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

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

#71

Post by dbt00 »

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…

This is the tiebreaker format in fencing bouts. 3 3 minute rounds up to a max of 15 points (touches). If the final period ends tied, 1 minute sudden death overtime with a predetermined winner ("priority") by coin flip.

For what it's worth, it does work pretty well, but it helps that the tiebreaker doesn't require physical effort. A long set of PKs followed by an overtime would be a hell of a burden on goaltenders, especially the (would-be) loser.

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

#72

Post by dbt00 »

williamscales wrote: post #23
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has it not occurred to anyone that maybe Carlsen is just bored? It takes effort to tie 12 straight games between two world champions. Additionally, it is not in Carlsen's best interest to finish the tournament. During the tournament he is a super star. After the tournament he is just some guy who has a chess trophy (i.e. most people in real life don't care). Maybe he is just testing himself with some criteria that is…

I heard a story (not sure if it's true) when I was a fencer. At one time in fencing, there was a rule about inactivity. If you refused to fence, the period ended and the next period started. There are three periods. If all three periods ended this way, it went to a one point suddend death matchoff. Well, one individual felt he liked to win with a lot of panache. As I heard it, he would deliberately incur three inacti…

This is actually somewhat common in epee competitions (i.e. I've seen it multiple times in national level tournaments), because they are high variance and defense is hugely advantaged. It's also a reasonable strategy because a tournament can run up to 9 rounds of single elimination, so committing to this strategy means you expend only 1 minute of effort per round, instead of 9.

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

#73

Post by ubernostrum »

mindgam3 wrote: post #7
mdallastella wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carlsen is not in the shape he used to be and I can understand his choice. I don't like his attitude, but he has all the rights to manage its tournament the way he thinks best.

Sure. I don’t like his attitude either, which is why I’m rooting for Fabi. I understand he has the right to manage the tournament as he sees fit. I just don’t understand the logic of not even trying to push for a few more moves. Low risk, high reward given his huge time advantage.

We now have a little more data courtesy of chess.com's computer tournament.

Starting from the final position of Game 12, the engines have played 18 games to completion against each other, with more to come. 10 draws, 6 wins for Black and 2 for White.

Both of the wins for White picked up the game from the point of the draw with

32. Qa3 Rb8

and continued with White, soon after, aiming to play Nd1 and Nc3 (Stockfish went for those on moves 34 and 35, Ethereal on moves 35 and 37).

This is apparently exactly the line Carlsen said he was worrying about.

The position also seems to present some pretty tricky endgames. Laser, which has a rating 300 points higher than Carlsen's and gets to play with tablebase, managed to lose as Black that way.

(Caruana also suggested he might have tried to get a knight to e6; the engines have drawn a few times starting with that line)

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

#75

Post by Someone »

freyir wrote: post #69
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…

Anish Giri: “the whole match was worth it because finally I saw Magnus offer a draw in a playable position”

(https://youtube.com/watch?v=ikiHTNQnh58?t=237m45s)

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

#76

Post by ttonkytonk »

ubernostrum wrote: post #25
mindgam3 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don’t understand is why Carlsen didn’t push for even a few more moves. Fabi was running out time, it was low risk for him to probe a little more and see if he could get something a little more decisive.

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-...

The score is currently 2 wins for white, 11 draws and 6 wins for black. There is a total of 56 games involving eight engines.

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

#77

Post by ipsa »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #37

An alternative opinion for why Carlsen offered the game 12 draw: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/11/ga...

I think he was annoyed/bored. He is basically playing against a computer for an increasing number of moves. By the time the theory ends, the game is near-decided. Chess960 reveals the natural talents over the memorizers.

The chess lovers complain and complain, because everybody's style is starting to mimick closer to the objective best moves.

It is also a psychological move in trolling Caruana (part of the game): "You did not even try to win with white in your last game before the rapids. I'll draw in a superior position because I love my chances there."

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

#78

Post by mindgam3 »

ubernostrum wrote: post #73
mindgam3 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. I don’t like his attitude either, which is why I’m rooting for Fabi. I understand he has the right to manage the tournament as he sees fit. I just don’t understand the logic of not even trying to push for a few more moves. Low risk, high reward given his huge time advantage.

We now have a little more data courtesy of chess.com's computer tournament. Starting from the final position of Game 12, the engines have played 18 games to completion against each other, with more to come. 10 draws, 6 wins for Black and 2 for White. Both of the wins for White picked up the game from the point of the draw with 32. Qa3 Rb8 and continued with White, soon after, aiming to play Nd1 and Nc3 (Stockfish wen…

The major problem with using the chess.com data is they don't take into account the time factor. When Magnus offered, the draw, Fabi had exactly 15min 42sec time remaining to play the next 10 moves. That's less than 2 minutes per move, versus Magnus having between 2x-3x that amount.

It is hard to understand just how significant of a handicap this is unless you've ever played competitive chess at a national or international level. The human mind starts to break down and freeze up when it is forced to make critical decisions in limited time. This was already starting to happen in the game leading up to the draw offer, as Caruana took more and more time as his positioning was worsening.

The end result of this is one player being forced to make a rapid series of moves in a "time scramble" while the other player has the luxury of checking and rechecking his calculations. This gives the player with more time a massive advantage in practice. We're talking at least 100-200 rating points.

If chess.com wanted to do a fair analysis, they should have handicapped the White computer with 3-4x less compute time. I guarantee the results would have been significantly more favorable for Black then they already were.

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

#79

Post by mindgam3 »

Reposting this from a comment thread below which mentions the chess.com "what would have happened" computer playoff, as I think the HN community (who are far more well versed in computer chess than I) would benefit from a better understanding of how high-level competitive chess between humans actually works.

tl;dr: In order to fully appreciate how bizarre Carlsen's draw offer was at that moment, you need to take into account the time factor, which (to my knowledge) the chess.com computer analysis ignores completely.

---

The major problem with using the chess.com data is they don't take into account the time factor. When Magnus offered, the draw, Fabi had exactly 15min 42sec time remaining to play the next 10 moves. That's less than 2 minutes per move, versus Magnus having between 2x-3x that amount.

It is hard to understand just how significant of a handicap this is unless you've ever played competitive chess at a national or international level. The human mind starts to break down and freeze up when it is forced to make critical decisions in limited time. This was already starting to happen in the game leading up to the draw offer, as Caruana took more and more time as his positioning was worsening.

The end result of this is one player being forced to make a rapid series of moves in a "time scramble" while the other player has the luxury of checking and rechecking his calculations. This gives the player with more time a massive advantage in practice. We're talking at least 100-200 rating points.

If chess.com wanted to do a fair analysis, they should have handicapped the White computer with 3-4x less compute time. I guarantee the results would have been significantly more favorable for Black then they already were.

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

#80

Post by yodsanklai »

colmvp wrote: post #66
gojomo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ever…

> It still irks me that something as rare and prestigious as the World Cup (and Olympic Hockey) can get decided by shootouts.

Even without the shoutouts, football is a very random game (compare with something like Tennis). And this is amplified by the tournament format. I like how experts take this game so seriously and come up with deep analysis when there's so much randomness in the result.

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