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May-18-12
 | | Eyal: <What if - yes, I know it's crazy - the conditions said: He who reaches 6 or even 4 wins first, is the new champion?> Then they might play 50 games and the match would still not be decided. Remember the first Karpov-Kasparov match (1984/5) that was just mentioned here a few posts ago? It terminally discredited the concept of matches with no fixed length. |
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May-18-12
 | | Bobwhoosta: We must remember that not only the match conditions, but also the temperments of the players contribute to the overall play during the match. For instance, were we to see Carlsen vs. Aronian in the players' seats I would bet the average moves per game would be between 35-45, instead of hovering in the high 20's low 30's. They are combative players, and these two most definitely are not (Anand used to be, not so much anymore). Anand needs to realize that a great champion doesn't avoid losing by taking away everything that made him a champion in the first place. |
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May-18-12
| | Eyal: Btw, going back to draw odds for the reigning champion, besides avoiding the possibility that the classical world champion will be decided by a blitz game, also creates a situation where one of the two players is always dissatisfied with the current score and so has a strong incentive to play for a win (not necessarily in every single game, but at least as a strategic goal). |
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| May-18-12 | | Petrosianic: That's exactly right. With draw odds, one player is always behind. When the score is "tied", the challenger is actually 1 point down, and has some motivation to fight. Again, I would prefer draw odds to a Rapid Playoff. A rapid playoff creates the possibility that both players might agree to draw the match and decide things in the playoff. |
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May-18-12
 | | alexmagnus: The problem with champion's draw odds is the same - with draw play being perfect, the champion can hold on "forever". But the aim of the game is not to draw but to win... |
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| May-18-12 | | Petrosianic: I agree it's a problem. I just think a Rapids playoff is an even bigger problem. My ideal solution is still a series of single sudden death classical games (not pairs of games), using Sofia Rules, and with no timeouts, until someone wins. Next win takes it. |
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May-18-12
| | Bobwhoosta: <Petrosianic>
Pretty much agreed on all points. Sudden Death Classical would be best (perhaps in pairs though? kind of a mini-match, to eliminate the possibility of a bad black draw), then draw odds, and finally keep AWAY from the idea of the World Championship being decided by an Armaggeddon game. Anything that avoids that and is in ANY way reasonable gets my vote. |
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| May-18-12 | | BadKnight: draw odds is unfair. drawing is not the way to win. you actually have to win to win. |
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| May-18-12 | | AVRO38: <Like a GM once said the winner is he who made the second to the last mistake.> Then he must not have been a very bright GM because there is nothing to prevent the person who made the second to last mistake from also making the last mistake. Just bring back the champion's draw odds, it's simple, it's traditional, and it makes sense. With draw odds, in every game of the match someone will need a win, or to put it another way, there is never a game where a draw is desirable by both players. |
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| May-18-12 | | CoraxChess: Based on this conversation, you might say it's not about the quality of the match but rather about whether or not you are a romantic, someone who believes in "the great man fighting the great fight." This romanticism does not sit well with me. Surprising wins and crushing losses, after all, can be found anywhere in the chess world. Chess players may prefer to think of themselves as gifted geniuses; they may confuse their ELO ratings with their IQs. But such ideas are delusional and arguably out of place in game commentary. These consecutive draws so far have been refuting the egos-crushing-egos romanticization of chess and show the sport for what it is: two players slumped over pieces on a board, concentrating all of their intellectual resources in a small space. It may be anticlimactic but it is also humbling and beautiful at the same time. |
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May-18-12
| | Bobwhoosta: <BadKnight>
Yes, you have to win to win. But the Champion has nothing to win. He already HAS the title. Therefore draw odds still make sense even considering your argument. <AVRO38>
I'm sure this "not very bright" GM meant it rhetorically, and we need not overanalyze his ability to make linguistic distinctions. Also, I don't know if GM fully describes him, as I think he was one of the greats of the past (Perhaps Tarrasch??). |
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May-18-12
