World Chess Championship 2013 - Page 6

On November 05 2013 20:36 unkkz wrote:
The only bad thing about watching chess is that you cannot possibly have any form of remotely similar understanding of the game as the players playing. If i watch soccer i can see that "if he passes the ball to the right thats good since his mate is wide open" in chess... not so much.

On November 05 2013 18:52 sharkie wrote:
Do chess players even stand a chance vs chess computers nowadays?

On November 05 2013 19:27 Bacillus wrote:
I haven't been following top level chess that much, but as far as I've understood, Carlsen is weaker on openings and starts to shine as the game develops past the opening phase. Does this make a difference on such carefully prepared match? Can the preparation help his early game against a specific opponent for example?

On November 05 2013 20:43 pedrlz wrote:
Sorry, but probably I will sound like a whiner, I'm not a good chess player or anything.

Isn't the game losing a little of the beautiful? When I was young I used to love to review old matches because I could see the 'big plays', Nowadays the game sees so mechanical and computerized, all this draws and everything bores me. I understand that the skill level just get higher, but what I feel is just because I don't understand the game properly or do you feel like that?

Anyways, I will try to catch some games.

On November 05 2013 22:58 Paljas wrote:
ugh, is armageddon a standard for tiebreakers?
sounds kinda... strange

On November 05 2013 23:19 Orome wrote:


Unfortunately, no.

To give you an idea, the last big world champion vs computer match was Kramnik vs Deep Fritz in 2006. Fritz won 4-2 (2 wins, 4 draws), including one bizarre game where Kramnik was doing well, then allowed a mate in one, probably the biggest blunder a WC has ever made. Overall, Kramnik held his own and might have drawn the match without that blunder.

That was 7 years ago. Computers have become significantly better since (and they're continuing to get better). There have been no big player vs computer matches since because the sad fact is that no player would stand a chance. Someone like Carlsen should be able to snatch some draws, but he would still get crushed in a match.



It's an extremely important factor, but noone really knows how it will affect the match.

One good example here is the Kasparov vs Kramnik WC match. Kasparov was the undisputed best player of the time, arguably the best player of all time. Kramnik was a very promising talent, but few people thought he had a chance against the tyrant that was Kasparov. What ended up happening was one of the most phenomenal displays of opening preparation. Kramnik prepared a line (well several really, I'm simplifying :p) with black - unfashionable at the time - that's now known as the Berlin wall. Try as he might, Kasparov just couldn't get anything done with white. He got good positions, but he just couldn't get any wins. Meanwhile, Kramnik managed to get wins with white and took the world championship title. Was he really the superior player at the time? Who knows, what counts is that he completely outprepared his opponent and in doing so managed to neutralise Kasparov's ridiculously good attacking play.

As for Carlsen vs Anand, it's very hard to predict how things will go in the opening. Carlsen's weakness in the opening - playing it indifferently and choosing mediocre lines - is in some ways also a strength: he can play absolutely everything. Unlike Kramnik vs Kasparov, Anand can't put all his efforts into neutralising a specific system. If he wants to outprepare Carlsen, he needs to be extremely broad in his preparation. We also don't know how Carlsen's preparation will affect his opening play. He's never played in a world championship match before. It's entirely possible his opeining play is going to be completely different to what we see from him in tournaments.



This would have been true a few years ago, but it definitely isn't now. The time of 'polite GM draws' is over. The new generation has arrived and GMs have found their fighting spirit again. Hell, even Kramnik has switched up his style and become an exciting player to watch.

Preparation has become more dependant on computers, true, but at the same time people realise more and more how different computer and human chess are. Carlsen especially has shown time and time again that he can take a drawn, seemingly lifeless endgame and somehow grind a win out of it. This is the opposite of computerized play. Instead of looking at the position 'objectively', concluding that the computer would give it +0.00 and therefore offering a draw, he makes his opponents prove that they can draw the position. Which, as it turns out, isn't as easy as you might think. A position is more complex than a computer evaluation can express.

World championship matches tend to be somewhat drawish (although with Carlsen this one might not), but if you're interested you should give some of the top tournaments a chance. The Candidates tournament for example was an extremely exciting event.

If chess has lost any of its beauty, I think it's because it has lost its mystique. 50 years ago, world championship games would be analysed for months without definite conlusions. Today, when Carlsen makes a move, you immediately get a horde of terrible players with their Houdinis going 'blunder'. They don't understand why one move's better than the other, but they can immediately judge the quality of a move because of computer evaluations.

On November 05 2013 23:38 wingpawn wrote:
The format of just 12 games simply sucks.

In times of 24-game matches, players would often ambitiously repeat the same lines over and over, showing the improvements they've found for both sides after previous victories / setbacks. One or even two early defeats didn't mean that much with so many games still to be played, meaning that courageous pay was possible. Now it's pretty much game over if one side jumps to two-point lead, because GMs have so many obviously drawn lines memorized right to the end. I think there's about 60% chance of tiebreaks here and if Carlsen wins without them, it will be thanks to the endgame technique, not his opening preparation.

On November 05 2013 17:25 Aelfric wrote:

There are still Rybka fanboys running arround and komodo looks really strong lately, it is not that clear.

Also are there gonna be any stream?

On November 06 2013 02:02 Mafe wrote:
Obviously there can be a lot of different opinions about the mode in which this is played. But the same can be said about every game/sports. You have to make compromises. A duel going for weeks or maybe even months is just unrealisitic in 2013 and imho more boring. Sure it may give us a more legitimate champion.
Generally you have ask what you want to value higher: Keeping your mind in shape for a longer time or being able to perform when you now you have almost zero margin for error? Playing well against all sorts of opponents or against a single opponent with specific preparation against him?
Also I think it's generally accepted that Carlsen would win if it was decided in a round-robin tournament with some other players involved. If it wasn't for tradition, why shouldn't this also be a way to decide the world champion?
Why doesn't sc2/ti3/tennis/football/whatever adopt a king-of-the-hill-style tournament?

This doesn't mean that I disapprove of the way chess is determining its world champion. I'm just saying that any mode will be controversial.

On November 06 2013 02:04 sharkie wrote:


Oh wow, so chess has been mostly figured out... Kinda sad
I guess the limited moves the pieces can make is a reason for that?

Doesn't this make analysing during the matches kinda stall if everyone knows it was a huge blunder..

On November 06 2013 02:15 Aelfric wrote:

How did you come to the conclusion that chess is mostly figured out from that post?

On November 06 2013 02:07 urboss wrote:

I agree, the current mode is a good compromise.
Also, I wouldn't want to have another one of those:

World Chess Championship 1984

Half a year of playing chess between Kasparov and Karpov.
At the end the whole thing was cancelled and postponed to the following year.

On November 06 2013 02:23 Grumbels wrote:

Yeah, if you think that 48 games is too much you compromise by only having 12 games. (...)

On November 05 2013 06:29 Nyxisto wrote:

Yes it is, in fact White wins about twice as much games at GM level as black does.
Source

I'm rooting for Carlsen. I'm a total fanboy since he grinded out that win against Aronian in the Sinquefield cup, although simply agreeing to Aronian's draw offer would have gotten im the win anyway.