It 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 his sport or game than Tinsley.
In 1990 Tinsley decided to play Chinook, the best checkers computer program in the world. Chinook had placed second at the US Nationals so it had the right to enter the world championships, but the US and British checkers federations refused to allow it.
So Tinsley resigned his title. Tinsley then played Chinook in an unofficial match (which he won).
This power play really stuck it to the federations: nobody wanted to be named the new world champion knowing Tinsley was fully capable of crushing them. Eventually everyone came to an agreement to let Tinsley be the "champion emeritus".
Tinsley played Chinook four years later, at age 68, still probably the best player in the world. But in the middle of the match he complained of stomach pains and withdrew after only six games (of 20), all drawn. Tinsley's pains were real: he later died of pancreatic cancer.
> 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 Tinsley had the advantage and a few moves after that I resigned.
More details on this epic match from Wikipedia:
> The lead programmer Jonathan Schaeffer looked back into the database and discovered that Tinsley picked the only strategy that could have defeated Chinook from that point and Tinsley was able to see the win 64 moves into the future.
> 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.
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.
I love this story so much. This The Atlantic article telling the full tale is a favorite of mine [1]
It's hard to overstate how incredibly dominant Tinsley was. In his entire career, he never lost a match, and only ever lost 7 games (two to Chinook). That is out of maybe tens of thousands of games. He was a mathematician by training and taught at a historically black university. He was also deeply religious and a lay minister at a black church. He famously described the difference between chess and checkers like this: “Chess is like looking out over a vast open ocean; checkers is like looking into a bottomless well.”
I could just quote the entire article, but I'll just leave it at this passage:
> The two men sat in his office and began the matches, Schaeffer moving for Chinook and entering changes in the game into the system. The first nine games were all draws. In the tenth game, Chinook was cruising along, searching 16 to 17 moves deep into the future. And it made a move where it thought it had a small advantage. “Tinsley immediately said, ‘You’re gonna regret that.’” Schaeffer said. “And at the time, I was thinking, what the heck does he know, what could possibly go wrong?” But, in fact, from that point forward, Tinsley began to pull ahead...
> The computer scientist became fixated on that moment. After the match, he ran simulations to examine what had gone wrong. And he discovered that, in fact, from that move to the end of the game, if both sides played perfectly, he would lose every time. But what he discovered next blew his mind. To see that, a computer or a human would have to look 64 moves ahead.
Tinsley was simply one of the most remarkable human minds of the 20th century. I'm happy he finally got a challenger that was worthy of him (as no other humans could even come close), but it also seems fitting that he was never officially defeated in a real checkers match. Rest in peace.
If you like that you might like Jonathan Schaeffer's (the creator of Chinook) book "One Jump Ahead" in which he discusses Chinook and Tinsley in great detail.
> He was utterly dominant; indeed it is hard to think of a competitor in all of history more dominant over his sport or game than Tinsley.
Very interesting comment. This sentence about dominance in a field made me think of Stu Ungar, who dominated Gin Rummy so completely that he had to switch to Poker (where he became a 3-time world champion) to meet interesting adversaries.
I couldn't find an exact reference for the following quote, but still: "Some day, I suppose it's possible for someone to be a better No Limit Hold'em player than me. I doubt it, but it could happen. But, I swear to you, I don't see how anyone could ever play gin better than me."
Fascinating character. I ended up reading the whole Wikipedia article [1] because of your comment.
Sounds like he was very skilled and continuously getting better -- which is of course impressive. At the same time, his overall life story turns out to be tragic. Two choice quotes from the article really jumped out for me:
> Ungar told ESPN TV... that the 1980 WSOP was the first time he had ever played a Texas hold'em tournament. Poker legend Doyle Brunson remarked that it was the first time he had seen a player improve as the tournament went on.
> Ungar is regarded by many poker analysts and insiders as one of the greatest pure-talent players ever to play the game. But on the topic of his life, Stu’s long term friend Mike Sexton said “In the game of life, Stu Ungar was a loser.”
> "Some day, I suppose it's possible for someone to be a better No Limit Hold'em player than me. I doubt it, but it could happen. But, I swear to you, I don't see how anyone could ever play gin better than me."
An approximately optimal strategy for Limit Heads Up was determined: http://poker.srv.ualberta.ca/ is a Limit solution.
Machines don't play No Limit perfectly, but they're good enough to have beaten the best humans available when they last tried, so I expect if Stu had lived long enough they'd beat Stu too.
Interestingly Gin Rummy is not seen as a major AI research target. I found some undergraduates playing with relatively simple AI approaches for Gin Rummy as basically a getting your feet wet exercise, but this is apparently not in the context of "Here's what the grown-ups did" but rather "Nobody is exploring this, so whatever you do is actually novel". So there's a real opportunity if somebody is interested.
About being dominant. What about Raymond Ceulemans ?
From the wikipedia page:
Billiards player, having won
- 35 World Championship titles (23 in three-cushion + 12 in other carom disciplines)
- 48 European titles (23 in three-cushion) and
- 61 national titles.
By Chinook, actually. The computer science Jonathan Schaeffer became obsessed with solving checkers, because it was the only way to prove that Chinook could've beaten Tinsley in a fair game (as Tinsley passed away before Chinook could defeat him on the board).
I just read this story in Jordan Ellenberg's book, "Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else" as part of the section on decision trees, evaluating state, etc. Tinsley is the GOAT.
There is a great book that the main author of Chinook wrote about this. It's called One Jump Ahead[0] and it is a great combination of technical info about the development of Chinook as well as a kind of mini-history of competitive checkers. Strongly recommend!
Yes I read the book decades ago and it was indeed excellent. IIRC, the technical details are probably too light for the HN crowd, but it was the biographical stories that had interested me.
For an even shorter, and lighter, read on checkers engine, I recommend Blondie24[0].
Jonathan Schaeffer, who led programming on Chinook, wrote a book about the history of Chinook, the matches with Marion Tinsley, and checkers in general. I read it a while back and thought it was excellent, although it seems like cheap book editions are hard to find now. https://www.amazon.com/One-Jump-Ahead-Computer-Perfection-eb...
> indeed it is hard to think of a competitor in all of history more dominant over his sport or game than Tinsley.
Not a "he", but Heather McKay won 16 consecutive British Open squash titles. Squash got a World Open only in 1976, and she won the first two editions. In a career spanning 1960-1981, she was only defeated twice and both times were early in her career.
Time to change the format. It's understandable you don't want to spend your whole career preparing for these long matches all the time. For the challenger it's 6 months of preparing, but for Carlsen it would've been his 6th time of preparing for this in a few years.
