Mike S. wrote:My opinion has nothing to do with engine suggestions. Their chess was just shit. I can get a hundred times more entertainment by playing my online games at a 1500 +/- level, than from this "World Championship" match. I lost any respect for these players. Where is Bobby Fischer when we need him...?
Plus one.
Plus 2
You will find him when you go to the other side, as far as the match when two players have lots of respect for each other, they don't take too many chances, and again this is the World FIDE Chess Championship and players don't take too many risky moves, but I do believe that GM Anand has reached the point of his final career ,and either GM Carlsen, Aronian, or GM Kramnik will take his crown next time
Since the match was decided with a rapid chess tiebreaker, what we have is a World Chess Champion of rapid chess. The slow chess championship was not decisive.
The tiebreaker does not have to be fast time limit games. As an example, they could have played a 10 game match with a 3 game sudden death slow chess tiebreaker. In the last game, draw odds would be given by one of the players. This can be made fair with a careful allocation of colors to balance the disadvantage of giving draw odds.
For example, assuming a 50% draw percentage and the White pieces having a 11 to 9 edge, one player would play as White in the 1st 2 games, but then play as Black and give draw odds in the 3rd game. His chances of winning would then be .30 + .50*.30 + .50*.50*.20 = 50% in this sudden death tiebreaker.
Similar balancing can be done with different assumptions for draw% and win% by tuning color allocation and tiebreaker length.
Completely fair. All the games would be at a slow time control. There would always be a decisive result. Match would have a maximum number of games played. It meets all of these desirable characteristics for a match.
Since the match was decided with a rapid chess tiebreaker, what we have is a World Chess Champion of rapid chess. The slow chess championship was not decisive.
The tiebreaker does not have to be fast time limit games. As an example, they could have played a 10 game match with a 3 game sudden death slow chess tiebreaker. In the last game, draw odds would be given by one of the players. This can be made fair with a careful allocation of colors to balance the disadvantage of giving draw odds.
For example, assuming a 50% draw percentage and the White pieces having a 11 to 9 edge, one player would play as White in the 1st 2 games, but then play as Black and give draw odds in the 3rd game. His chances of winning would then be .30 + .50*.30 + .50*.50*.20 = 50% in this sudden death tiebreaker.
Similar balancing can be done with different assumptions for draw% and win% by tuning color allocation and tiebreaker length.
Completely fair. All the games would be at a slow time control. There would always be a decisive result. Match would have a maximum number of games played. It meets all of these desirable characteristics for a match.
Another thing that they could have done is to extend the match to 15 games by adding 3 more games, without accepting draws by mutual agreement unless it is stalemate or perpetual checks.
PS: In the future if they want to make chess more interesting they should abolish acceptance of draws by mutual agreements, they should fight to the very end. When I play versus HIARCS on my Iphone I tried to make HIARCS to accept to a draw after 20 moves or so, but Hiarcs always refused
Last edited by pichy on Fri Jun 01, 2012 3:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
MM wrote:
I don't agree. There are some Gms that are not strong in tactics because they are positional players and probably there is a huge number of IM or FM that tactically could beat them. For example, Smyslov wasn't a great tactician but he was a great positional player and a superb endgame player.
I find the idea that there are a large number of IMs or FMs that are tactically superior to Smyslov in his prime very very odd. I suspect there are none, but I guess there might be a few, and all those are probably GM strength. He was definitely stronger than most GMs at tactics in my opinion, and there is no doubt that on average GMs are quite a bit better tactically than IMs and FMs.
In my opinion most GMs that excel at endgame (such as Kramnik) are also excellent at tactics since endgame requires very accurate calculation. Vice-versa is also true at least for endgames that do not require memorization of specific techniques the particular player in question has not studied. For example Tal played some amazing endgames, winning some astounding opposite bishop endgames that just left a generation of GMs shaking their heads in wonder. GMs known for their endgame skill may not enjoy attacking or taking risk as much as collecting positional advantages and grinding out endgames, but that doesn't mean they are not excellent tacticians.
-Sam
I think that is a key point. I once thought that Karpov was not a very tactical player, back in the Kasparov / Karpov matches. GM Dzhindi pointed out the error of my thinking with a lot of examples where he, I and Karpov chatted online. Turns out he was an incredibly accurate tactician, but he liked the grind-it-out style of playing carefully and picking up an advantage here and there, rather than the wild early-Kasparov style of chess where pawns meant nothing and pieces didn't mean much more.
Karpov said something very similar to what you stated, which paraphrased was something like "Just because I don't play a lot of wild attacking chess does not mean I can not play such positions very accurately, I just play the way I prefer to play unless forced to play otherwise..."
I believe EVERY GM is very strong tactically, and while there might be the occasional IM that is stronger, that is solely because the IM has not yet earned his GM title but really is a GM in terms of strength...
Anand is a stellar player with a great match and tournament record, and deserves congratulations. But he came very close to losing this match. How would he do against Carlsen, now #1 on the rating list? I think we are going to see a different World Champion in a couple of years. We may well have had one this year, if he had faced someone more formidable than Gelfand.
Mike S. wrote:My opinion has nothing to do with engine suggestions. Their chess was just shit. I can get a hundred times more entertainment by playing my online games at a 1500 +/- level, than from this "World Championship" match. I lost any respect for these players. Where is Bobby Fischer when we need him...?
Mike S. wrote:My opinion has nothing to do with engine suggestions. Their chess was just shit. I can get a hundred times more entertainment by playing my online games at a 1500 +/- level, than from this "World Championship" match. I lost any respect for these players. Where is Bobby Fischer when we need him...?
Mike S. wrote:My opinion has nothing to do with engine suggestions. Their chess was just shit. I can get a hundred times more entertainment by playing my online games at a 1500 +/- level, than from this "World Championship" match. I lost any respect for these players. Where is Bobby Fischer when we need him...?
