Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whoosh
Nah, he's quoting a TNG episode where Data does the exact same thing.
Ah,oops, my whoosh!
Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title
261–270 of 461 posts
Re: Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title
#262It 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…
You skipped the best part of the story! > We [Chinook and the lead programmer] played an exhibition match against Marion Tinsley in 1991. And the computer told me to make this one particular move. When I made it, Tinsley immediately said, "You're going to regret that." > Not being a checkers player, I thought, "what does he know, my computer is looking 20 moves ahead." But a few moves later, the computer said that Ti…
> and Tinsley was able to see the win 64 moves into the future.
It's more likely that Tinsley was able to see a winning position much closer to the present than that, without bothering about the details of how exactly the winning position 6 turns in the future converted into an actual win 64 moves in the future.
Re: Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
Chinook was obviously playing the long con. Knowing Tinsley's weakness was his humanity, so it continued to draw until his frail human body succumbed to the forces of nature, thus winning once and for all.
It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life.
Not at all true in general; consider tic-tac-toe.
Re: Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title
#264Re: Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title
#265As a Magnus fan this saddens me, but his reasons are understandable: you've got one life to live and he doesn't enjoy spending a quarter of it preparing for these grinding, stressful matches. After five consecutive wins, including a crushing win less than a year ago, and 10 years as world #1, by a considerable margin for most of those years (the gap between him and #2 right now is the same as between #2 and #9, and this is the smallest gap it's been in some time), I think he can make a credible case that he has nothing left to prove and trying to get a 2900 rating is more interesting.
On a related note, my suggestion for an updated WCC format:
We should move away from all classical chess. Yes, that's the tradition that's been going for 150 years, but today so many of the biggest events are rapid and blitz (online tour events, Grand Chess Tour Rapid & Blitz events, World Rapid & Blitz Championships, not to mention two of the last three world championship matches being decided in rapid tiebreaks and many of the biggest classical events decided in rapid or blitz tiebreaks). So I believe the "World Chess Champion" should be the person who demonstrates mastery in a blended format of all three, to represent the importance of all three.
The rapid, blitz, and classical portions all have equal weights (18 points)by following in the footsteps of the Grand Chess Tour Rapid and Blitz events where rapid games are worth 2 times as much as blitz. I suggest 6 classical games, worth 3 points each (1.5 for a draw); 9 rapid games, worth 2 points each (1 for a draw); and 18 blitz games, worth the traditional 1 point each (0.5 for a draw), with the cumulative score determining the winner.
Re: Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Good" as in, maybe reach GM? Quite likely, although being in GM already makes you a statistical outlier (200 slots per region in a player base of hundreds of thousands). Good enough to challenge a pro? You're seriously underestimating how much hard work the pros are putting in to play at their level - on top of the insane mechanical skill, game knowledge, and experience. Part of the skillset is obviously transferrab…
Yeah. The live element brings something else to the table. It's not only knowing what to do, but being able to execute. I've played Starcraft off and on, mostly through the Brood War days, and never super competitively. My friends and I had a standing Friday night game we'd play. We were ok. My brother-in-law came to stay with us for a while and he had never played Starcraft before but wanted to try it out. So I said…
That's also why in a tournament (or a showmatch) you'd play the same opponent in a series (like best of 3, best of 5...). I once had a couple friendly games with a dude in masters 3 (that's maybe 1K MMR above me) and... actually won one map. My mechanics are pretty bad, but I have a very decent understanding of the game. He tried something funny - I scouted, responded, and killed him. If it were a best of 1, that was our first map - I would have won the series.
This would not happen with Serral. He does lose against other pros, but not against joes. When you face an opponent 1.5K MMR below you, you're putting something like -200MMR on the table if you lose. You can't stay 200-300 MMR above the #2 spot if you ever drop a game like that.
Re: Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having a winning strategy for black seems impossible though; the discussion is whether white have it or is it a forced draw.
Why would that seem impossible? One could argue that white has to open up his defenses first, allowing black to pick the best response to that. In general, there’s no guarantee of first mover’s advantage. For example, Hexapawn ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexapawn ) is a win for black on some boards ( https://web.archive.org/web/20050330222720/http://www.chessv... ). Versions that are more complex than chess and a…
White could start with a knight move. Unlike Hexapawn, in chess, white moving first provides an increase in optionality for white, and the board positions are not forcing white on some losing track, because white is free to "burn" a move with many pieces by taking 2 moves to get to the same place they could with 1 move. White can use two bishop moves, or a pawn push to the 3rd rank followed by the 4th rank, to turn around the initiative early in the game.
Re: Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cricket went through a similar revolution and now we have a single game that last 5 days (Tests) which is an intense high-skill perseverance play, a game that last a whole day (One Day Internationals) and a much shorter format (Twenty20) that last 3 hours. All three formats are thriving with some superstars playing all three formats and official World Championships being played in all three formats
I don’t see the test format as thriving. It often seems the players don’t have the patience anymore to play it, losing games that they could have drawn if they had the perseverance needed to try so. (For those who don’t know cricket: if your opponent is outscoring you heavily, there’s no way to win the game, but by playing defensively, there still is the possibility of “not losing” the game (called a draw. That’s dif…
>>It often seems the players don’t have the patience anymore to play it
Not enough monetary incentive either, it doesn't pay as well as T20.
Second problem is bowling doesn't pay as well as batting. And that brings only batsmen centric view to the game, which is boring to watch after a while, even in T20.
Re: Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They have also become less entertaining. The classical World Championship matches have never been entertaining to watch live. In fact they used to take 2 days for one game. > No one dares to take any risks. Caruana was just defensive and all games ended in a draw. Chess, in theory, with absolutely perfect play, is a draw. It's not a game of "risk" in classical time format. You can take risks in blitz and rapid, but…
> Chess, in theory, with absolutely perfect play, is a draw. While this is highly likely and essentially agreed upon by all experts on the matter, it's not proven yet.
I don't see why anyone would agree to that. In fact, I can see it being far more likely that chess experts believe it ends in a win for white considering that today white is favored, to the point where if offered a quick draw, black will almost certainly take it (unless they need a win to move up a rank in a tournament, etc).
Re: Magnus Carlsen to give up World Championship title
#270Good for him, and a great lesson for chess fans: Play the kind of chess that makes you happy, be it globetrotting super-GM invite-only tournaments or 500 games of back-to-back bullet on Lichess.
...or play 250 hyperbullet games until 5:45 am during the Candidates tournament when you have a game at 3 PM the next day. https://www.chessdom.com/firouzja-prepares-for-nepo-with-the...
Did the preparation pay off?