They have also become less entertaining. 12 matches is long (edit, 14 now), but no one dares to take any risks. Caruana was just defensive and all games ended in a draw. Karjakin they both at least won each their game, but still had to go to rapid tie-breaks. And against Nepo it was a steamroll, understandably meeting him again isn't that exciting.
It's also almost impossible for a new person to get a chance. Even Carlsen didn't like the format and didn't participate in the Candidates for a few years, and when he first did he almost didn't win it to be allowed to play the WC match. Even though he clearly was the best player at the time.
I wonder how this will affect the status of the title, when it's in practice is now a title-fight between the second best players.
Also what will happen to the hype in Norway? Each WC match has so far been live streamed on all big news pages, biggest TV channels etc. It will still be a Christmas tradition to watch the rapid WC tournament I guess, but I'm afraid this will lead to less coverage. But just to tell how big Carlsen is in Norway: This is the top news on all outlets at the moment.
Chess' centre of gravity is increasingly online centred now. Carlson himself has a lot to do with it. So do other charismatic super GMs like Nakamura.
A light hearted, unplanned and unadvertised naka-carlsen bullet match can attract a lot of viewers. They both stream, and lots of other chess streamers will switch to watching and doing commentary when these matches happen.
They'll play silly openings like the double bong cloud and have fun.
Carlson's into this new egaming vibe. He's good at it, and it's good for chess. Meanwhile, high-level classical is brutal. The level is so high that the game is hard to follow. It takes forever and is draining. Most games end in a draw.
I feel like Fide should focus more on rapid, and get more involved in the online scene. Maybe this is the opportunity.
I suspect the most anticipated, spectator matches of the future will be rapid matches and alt formats like team tournies (go Norway gnomes). They're just more fun for everyone but your cranky old chess instructor, and even she loves it in secret.
You aren't kidding about classical games being hard to follow. I'm a pretty strong amateur at about 2200 on lichess, but some of the recent Candidates games are so dense that I can't make sense of them without a computer analysis. With blitz even when the super GMs play I can usually tag along and figure out what's happening once I see an interesting move played.
I've thought for a while that someone should go hard on an esports style lightning tournament. Basically, try to recreate the energy that happens when an aggressive game happens between chess hustlers and everyone crowds around, but done as a stadium audience spectacle like esports. Big stage lighting setup, music, live commentary, crowd roar encouraged, etc. Besides a main event focused on rated pros, have side tournaments and exhibition games with big personalities. I think there's definitely a sizable audience for something like this.
> I feel like Fide should focus more on rapid, and get more involved in the online scene. Maybe this is the opportunity.
This cheapens the tradition and the prestige of the discipline. Chess has attained a revered status over the years. It's not perceived as a game like any other. That's why it's able to attract luxury sponsors, if nothing else. Shifting the focus onto the "double bong cloud drunk banter blitz" territory destroys this legacy. This casual, fun aspect exists and does very well independently of the official, suited up aspect. They are complementary. But I'd really think twice before trying to remove one of the pillars. Chess is the most known, researched and commented mind game on the globe, it doesn't suffer from niche viewership. There's no need to try and fix a problem that doesn't exist. Tradition and legacy is something no amount of online clicks could ever buy.
> And against Nepo it was a steamroll, understandably meeting him again isn't that exciting.
The first half of the match wasn't even close to a steamroll. It's just Ian broke mentally after that famous 6th game. The candidate tournament showed that he had more than recovered from that loss and I think he would be in a much better shape to challenge Carlsen again. Also, with Carlsen's current attitude, it is quite possible that he would be closer to breaking first. (One may assume he already broke since he gives up the title without a fight)
nepo at candidates was in my opinion favored to beat magnus...he dominated the candidates harder than anyone else has in the history of the candidate matches - and it was not an easy pool of candidates, either. Sure, there were a lot of sloppy games, but only a couple vs nepo - with one of them being after the 1st place spot had been guaranteed.
If nepo plays like he did in the candidates, I would not be so quick to favor magnus.
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 in classical you have (almost) all the time in the world to calculate the line you're playing.
I've found them entertaining to watch. But Norwegians are master of slow-TV, so I guess that's why. They have good experts that manage to explain it to normal people. Interesting guests in the studio between moves. Interact with audience through questions from chat etc.
> Chess, in theory, with absolutely perfect play, is a draw.
> The classical World Championship matches have never been entertaining to watch live.
> In fact they used to take 2 days for one game.
Come now. The WCC matches were entertaining to watch for chess enthusiasts. Even when games took two days, people would sit and analyze each position, and that was without computers.
They still do that, of course. Although chess computers have taken some of the fun out of the analysis, I've been to several live viewings of the recent WCCs at chess clubs and bars, where a local GM would sit and comment on the position and take questions and suggestions from the crowd.
But the WCC matches have become less entertaining for chess enthusiasts, since there is so much defensive play. There isn't too much to analyze in yet another Berlin game.
It's entertaining when someone makes a horrible blunder, but not in the same way – there's little to analyze in a position that's blundered.
So I'd argue the classical WCC used to be entertaining to watch live for chess enthusiasts, but now they're less entertaining for chess enthusiasts. For "regular people", they've never been very entertaining, except when there's a spectacular blunder, which has never been very entertaining for chess enthusiasts.
> Chess, in theory, with absolutely perfect play, is a draw.
True, but that doesn't mean that you can't treat chess like other sports and try to incentivize wins - for example giving win/loss/draw a 3:1:0 point ratio. The world championship is not a good format to decide "who's the best at chess", and anyway we already know who that is right now. Might as well treat it as a spectator sport and add some drama in my opinion.
> Chess, in theory, with absolutely perfect play, is a draw.
Even the best human players are nowhere near perfect play.
Chess engines have proven that even players that are 1000 Elo stronger than the best players alive today can lose. Just look at how each new version of Stockfish absolutely trounces the previous version.
Stockfish 7, released 6 years ago, is nearly 500 Elo weaker than the newest version, Stockfish 15.[0] That's the difference between Carlsen and the weakest grandmasters.
In theory, wouldn't the player who takes the first move have a tiny tiny edge? Or is the second mover always able to guarantee a draw if they play perfectly?
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 different from a tie, where both teams score the same number of runs. Ties are extremely rare (about 1:1000 matches. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tied_Test), draws fairly common (about ⅓ of all test matches)). Part of the charm of test cricket is that trying harder to win a game also increases the risk of losing it, so teams have to make educated guesses as to whether to pursue that)
Cricket had a different problem. The game moved to be very batsmen centric(pitch construction) for a good part of 90's and 2000's. This caused most games to end in draws. Batsmen would just play days to make records. Ricky Ponting even said no Australian captain would allow the match to be played purely for records and not for winning.
