass mj (or lebron) for the goat title. lebron is definitely the better comparison there.

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#24

Post by AmericanChopper » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 6:30 AM UTC

CalChris wrote: post #21

AmericanChopper wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But Magnus is still king and even Magnus would take another 10 years of dominance to claim GOAT from Kasparov. Some big opinions here. Magnus has 5 undisputed titles. Only Lasker is ahead of him on 6, and Botvinnik ties him on 5. Vishy also ties him on 5, but one of those was from when the title split in the 90s. Karpov and Kasparov each have 6 titles, but two of Kasparov’s and 3 of Karpov’s come from when the titl…

Kasparov has the longest tenure as world #1 from 1984 to 2005, 21 years. Magnus is currently at 12. Kasparov has the most consecutive tournament victories at 15 and 9 years of winning every super tournament. Comparing Magnus to Kasparov is kind of like comparing Steph Curry to MJ. Could it happen? Yes. But Magnus has to go out and do it. I think if he can beat Firouzja he makes a better case but tying Caruana and Kar…

Comparing ELO like that is silly. Kasparov had his final championship victory in 1995, and it was during the period in which he had left FIDE. Karpov won the FIDE championships (which of course Kasparov didn’t compete in), in ‘93, ‘96 and ‘98.

You could pick a similarly silly way to compare their careers by comparing their peak ELO. Which for Kasparov was 2851, and for Magnus 2882 (highest in history incidentally). Which is a rather large difference given the ELO system gets so wonky at that level that you can drop in ELO after winning an event (as I believe happened to Magnus after he won the Norway tournament this year).

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#25

Post by kungito » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 6:34 AM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #16

Is it just me, or is Chess becoming a thing lately? I've recently started to really enjoy watching it (kinda hate playing it, haha), so maybe it's just because I'm paying attention?

You could say Hikaru single handedly popularised chess because he's a GM who started memeing on twitch.tv. There are other streamers who are also big, and some youtubers, but I'd say the fact that he's so highly ranked was required for success. Then Pogchamps tournament happened and chess exploded.

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#26

Post by disillusioned » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 6:39 AM UTC

AmericanChopper wrote: post #14

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…

It could be the worst challenger performance in the history of the game. Nepo’s performance in the very long game 6 was actually quite good, even though he lost it. Neither of them played accurately in the in the time scramble to move 40, but Nepo didn’t lose to a massive blunder or anything. However after that he was clearly tilted off the face of the earth. He was playing much too quickly and made blunders than eve…

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 way. Opening himself to that pawn fork... these weren't carefully laid traps he was falling into. This was shooting himself in the foot and face with Magnus out of the room. Absolutely stunning meltdown. I feel sorry for him, but mental endurance is obviously no small part of the calculus to being world champion and Nepo showed he simply doesn't have it.

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#27

Post by noxvilleza » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 6:46 AM UTC

AmericanChopper wrote: post #24

CalChris wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kasparov has the longest tenure as world #1 from 1984 to 2005, 21 years. Magnus is currently at 12. Kasparov has the most consecutive tournament victories at 15 and 9 years of winning every super tournament. Comparing Magnus to Kasparov is kind of like comparing Steph Curry to MJ. Could it happen? Yes. But Magnus has to go out and do it. I think if he can beat Firouzja he makes a better case but tying Caruana and Kar…

Comparing ELO like that is silly. Kasparov had his final championship victory in 1995, and it was during the period in which he had left FIDE. Karpov won the FIDE championships (which of course Kasparov didn’t compete in), in ‘93, ‘96 and ‘98. You could pick a similarly silly way to compare their careers by comparing their peak ELO. Which for Kasparov was 2851, and for Magnus 2882 (highest in history incidentally). W…

It's just "Elo", not "ELO" - it's not an acronym, but rather named after the guy who created it.

Dropping Elo after winning an event isn't really that 'wonky' - it's just a Bayesian update for underperforming your statistical expectations. The same thing happened when Carlsen won the Candidates in 2013, he went +5=7-2, but he was 2872 rating against a field of 2774, so 8.5/14 would mean he loses ~6 rating.

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#28

Post by AmericanChopper » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 6:57 AM UTC

disillusioned wrote: post #26

AmericanChopper wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be the worst challenger performance in the history of the game. Nepo’s performance in the very long game 6 was actually quite good, even though he lost it. Neither of them played accurately in the in the time scramble to move 40, but Nepo didn’t lose to a massive blunder or anything. However after that he was clearly tilted off the face of the earth. He was playing much too quickly and made blunders than eve…

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…

Good mental is one of the core skills, and I think the silver lining for Nepo in this is that it’s very clear what he needs to improve. Hopefully he’ll be able to pick himself up and become a stronger competitor from it.

Incidentally the mental test of this best of 14 format isn’t even as hard as it can get. They used to play to a certain number of wins. The 1984 championship was abandoned in February 1985 (it started in September 1984) after 48 games (40 draws). They also had longer time controls back then, and would adjourn games overnight if necessary, so when you woke up to play a game you wouldn’t even know if you’d be able to go to sleep that night having finished it.

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#29

Post by ekabod » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 6:59 AM UTC

disillusioned wrote: post #26

AmericanChopper wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be the worst challenger performance in the history of the game. Nepo’s performance in the very long game 6 was actually quite good, even though he lost it. Neither of them played accurately in the in the time scramble to move 40, but Nepo didn’t lose to a massive blunder or anything. However after that he was clearly tilted off the face of the earth. He was playing much too quickly and made blunders than eve…

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?

Re: Magnus Carlsen retains title after winning lopsided match

#30

Post by noxvilleza » Sat, Dec 11, 2021, 6:59 AM UTC

AmericanChopper wrote: post #22

zarzavat wrote: post #17

Even if the quality of play in this match has been not great, one thing I really enjoyed was the extremely high class of commentary. Caruana, Giri, Anand, Svidler and Nakamura have been doing commentary (simultaneously!) throughout the match. It has been a real treat, I don't believe any match before has had such a deep level of live analysis. I have had five different streams open at times just to listen to them all…

I didn’t think the commentary was that good this year, too many awkward personalities. Anish was constantly talking over Judit. I tuned into to Vishy’s stream for a bit, but the person he had with him was incredibly awkward. I find Danny Rensch to be completely insufferable, which is a shame because Caruana is so good. Howell and Houska are pretty good, but they had some terrible guests on that stream, and all of the…

Agree with all your first paragraph points. Although he's only an IM, I really like Eric Rosen - he's a pretty reasonable personality and is able to crack jokes and keep the conversation moving nicely. Unfortunately he was part of the broadcast with Danny Rensch. Giri just seemed downright rude to Judit. He ignored what she was saying in many instances, argued with her when he was listening, and failed to credit her when he predicted or calculated something incorrectly.

I'm also not a huge Maurice Ashley fan - but think he did a good job handling the press conferences. What was interesting was that for Karjakin/Carlsen, Jan Gustafsson was doing commentary, but also was part of the Carlsen analytics/prep/second team. Svidler's analysis is always enjoyable, but sometimes he seems bored with games and his language almost becomes 'this is over let's move on'.