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Armageddon Looms over World Chess Champs after Carlsen’s Shocking Decision

deadspin.com

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Re: Armageddon Looms over World Chess Champs after Carlsen’s Shocking Decision

#61

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

The article moans about Carlsen’s Game 12 draw offer but it’s ridiculous. He had a plan going in to play for a draw, and given how much of an advantage there was (a modest advantage that by no means guaranteed a win, and which would still be hard to spot by human players), he knew the risks in continuing to play and appraised it to be more prudent to spend that risk budget in rapid games where he has a superior record.

There is no drama in this at all, and it’s hardly bad for competitive chess. This title matchhas produced exciting games and creativity, and yes also blunders. It’s been fantastic to watch!

Carlsen stuck to his overall match plan. That’s all that happened. Now it’s up to Caruana to prove he can hold his own in rapid games, and frankly he should feel confident that he can given his overall performances across the 12 matches so far. Carlsen is the favorite for sure, but it looks to be a great set of rapid games.

Re: Armageddon Looms over World Chess Champs after Carlsen’s Shocking Decision

#63

Post by ubernostrum »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #48
ubernostrum wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

chess.com is running a "tournament" of the top computer chess engines to play out the final position of Game 12 and see how it goes: https://www.chess.com/news/view/computer-chess-championship-...

How many milliseconds does that take?

Computer chess isn't instantaneous. While you can go get Stockfish and run it on your phone, the full power of the top engines only comes out when you throw hardware and time at them.

They're running the engines with a 30 minute starting clock plus five-second increment per move.

So far, Ethereal and Stockfish have each managed to win a game as White (Caruana) from the Game 12 position.

Also this site has been running live analysis using Stockfish on 20 CPUs during each game of the championship, and its evaluations frequently have changed with more time to "think":

http://analysis.sesse.net/

Re: Armageddon Looms over World Chess Champs after Carlsen’s Shocking Decision

#64

Post by mehwoot »

deepnotderp wrote: post #62

I don't understand the people saying that Carlsen was wrong for drawing there. Two engines (leela as carlsen, stockfish as caruana) playing it went to a draw

Because engine chess is not human chess. Defending a position with a ~3300 ELO computer is not the same as doing it as a human down on the clock. Look up some of Mikhail Tal's games to see how you can become the best in the world whilst still playing moves that are "refuted" by engines.

Still he's heavily favoured in the tiebreaks, so I don't necessarily fault his strategy.

Re: Armageddon Looms over World Chess Champs after Carlsen’s Shocking Decision

#66

Post by colmvp »

gojomo wrote: post #40
scrooched_moose wrote: post #3

If anyone doesn't know, "Armageddon" is a type of chess game that guarantees a victor; it's not just a click-bait title. It's the last tiebreaker after a series of other Rapid and Blitz games. (all this is covered, just way at the end of the article) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_chess#Armageddon fivethirtyeight has been covering the tournament and their rough calculation gives it a 1:5000 chance of making it to…

It might spice-up the whole match to have this final-someone's-gotta-win tiebreaker before other tiebreaker matches, and then hold the result "in case it's needed". That'd be in the same spirit as this recommendation to have Soccer penalty-kick shootouts before overtime. https://slate.com/culture/2016/06/how-to-fix-the-penalty-sho... That is: you know who will win if all other tiebreakers draw, giving the side which…

It still irks me that something as rare and prestigious as the World Cup (and Olympic Hockey) can get decided by shootouts. I mean, I get it, football has a huge pitch and it'd probably be ridiculous to have guys exhausted, barely able to jog at the 150th minute.

That said, one of the things I love about NHL playoff hockey is that without compromise, it's first goal wins overtime, where players are willing to do everything and anything to get that win. Block every shot, hustle when they're exhausted... it's truly amazing. One of my favorite quotes about the quintuple overtime game between the Penguins and Flyers in 2000:

> LeClair: After the third overtime … our locker room became a lot more loose. It was pretty comical in the locker room between guys searching for food, some guys getting IVs. It was a little bit of survival mode.

> Primeau: Usually on the road the team orders pizza for the locker room. There's pizza for the guys, power gels, power bars, they were really popular. The trunk of those was gone, the pizza was gone. Trainers are going up to concession stands to see if there's anything there. [The] coaches' popcorn was eaten.

Re: Armageddon Looms over World Chess Champs after Carlsen’s Shocking Decision

#67

Post by colanderman »

Jach wrote: post #43
tux1968 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really seems to favor black by a rather large margin. Wonder if there are any stats on the win ratios for each color in this format. And how do they decide who get's each color?

A fairer approach might be to auction the time. i.e. each player bids on number of minutes (or perhaps 10 second intervals?), the highest bid takes black with the win-on-draw condition and that many minutes taken from the 5 minute time.

Or similarly, employ "I cut you choose": one player chooses the time limit for black, the other then selects which color they want.

Re: Armageddon Looms over World Chess Champs after Carlsen’s Shocking Decision

#68

Post by fullshark »

gregorymichael wrote: post #6

tl;dr after 11 draws, Carlsen offered a draw from a superior position in the final game to head into the short-format tiebreaks, where: > he is ranked No. 1 in all three formats (classical, rapid, and blitz). Caruana is ranked 10th and 18th in rapid and blitz respectively. Critics are appalled that he didn't fight for the win out of sense of honor. I don't see how this is different than, for instance, fouling at the…

I think it's like playing for penalty kicks in a world cup championship game where you think you have an advantage. People moan about that too.

Re: Armageddon Looms over World Chess Champs after Carlsen’s Shocking Decision

#69

Post by freyir »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #61

The article moans about Carlsen’s Game 12 draw offer but it’s ridiculous. He had a plan going in to play for a draw, and given how much of an advantage there was (a modest advantage that by no means guaranteed a win, and which would still be hard to spot by human players), he knew the risks in continuing to play and appraised it to be more prudent to spend that risk budget in rapid games where he has a superior recor…

It's strategic, it's rational, and still it's disappointing. He was renown for pressing forward against the odds and clinching unexpected victories. Mathias Feist on Carlsen:

"There is an equal position on the board, and the opponent thinks: this is dead drawn. I can play almost anything and there is nothing he can do. But Magnus plays on, seeking complications, setting up threats. He is narrowing the margin required to hold the draw. Soon his opponent is thinking: why is he still playing – I can hold a draw with any of these three moves. Then: I can hold with this move and with this move. And then: I still have one clear way to hold a draw. And under the strain of constantly having to solve deep and complex problems, more often than not the opponent will crack. Magnus wins not because it was in the position, he wins because he is Magnus."

Re: Armageddon Looms over World Chess Champs after Carlsen’s Shocking Decision

#70

Post by freyir »

deepnotderp wrote: post #62

I don't understand the people saying that Carlsen was wrong for drawing there. Two engines (leela as carlsen, stockfish as caruana) playing it went to a draw

Leela is an inferior chess engine, and Leela and Stockfish were given equal time. In the human match, Carlsen and Caruana are closely matched and Carlsen had a significant clock advantage.

The engines are playing out the position here: https://www.chess.com/computer-chess-championship

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