This eventually happened in ODI's as well. It just all reduced to batsmen playing purely for records. Competition dried out.
T20 suffers from the same problems, and is a big reason why people are so burned out. I have barely watched any cricket in years.
In matches where is there is a good pitch, and something for the bowlers, the test matches are super interesting to watch.
I know next to nothing about competitive chess, other than watching the Magnus documentary about a younger Magnus. What kinds of things are chess players doing to prepare for a match for 6 Months? Is there something they're memorizing, studying video (what would they be looking fro)? I'd have always just thought they were good to play at any time. This sounds super stressful.
In a normal tournament, you meet so many different people (and you often don't know in advance exactly who you will meet of all the participants), so it's hard to specifically prepare. For a match of this kind, however, you know your opponent will prepare specifically against you. So you kinda have to do the same.
That entails analyzing all of their games and finding defenses and weaknesses. But also trying to find new novelties in the openings etc. And since the opponent will do the same, you yourself have to prepare defenses for lots of potential new openings 16 moves deep or so. It's an insane amount of studying.
Of course, that pays off for future games outside the match as well. But when you know your challenger will spend half a year on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to beat you, you probably have to do the same. So have to say no to everything else.
I remember Caruana mentioning how he wasn't prepared for how much Carlsen "understood" him (not exact words from the video, but something to that effect).
It sounded sort of like a side mind game that Carlsen plays on his opponents. It made it clear that Carlsen really studies his opponents and not just their past games.
Going through all of opening theory to invent enough new ideas that might give them a tiny edge, somewhere. And then eventually memorizing what they found.
12 games - or even 14, since the last WC (games, not "matches", excuse the nitpick) isn't long, it's short. There's never been a shorter format for chess WC. And this is precisely WHY players don't take any risks - because dropping even a single point means there won't be many chances left for equalising the score again.
I would make the following changes:
- Make the candidates be the main event, the winner is WC.
- score games as in soccer, 3 points for a win, 1 for draw, 0 for lose.
These changes increase the stakes, incentivize offensive chess, allow the sitting WC to play all the best players rather than one, reduces the time commitment to a single event for the challengers, and allows the WC to partake in the most prestigious tournament.
For those of us who don't follow this closely, why is the format such a problem?
Is it because its stressful, and demands too much work and prep from participants.
Just asking as competitive sport at the top level be it chess, football, or even swimming for that matter demands lots of work and a kind of work ethic not easy for most of us.
The format to the world championship in chess has historically always been a point of contention, and the current format is no exception.
The Candidates tournament has some seemingly arbitrary qualifications that players must meet, and you could argue that the format doesn't necessarily produce the strongest player to challenge the world champion.
The World Championship match itself is problematic because it gives the defending champion a fairly huge advantage, in that they retain the title if they can draw out the match, although more recently it goes to rapid chess tie breaker rounds. So in practice the Championship is decided by these tie breaker rounds, which doesn't really seem appropriate.
Given the prep time players have and the engines available, players go into these matches extremely well prepared and draws over the board are quite a typical outcome unless someone makes a mistake.
I believe Magnus wants the Championship to become a knockout tournament to reduce the advantage that so much prep time can give. There is a big difference between prepping for a field of 12 players versus prepping for a single opponent.
The distinction is the fundamental difference between mental and physical effort.
An athlete can spend all day in the gym and then grab a shower and roll into bed. They may be sore as hell from head to toe but they will be so exhausted they can just pass out and get a great night's sleep. They also get the benefit of endorphins which make them feel good and rewarded for doing their exercise.
On the other hand, a chess player spending all day going over variations and practicing is going to have a difficult time sleeping with all of those lines and positions flying around in their head. They will be mentally exhausted but still active and alert. It is an absolutely miserable experience. So to prevent it you need to cut back on the hours which means spreading out the preparation over many days/weeks/months. It can also get very boring because you don't get the same rewards you get from playing and winning games. The only reward comes when you finally get to the WC match and then you actually have to win or it's utterly heartbreaking.
It takes months of preparation to prepare for the world championships, basically rote memorisation with a team of people. If he doesn't do that, he will lose.
This is time that could be spent playing tournaments.
This would be okay if the world championships was every four years, but it's every two, so a large fraction of Carlsen's time is spent preparing for this one match that everybody knows he's going to win anyway.
It's similar to the way that many professional teams are reluctant to allow their players to play in the Olympics (in e.g. Basketball, Ice Hockey, and Olympic Football is completely neutered). Carlsen clearly feels that the World Championship is not important enough to sacrifice a large chunk of his career for.
The format is not a problem per se. It's grueling, sure but that's what a word-championship match should be. Magnus Carlsen just feels there's not much to gain anymore for him, by defending his title. That's all there is to it I think.
No idea their reasoning, but if I were a top football, swimmer, or other athlete and knew that a computer could outperform me even at my highest level would be pretty disconcerting.
One thing they could change with the format, without changing the format(!) is to schedule the game very close to the candidates, say with four week's distance.
That way the match is the same but the half year of prep is gone.
They need to know who the players are so they can look for sponsors willing to put up the prize money and organising costs. The events are often sponsored by companies from the home country of one of the players. Doing it before the challenger is known makes the pool of potential sponsors too small.
You can't just change the format. Then it's not the same sport. It's like saying we should change football (soccer), reduce the field size, make goals bigger and reduce play time to 60 mins. Then it's not football anymore, it's another sport.
If Magnus doesn't want to play this sport anymore, it's his decision, and totaly understandable. But don't try to change like a century of tradition (much like the rules of chess).
> It's also almost impossible for a new person to get a chance.
> when [Carlsen] first did he almost didn't win it to be allowed to play the WC match.
These complaints are in opposition to each other! You can have an open process which gives an outsider a chance to qualify, or you can teleport the incumbent best player straight to the final, but you can't have both.
The current Candidates structure balances it pretty well, in my view. Most of the 10 players who have a realistic chance in a match reach the final 8, but it often features one great-but-not-elite grandmaster who had a good tournament, and it's theoretically open to even the worst amateur who shows up to his Continental Championship and performs well in that followed by the World Cup.
The candidates being the WC deciding event would solve both of them, though. So while the points are in opposition to each other, a new format could find a better way to solve it than now, in which both things happen.
That just forces 8 players in the candidates to do their preparation BEFORE the tournament.
Economically speaking, that won't be enough time for advertising, setting the venue or getting sponsor up either. It matters who plays in the WCC match before you can do either of those things. We still don't know when or where the match for this cycle will happen even now.
Maybe a format with 60 minutes + 30 seconds increment from move 40, could be more entertaining to watch than the current 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one format.
Most rounds would finish in around 2 hours, just like several e-sports games. Have 2 rounds a day and finish it in 8 rounds. With a more e-sport like approach, chess could bring in even more viewers and hence more sponsorships.
The format has been changing way too often, if anything.
> 12 matches is long (edit, 14 now), but no one dares to take any risks.
Not really: 12 or even 14 games is short, which is exactly why players aren't particularly willing to take risks - short format makes it hard to catch up should they fall behind. The format used to be 24 games in Kasparov times, and some WC matches were decided by the "first to X wins" rule, which could last very long, given that draws wouldn't push things forward (and for example Alekhine beated Capablanca after 34 games).
> And against Nepo it was a steamroll, understandably meeting him again isn't that exciting.
It wasn't such a steamroll, the score doesn't tell a full story. Nepo's play quality was excellent and he arguably had more winning chances throughout the first half of the match. His first loss was in the longest WC game ever played (136 moves, and theoretically drawish almost until the very end when Nepo finally slipped). He collapsed psychologically right after, starting to make errors that - in his own words - were "simple things you would never overlook in a blitz game".
In part due to that gruelling, exhausting loss, for sure, but some have theorized he may also have folded due to realizing how many good chances he had missed before that.
GM Sam Shankland (US champion of 2018, for those not up to date with the who-is-who of chess world) went as far as to say Ian was two different players in the match: Nepo A and Nepo B.
Subverting people's expectations, Nepo won the Candidates now so convincingly (some suspected he might not recover, and certainly not to such an extent) that I see no reason why one would expect a landslide Carlsen's victory in the upcoming match.
Especially since there's an enormous difference between having NEVER played a WC match (which was Ian's situation the last time), and having already played one.
To quote Kramnik reminiscing on his first WC match: "it was still a very unfamiliar situation, like playing all your life for Lokomotiv and then coming out to play for Real Madrid in the final of the Champions League. Of course, you have to get used to the new situation, kick the ball a couple of times so they don't laugh at you."
> Even Carlsen didn't like the format
Yeah, well - he didn't like it, isn't that a bummer :) But come on, it's not like Carlsen has no say in the matter of the format, especially now that he already is a 5x world champion. He could have negotiated a different one with FIDE - or at least try. Obviously it's too late for that once the challenger has already been revealed, the time for that was before the cycle started. The format isn't set in stone though, far from it, and the #1 player, the reigning WC, has a lot of weight to throw around.
Carlsen may have not liked the format from an objective point of view, but the format was certainly very convenient for him. He excels in rapid chess, so if his winning chances are, say, around 80% in the classical portion of the match, they probably reach something like 95% once it comes to rapid tiebreaks. And the shorter the format, the larger the likelihood of getting to the tiebreaks.
> I wonder how this will affect the status of the title, when it's in practice is now a title-fight between the second best players.
This isn't something new. Kasparov was still the world's #1 for years after he lost the title to Kramnik. (He had actually hoped for a rematch, but they couldn't work the conditions out, and since age was catching up with him, he finally retired.)
Obviously this raised the issue of Bobby Fischer. The article mentions this but doesn't really go into the details.
Fischer beat Spassky in Rejkyavik in 1972 for the World Championship. This took almost 3 months (July to September) and there was controversy, disagreement and negotiation about where and how it would take place. This had the backdrop of being a Cold War proxy too of course.
Interestingly, Fischer didn't play competitive Chess after this. He was set to defend the title against the eventual challenger, Anatoly Karpov, in 1975. Fischer too didn't like the tendency for draws and proposed a format of first to 10 wins (with Fischer retaining the title in case of a 9-9). This was rejected and Fischer ultimately abdicated and never played competitive Chess again. He also became a semi-nomadic recluse too.
But it also wasn't Fischer's first hiatus from the game. There was the 1972-1975 gap but also anotehr in the 1960s. He clearly seemed like a troubled guy.
I've always found it fascinating the level of commitment required to play Chess at this level. I certainly have never had any interest in that (nor the ability, to be clear). No one really seems to know how to solve this without going to a more blitz like format.
Chess at the highest level seems to revolve around memorizing a whole book of openings and defenses while being able to take advantage of mistakes but also finding novel approaches in standard openings and defenses but now it seems you have to go fairly deep into a game before you go off-book.
The quote by Paul Morphy, one of the great old chess masters, seems relevant here - "The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life."
The Wikipedia page on Paul Morphy says he gave up chess age 22, tried to establish a law firm, all his clients wanted to talk to him about chess instead of legal matters, and he ended up living a life of idleness on his family's fortune.
That seems to put the quote in a different context.
More like Kasparov because he remained active after the FIDE split. Still a bit different because Magnus isn't running a parallel WC of his own.
It's also funny how the only 3 World Champions who have refused to defend a title because of disagreements with FIDE are probably the 3 best chess players ever.
Fischer is clearly the goat in my view. But it’s not so obvious to me that Kasparov and Carlsen are better than say Vishy or Morphy or Botvinnik or Capablanca…
For anyone that likes the weird, wacko and genius (all the same thing ?) there are few excellent short documentaries on YouTube about Bobby Fischer. Well worth a watch!
>I've always found it fascinating the level of commitment required to play Chess at this level.
There's several intellectuals I could name which were headed towards world class status like Demis Habbasis & Aleister Crowley decided to give up the game and later became remarkable men in their own right. I think of Paul Morphy who is probably the player furthest above his peers in history who decided to quit and be a lawyer and got annoyed whenever people would try to bring up the game.
I find it interesting to think of these men who are great enough to become the worlds best at chess, and some decide it's not worth it, some achieve that greatness and then require, and some seemingly are in it for life.
Chess requires rote memorization (gotta know every book opening 20 moves in), short-term memory/visualization (calculation), and general problem solving (tactics); almost in equal measure. It's absolutely crazy to me how hard it is. I can't play it unless I don't have anything else to think hard about that day. It wipes me out. And sure, you can kinda wing it and not give it 100% of your capacity, but then you just lose. It's brutal. And I suck at it. I can't imagine what these high-level folks go through.
In the short run at least, this might hurt FIDE more than Magnus. He's already the biggest brand in global chess by far, at this point becoming successful at the 'influencer game' (his podcasts, other content like the poker and fantasy football he got into as well, collaborating with other influencers like the - also Norwegian - highly successful former climber Magnus Midtbo,...) might do more for his brand than winning yet another title.
That's assuming that's even his goal, he really just seems to be doing whatever he enjoys. And in the long run, FIDE will also be fine. There will be new talents, and as even Magnus admitted, it's hard to rival the 'official' world champion title in terms of global attention.
What might save FIDE, or at least keep it relevant, is if Ding being in the championship now can do for chess in China what Fischer did for chess in the US, or Anand for India. There's a potential huge market and player base that so far hasn't been very interested in international Chess (xiangqi and go are more popular).
On the other hand, this may be an inflection point toward online chess and faster time formats taking over for deciding who the "real" chess champion is. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, especially with the battle between chess.com and lichess.org for online mindshare.
As 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.
My read on the situation is that Magnus had two goals:
1) remain world champion
2) get to 2900 elo
#1 got in the way of #2 because all the elite grandmasters constantly focus throughout the year on preparing for Magnus, which creates a headwind in the non-world champion tournaments where he must perform well to reach 2900.
My guess is he will focus on 2900. Then, come back as world champion. Then, retire after 7 championships or his performance deteriorates.
Isn't elo eventually inflated by the number of ranked players anyway?
The more people will be eventually fide rated and climb through the distribution the more the better players will drift at higher elos.
That's also a reason why in modern days we have more 2750+ ranked players than ever.
One common, wrong, argument is that modern players play better, while this is true this does not affect the elo ranking at all. The elo system merely tracks how did you do against opponents with a different ranking and assigns a score based on the win or loss, how well the players did is absolutely irrelevant to the distrubition.
I think that the rating inflation debate has concluded that there isn't that much inflation. Compared to the old 2600 generation, the 2700 people now are just that much better.
> #1 got in the way of #2 because all the elite grandmasters...
... also focus on grabbing draws. Draws against lower rated players (that is, everyone for Magnus) drop your elo. Winning the world championship may very well drop Mangus' elo score if it involves only a handful of wins and lots of draws.
I think he had issues with the challenger selection process. That's why he was willing to play if it was Firouzja but isn't interested in a rematch with Nepo.
And I think pretty much everyone predicted that had Naka won Magnus would play.
> But they need to make sure wins give you e.g. 3 points and draws only 0.5.
As black under such a system I might be more strongly incentivized to go for the draw than under the current system. I'm already starting at a disadvantage by having black, so pressing for the win is extra risky, and if I do go for it and lose my opponent gains 3 points on me.
If you want to reduce draws by playing with points you probably should included something that takes into accounts white's advantage. You want to make sure white has a strong incentive to push for the win, which in turn also increases the chances white will go too far, giving black a good chance to also push for the win.
For example, asymmetric scoring such as black gets 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, and white gets 2 points for a win, 0 points for a draw. That system was tried in a couple or so tournaments around 2005 or so.
As far as the format goes, I wonder if a small tournament coupled with something like the promotion/relegation system used in many soccer leagues would be good?
Have a Champions Tournament that consists of 4 players that play a double round robin (or maybe a quadruple round robin?) for the World Championship. The participants are the current Champion, the runner-up from the prior Champions Tournament, and the top two from the Candidates Tournament.
The Candidates Tournament would include the 3rd and 4th place players from the prior Champions Tournament, the 3rd and 4th place players from the prior Candidates Tournament, and some players who are invited based on rating, World Cup, and Grand Prix results.
Maybe also make the Candidates bigger than it is now, say 10 or 12 players. That would be too long to hold as a single event, so split it. Play some of the games as part of the World Cup event and some as part of the Grand Prix events.
That's why as a spectator I wouldn't like a change in the format to a multi-player tournament. Changing it would be equivalent to making the candidates the World Championship and removing the WC match - basically getting rid of the most exciting part of following chess and keeping everything else the same.
Readit News
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 his sport or game than Tinsley.
In 1990 Tinsley decided to play Chinook, the best checkers computer program in the world. Chinook had placed second at the US Nationals so it had the right to enter the world championships, but the US and British checkers federations refused to allow it.
So Tinsley resigned his title. Tinsley then played Chinook in an unofficial match (which he won).
This power play really stuck it to the federations: nobody wanted to be named the new world champion knowing Tinsley was fully capable of crushing them. Eventually everyone came to an agreement to let Tinsley be the "champion emeritus".
Tinsley played Chinook four years later, at age 68, still probably the best player in the world. But in the middle of the match he complained of stomach pains and withdrew after only six games (of 20), all drawn. Tinsley's pains were real: he later died of pancreatic cancer.
> 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 Tinsley had the advantage and a few moves after that I resigned.
More details on this epic match from Wikipedia:
> The lead programmer Jonathan Schaeffer looked back into the database and discovered that Tinsley picked the only strategy that could have defeated Chinook from that point and Tinsley was able to see the win 64 moves into the future.
---
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/science/short-history-ai-sc...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Tinsley
You are welcome.
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.
...and self-replicating so it ensures its own survival long term of course, but that's a problem yet to be solved.
https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/
It's hard to overstate how incredibly dominant Tinsley was. In his entire career, he never lost a match, and only ever lost 7 games (two to Chinook). That is out of maybe tens of thousands of games. He was a mathematician by training and taught at a historically black university. He was also deeply religious and a lay minister at a black church. He famously described the difference between chess and checkers like this: “Chess is like looking out over a vast open ocean; checkers is like looking into a bottomless well.”
I could just quote the entire article, but I'll just leave it at this passage:
> The two men sat in his office and began the matches, Schaeffer moving for Chinook and entering changes in the game into the system. The first nine games were all draws. In the tenth game, Chinook was cruising along, searching 16 to 17 moves deep into the future. And it made a move where it thought it had a small advantage. “Tinsley immediately said, ‘You’re gonna regret that.’” Schaeffer said. “And at the time, I was thinking, what the heck does he know, what could possibly go wrong?” But, in fact, from that point forward, Tinsley began to pull ahead...
> The computer scientist became fixated on that moment. After the match, he ran simulations to examine what had gone wrong. And he discovered that, in fact, from that move to the end of the game, if both sides played perfectly, he would lose every time. But what he discovered next blew his mind. To see that, a computer or a human would have to look 64 moves ahead.
Tinsley was simply one of the most remarkable human minds of the 20th century. I'm happy he finally got a challenger that was worthy of him (as no other humans could even come close), but it also seems fitting that he was never officially defeated in a real checkers match. Rest in peace.
[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/07/mario...
I wonder how much more resistance he would have had in draughts.
Very interesting comment. This sentence about dominance in a field made me think of Stu Ungar, who dominated Gin Rummy so completely that he had to switch to Poker (where he became a 3-time world champion) to meet interesting adversaries.
I couldn't find an exact reference for the following quote, but still: "Some day, I suppose it's possible for someone to be a better No Limit Hold'em player than me. I doubt it, but it could happen. But, I swear to you, I don't see how anyone could ever play gin better than me."
Sounds like he was very skilled and continuously getting better -- which is of course impressive. At the same time, his overall life story turns out to be tragic. Two choice quotes from the article really jumped out for me:
> Ungar told ESPN TV... that the 1980 WSOP was the first time he had ever played a Texas hold'em tournament. Poker legend Doyle Brunson remarked that it was the first time he had seen a player improve as the tournament went on.
> Ungar is regarded by many poker analysts and insiders as one of the greatest pure-talent players ever to play the game. But on the topic of his life, Stu’s long term friend Mike Sexton said “In the game of life, Stu Ungar was a loser.”
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stu_Ungar
An approximately optimal strategy for Limit Heads Up was determined: http://poker.srv.ualberta.ca/ is a Limit solution.
Machines don't play No Limit perfectly, but they're good enough to have beaten the best humans available when they last tried, so I expect if Stu had lived long enough they'd beat Stu too.
Interestingly Gin Rummy is not seen as a major AI research target. I found some undergraduates playing with relatively simple AI approaches for Gin Rummy as basically a getting your feet wet exercise, but this is apparently not in the context of "Here's what the grown-ups did" but rather "Nobody is exploring this, so whatever you do is actually novel". So there's a real opportunity if somebody is interested.
https://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~chinook/publications/solving...
[0] https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-0-387-76576-1
For an even shorter, and lighter, read on checkers engine, I recommend Blondie24[0].
[0] https://www.amazon.com/dp/1558607838
I've got another one: famous hold 'em poker player Stu Ungar never lost a game of gin rummy. Utterly dominant.
Not a "he", but Heather McKay won 16 consecutive British Open squash titles. Squash got a World Open only in 1976, and she won the first two editions. In a career spanning 1960-1981, she was only defeated twice and both times were early in her career.
No -> Fact checkers
Yes -> Checker facts
Dead Comment
Deleted Comment
They have also become less entertaining. 12 matches is long (edit, 14 now), but no one dares to take any risks. Caruana was just defensive and all games ended in a draw. Karjakin they both at least won each their game, but still had to go to rapid tie-breaks. And against Nepo it was a steamroll, understandably meeting him again isn't that exciting.
It's also almost impossible for a new person to get a chance. Even Carlsen didn't like the format and didn't participate in the Candidates for a few years, and when he first did he almost didn't win it to be allowed to play the WC match. Even though he clearly was the best player at the time.
I wonder how this will affect the status of the title, when it's in practice is now a title-fight between the second best players.
Also what will happen to the hype in Norway? Each WC match has so far been live streamed on all big news pages, biggest TV channels etc. It will still be a Christmas tradition to watch the rapid WC tournament I guess, but I'm afraid this will lead to less coverage. But just to tell how big Carlsen is in Norway: This is the top news on all outlets at the moment.
A light hearted, unplanned and unadvertised naka-carlsen bullet match can attract a lot of viewers. They both stream, and lots of other chess streamers will switch to watching and doing commentary when these matches happen.
They'll play silly openings like the double bong cloud and have fun.
Carlson's into this new egaming vibe. He's good at it, and it's good for chess. Meanwhile, high-level classical is brutal. The level is so high that the game is hard to follow. It takes forever and is draining. Most games end in a draw.
I feel like Fide should focus more on rapid, and get more involved in the online scene. Maybe this is the opportunity.
I suspect the most anticipated, spectator matches of the future will be rapid matches and alt formats like team tournies (go Norway gnomes). They're just more fun for everyone but your cranky old chess instructor, and even she loves it in secret.
I'd bet a 20 game rapid series over 4 days between naka-carlsen would attract more viewers than the world championship.
It's kinda fun to see this referenced recently in a television quiz show:
https://youtu.be/aD2mUHeBIRA
This cheapens the tradition and the prestige of the discipline. Chess has attained a revered status over the years. It's not perceived as a game like any other. That's why it's able to attract luxury sponsors, if nothing else. Shifting the focus onto the "double bong cloud drunk banter blitz" territory destroys this legacy. This casual, fun aspect exists and does very well independently of the official, suited up aspect. They are complementary. But I'd really think twice before trying to remove one of the pillars. Chess is the most known, researched and commented mind game on the globe, it doesn't suffer from niche viewership. There's no need to try and fix a problem that doesn't exist. Tradition and legacy is something no amount of online clicks could ever buy.
The first half of the match wasn't even close to a steamroll. It's just Ian broke mentally after that famous 6th game. The candidate tournament showed that he had more than recovered from that loss and I think he would be in a much better shape to challenge Carlsen again. Also, with Carlsen's current attitude, it is quite possible that he would be closer to breaking first. (One may assume he already broke since he gives up the title without a fight)
If nepo plays like he did in the candidates, I would not be so quick to favor magnus.
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 in classical you have (almost) all the time in the world to calculate the line you're playing.
> Chess, in theory, with absolutely perfect play, is a draw.
I don't think that's solved, actually.
While this is highly likely and essentially agreed upon by all experts on the matter, it's not proven yet.
> In fact they used to take 2 days for one game.
Come now. The WCC matches were entertaining to watch for chess enthusiasts. Even when games took two days, people would sit and analyze each position, and that was without computers.
They still do that, of course. Although chess computers have taken some of the fun out of the analysis, I've been to several live viewings of the recent WCCs at chess clubs and bars, where a local GM would sit and comment on the position and take questions and suggestions from the crowd.
But the WCC matches have become less entertaining for chess enthusiasts, since there is so much defensive play. There isn't too much to analyze in yet another Berlin game.
It's entertaining when someone makes a horrible blunder, but not in the same way – there's little to analyze in a position that's blundered.
So I'd argue the classical WCC used to be entertaining to watch live for chess enthusiasts, but now they're less entertaining for chess enthusiasts. For "regular people", they've never been very entertaining, except when there's a spectacular blunder, which has never been very entertaining for chess enthusiasts.
True, but that doesn't mean that you can't treat chess like other sports and try to incentivize wins - for example giving win/loss/draw a 3:1:0 point ratio. The world championship is not a good format to decide "who's the best at chess", and anyway we already know who that is right now. Might as well treat it as a spectator sport and add some drama in my opinion.
Even the best human players are nowhere near perfect play.
Chess engines have proven that even players that are 1000 Elo stronger than the best players alive today can lose. Just look at how each new version of Stockfish absolutely trounces the previous version.
Stockfish 7, released 6 years ago, is nearly 500 Elo weaker than the newest version, Stockfish 15.[0] That's the difference between Carlsen and the weakest grandmasters.
0. https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/64992190/179047597...
All three formats are thriving with some superstars playing all three formats and official World Championships being played in all three formats
(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 different from a tie, where both teams score the same number of runs. Ties are extremely rare (about 1:1000 matches. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tied_Test), draws fairly common (about ⅓ of all test matches)). Part of the charm of test cricket is that trying harder to win a game also increases the risk of losing it, so teams have to make educated guesses as to whether to pursue that)
This eventually happened in ODI's as well. It just all reduced to batsmen playing purely for records. Competition dried out.
T20 suffers from the same problems, and is a big reason why people are so burned out. I have barely watched any cricket in years.
In matches where is there is a good pitch, and something for the bowlers, the test matches are super interesting to watch.
That entails analyzing all of their games and finding defenses and weaknesses. But also trying to find new novelties in the openings etc. And since the opponent will do the same, you yourself have to prepare defenses for lots of potential new openings 16 moves deep or so. It's an insane amount of studying.
Of course, that pays off for future games outside the match as well. But when you know your challenger will spend half a year on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to beat you, you probably have to do the same. So have to say no to everything else.
Yes. Their upcoming opponent's past games (including analyzing them for strengths and weaknesses), and engine lines mostly.
It sounded sort of like a side mind game that Carlsen plays on his opponents. It made it clear that Carlsen really studies his opponents and not just their past games.
These changes increase the stakes, incentivize offensive chess, allow the sitting WC to play all the best players rather than one, reduces the time commitment to a single event for the challengers, and allows the WC to partake in the most prestigious tournament.
Is it because its stressful, and demands too much work and prep from participants.
Just asking as competitive sport at the top level be it chess, football, or even swimming for that matter demands lots of work and a kind of work ethic not easy for most of us.
The Candidates tournament has some seemingly arbitrary qualifications that players must meet, and you could argue that the format doesn't necessarily produce the strongest player to challenge the world champion.
The World Championship match itself is problematic because it gives the defending champion a fairly huge advantage, in that they retain the title if they can draw out the match, although more recently it goes to rapid chess tie breaker rounds. So in practice the Championship is decided by these tie breaker rounds, which doesn't really seem appropriate.
Given the prep time players have and the engines available, players go into these matches extremely well prepared and draws over the board are quite a typical outcome unless someone makes a mistake.
I believe Magnus wants the Championship to become a knockout tournament to reduce the advantage that so much prep time can give. There is a big difference between prepping for a field of 12 players versus prepping for a single opponent.
An athlete can spend all day in the gym and then grab a shower and roll into bed. They may be sore as hell from head to toe but they will be so exhausted they can just pass out and get a great night's sleep. They also get the benefit of endorphins which make them feel good and rewarded for doing their exercise.
On the other hand, a chess player spending all day going over variations and practicing is going to have a difficult time sleeping with all of those lines and positions flying around in their head. They will be mentally exhausted but still active and alert. It is an absolutely miserable experience. So to prevent it you need to cut back on the hours which means spreading out the preparation over many days/weeks/months. It can also get very boring because you don't get the same rewards you get from playing and winning games. The only reward comes when you finally get to the WC match and then you actually have to win or it's utterly heartbreaking.
This is time that could be spent playing tournaments.
This would be okay if the world championships was every four years, but it's every two, so a large fraction of Carlsen's time is spent preparing for this one match that everybody knows he's going to win anyway.
It's similar to the way that many professional teams are reluctant to allow their players to play in the Olympics (in e.g. Basketball, Ice Hockey, and Olympic Football is completely neutered). Carlsen clearly feels that the World Championship is not important enough to sacrifice a large chunk of his career for.
The problem is that the world champion is out of play for 6 months out of every two years, preparing for just one game.
It's boring for him as well as the fans to spend that much time in isolation just trying to memorize everything about one particular opponent.
It would be better to have him out and about playing tournaments and beating lots of different opponents.
That way the match is the same but the half year of prep is gone.
If Magnus doesn't want to play this sport anymore, it's his decision, and totaly understandable. But don't try to change like a century of tradition (much like the rules of chess).
EDIT: fix typo
> when [Carlsen] first did he almost didn't win it to be allowed to play the WC match.
These complaints are in opposition to each other! You can have an open process which gives an outsider a chance to qualify, or you can teleport the incumbent best player straight to the final, but you can't have both.
The current Candidates structure balances it pretty well, in my view. Most of the 10 players who have a realistic chance in a match reach the final 8, but it often features one great-but-not-elite grandmaster who had a good tournament, and it's theoretically open to even the worst amateur who shows up to his Continental Championship and performs well in that followed by the World Cup.
Economically speaking, that won't be enough time for advertising, setting the venue or getting sponsor up either. It matters who plays in the WCC match before you can do either of those things. We still don't know when or where the match for this cycle will happen even now.
Most rounds would finish in around 2 hours, just like several e-sports games. Have 2 rounds a day and finish it in 8 rounds. With a more e-sport like approach, chess could bring in even more viewers and hence more sponsorships.
The format has been changing way too often, if anything.
> 12 matches is long (edit, 14 now), but no one dares to take any risks.
Not really: 12 or even 14 games is short, which is exactly why players aren't particularly willing to take risks - short format makes it hard to catch up should they fall behind. The format used to be 24 games in Kasparov times, and some WC matches were decided by the "first to X wins" rule, which could last very long, given that draws wouldn't push things forward (and for example Alekhine beated Capablanca after 34 games).
> And against Nepo it was a steamroll, understandably meeting him again isn't that exciting.
It wasn't such a steamroll, the score doesn't tell a full story. Nepo's play quality was excellent and he arguably had more winning chances throughout the first half of the match. His first loss was in the longest WC game ever played (136 moves, and theoretically drawish almost until the very end when Nepo finally slipped). He collapsed psychologically right after, starting to make errors that - in his own words - were "simple things you would never overlook in a blitz game".
In part due to that gruelling, exhausting loss, for sure, but some have theorized he may also have folded due to realizing how many good chances he had missed before that.
GM Sam Shankland (US champion of 2018, for those not up to date with the who-is-who of chess world) went as far as to say Ian was two different players in the match: Nepo A and Nepo B.
Subverting people's expectations, Nepo won the Candidates now so convincingly (some suspected he might not recover, and certainly not to such an extent) that I see no reason why one would expect a landslide Carlsen's victory in the upcoming match.
Especially since there's an enormous difference between having NEVER played a WC match (which was Ian's situation the last time), and having already played one.
To quote Kramnik reminiscing on his first WC match: "it was still a very unfamiliar situation, like playing all your life for Lokomotiv and then coming out to play for Real Madrid in the final of the Champions League. Of course, you have to get used to the new situation, kick the ball a couple of times so they don't laugh at you."
> Even Carlsen didn't like the format
Yeah, well - he didn't like it, isn't that a bummer :) But come on, it's not like Carlsen has no say in the matter of the format, especially now that he already is a 5x world champion. He could have negotiated a different one with FIDE - or at least try. Obviously it's too late for that once the challenger has already been revealed, the time for that was before the cycle started. The format isn't set in stone though, far from it, and the #1 player, the reigning WC, has a lot of weight to throw around.
Carlsen may have not liked the format from an objective point of view, but the format was certainly very convenient for him. He excels in rapid chess, so if his winning chances are, say, around 80% in the classical portion of the match, they probably reach something like 95% once it comes to rapid tiebreaks. And the shorter the format, the larger the likelihood of getting to the tiebreaks.
> I wonder how this will affect the status of the title, when it's in practice is now a title-fight between the second best players.
This isn't something new. Kasparov was still the world's #1 for years after he lost the title to Kramnik. (He had actually hoped for a rematch, but they couldn't work the conditions out, and since age was catching up with him, he finally retired.)
Fischer beat Spassky in Rejkyavik in 1972 for the World Championship. This took almost 3 months (July to September) and there was controversy, disagreement and negotiation about where and how it would take place. This had the backdrop of being a Cold War proxy too of course.
Interestingly, Fischer didn't play competitive Chess after this. He was set to defend the title against the eventual challenger, Anatoly Karpov, in 1975. Fischer too didn't like the tendency for draws and proposed a format of first to 10 wins (with Fischer retaining the title in case of a 9-9). This was rejected and Fischer ultimately abdicated and never played competitive Chess again. He also became a semi-nomadic recluse too.
But it also wasn't Fischer's first hiatus from the game. There was the 1972-1975 gap but also anotehr in the 1960s. He clearly seemed like a troubled guy.
I've always found it fascinating the level of commitment required to play Chess at this level. I certainly have never had any interest in that (nor the ability, to be clear). No one really seems to know how to solve this without going to a more blitz like format.
Chess at the highest level seems to revolve around memorizing a whole book of openings and defenses while being able to take advantage of mistakes but also finding novel approaches in standard openings and defenses but now it seems you have to go fairly deep into a game before you go off-book.
That seems to put the quote in a different context.
It's also funny how the only 3 World Champions who have refused to defend a title because of disagreements with FIDE are probably the 3 best chess players ever.
For anyone that likes the weird, wacko and genius (all the same thing ?) there are few excellent short documentaries on YouTube about Bobby Fischer. Well worth a watch!
There's several intellectuals I could name which were headed towards world class status like Demis Habbasis & Aleister Crowley decided to give up the game and later became remarkable men in their own right. I think of Paul Morphy who is probably the player furthest above his peers in history who decided to quit and be a lawyer and got annoyed whenever people would try to bring up the game.
I find it interesting to think of these men who are great enough to become the worlds best at chess, and some decide it's not worth it, some achieve that greatness and then require, and some seemingly are in it for life.
Dead Comment
That's assuming that's even his goal, he really just seems to be doing whatever he enjoys. And in the long run, FIDE will also be fine. There will be new talents, and as even Magnus admitted, it's hard to rival the 'official' world champion title in terms of global attention.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_in_China
On the other hand, this may be an inflection point toward online chess and faster time formats taking over for deciding who the "real" chess champion is. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, especially with the battle between chess.com and lichess.org for online mindshare.
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.
https://www.chessdom.com/firouzja-prepares-for-nepo-with-the...
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.
1) remain world champion
2) get to 2900 elo
#1 got in the way of #2 because all the elite grandmasters constantly focus throughout the year on preparing for Magnus, which creates a headwind in the non-world champion tournaments where he must perform well to reach 2900.
My guess is he will focus on 2900. Then, come back as world champion. Then, retire after 7 championships or his performance deteriorates.
The more people will be eventually fide rated and climb through the distribution the more the better players will drift at higher elos.
That's also a reason why in modern days we have more 2750+ ranked players than ever.
One common, wrong, argument is that modern players play better, while this is true this does not affect the elo ranking at all. The elo system merely tracks how did you do against opponents with a different ranking and assigns a score based on the win or loss, how well the players did is absolutely irrelevant to the distrubition.
An analysis here: https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-elo-ratings-inflation-or-d...
It claims that a 2500 player now is better than a 2500 player in 2000. So in that sense it's actually been a deflation.
Also https://www.playmagnus.com/en/news/post/rating-inflation-myt...
... also focus on grabbing draws. Draws against lower rated players (that is, everyone for Magnus) drop your elo. Winning the world championship may very well drop Mangus' elo score if it involves only a handful of wins and lots of draws.
Winning against Anand in 2013 gave him 2 points. I think he got 1 point for beating Nepo in 2021.
With that, reaching 2900 seems almost impossible. He was at 2882 two times, but when you need almost perfect score to achieve it it's hard.
And I think pretty much everyone predicted that had Naka won Magnus would play.
But they need to make sure wins give you e.g. 3 points and draws only 0.5.
Even in the candidates this year Ian - having obtained a nice lead - played drawing lines with white to perfection.
I don't blame him, it was the right decision. The incentive structure needs to change.
Even after a draw, the concept of Armageddon games to give another half point would be interesting and useful.
As black under such a system I might be more strongly incentivized to go for the draw than under the current system. I'm already starting at a disadvantage by having black, so pressing for the win is extra risky, and if I do go for it and lose my opponent gains 3 points on me.
If you want to reduce draws by playing with points you probably should included something that takes into accounts white's advantage. You want to make sure white has a strong incentive to push for the win, which in turn also increases the chances white will go too far, giving black a good chance to also push for the win.
For example, asymmetric scoring such as black gets 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, and white gets 2 points for a win, 0 points for a draw. That system was tried in a couple or so tournaments around 2005 or so.
As far as the format goes, I wonder if a small tournament coupled with something like the promotion/relegation system used in many soccer leagues would be good?
Have a Champions Tournament that consists of 4 players that play a double round robin (or maybe a quadruple round robin?) for the World Championship. The participants are the current Champion, the runner-up from the prior Champions Tournament, and the top two from the Candidates Tournament.
The Candidates Tournament would include the 3rd and 4th place players from the prior Champions Tournament, the 3rd and 4th place players from the prior Candidates Tournament, and some players who are invited based on rating, World Cup, and Grand Prix results.
Maybe also make the Candidates bigger than it is now, say 10 or 12 players. That would be too long to hold as a single event, so split it. Play some of the games as part of the World Cup event and some as part of the Grand Prix events.