 | | HeMateMe: I guess the people who thought this match would be a blow out (because of Anand's chess history) didn't read the fine print. Anand is now over the age of 40, things slow down a bit. And, Gelfand is a worthy challanger. It may end at +1, or tie breaks. |
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May-18-12
| | alexmagnus: Draw odds don't make sense. Why being earlier "born" should give some privileges? I mean, if A is Superman and the later born B has exactly the same powers, is B not a superhero too? |
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May-18-12
| | alexmagnus: <HMM> But Gelfand is over 40 too, one year older than Anand even... |
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May-18-12
| | alexmagnus: Also, taking age into account is a bad argument anyway. Anand may well be a Korchnoi-like player, who will hold on top till senior age. The is at least one evidence for it: when Anand won his first title at 37, he became the oldest player to win his first title since Steinitz. So far players who won their first title at 35 or later (Steinitz, Alekhine, Botvinnik, Smyslov) were top players till their mid-50s. |
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| May-18-12 | | BadKnight: <Bobwhoosta>
<Yes, you have to win to win. But the Champion has nothing to win. He already HAS the title. Therefore draw odds still make sense even considering your argument.> i dont understand how it does. according to my argument, you have to win to keep the title. in my opinion in a fair contest, one has to perform better than his opponent to come out victorious, drawing, or coming out equal to your opponent is just not enough. its enough privilege for the champion to be directly seed into the championship final. giving draw odds to the champion is an enormous bias to the champion. i believe currently any head to head match between the two of any top 4-5 players offers equal chances to any player. so giving the champion direct shot in the final offers him at least 50% chance. candidate matches were almost like lotteries, so any of the candidates realistically had 1/8 th chances to make it to the championship final. so mathematically any of the 8 candidates had 1/8*50% chances of becoming a champion. so, mathematically the champion has a huge privilege. and he has to do nothing special but to win(draw if the draw odds applied) a match in 2 years to relish the privilege. not that these numbers would mean much to everybody, still clarifying my stance. mathematically, its very hard, often unrealistic, in the present system, for a challenger of equal caliber to the champion, to dethrone the existing champion. the challenger has to be either much much better than everybody else, like fischer for example, or incredibly lukcy, like gelfand to qualify. i would prefer a system where the best two players are likely to qualify into the final, or at least better players have better odds, and equal players have equal odds. i don't value tradition too much. i am sort of a person who believes in keep the goodies and dump the baadies. my personal choice, and opinion, of course. hypothetically, if traditional systems are found to be unfair and biased in modern perspective, they should be completely scrapped and replaced with new systems. obviously i don't expect everyone to agree with me, but i do expect others to understand my stance. and i don't want to get into endless debate here, just clarifying things. |
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May-18-12
| | alexmagnus: Another perspective speaking against the draw odds: draw odds for the champion means that first the player has to learn to win (to become champion) then he has to learn to draw (to keep the title) :). It makes it sound as if the ultimate aim of the game is draw - after all, draw is then enough in a more advanced stage of the career. |
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May-18-12
| | Eyal: <Draw odds don't make sense. Why being earlier "born" should give some privileges? I mean, if A is Superman and the later born B has exactly the same powers, is B not a superhero too?> I don't really understand the point of these metaphors... The basic premise of the world championship system since 1886 is that in order to become a world champion, you have to beat the reigning world champion. If you don't accept this premise, you shouldn't give the reigning world champion the privilege of waiting for his challenger in the first place - just make him compete in the candidates stage with all the other candidates. So if the challenger has to beat the reigning classical chess world champion in order to become the champion himself, it certainly makes sense to say that he has to do it in classical chess rather than in rapid or blitz. I'm not saying there aren't any drawbacks to this system - there are drawbacks to every system discussed here - but it certainly makes some very basic sense in terms of how the mechanism of the world championship has been always functioning (putting aside the FIDE experimentations in world cup and tournament formats in the decade following 1993). You might not like the whole system, but then the problem isn't specifically with the draw odds idea. |
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May-18-12
| | alexmagnus: Both champion's privileges - getting to the final and draw odds - are to be viewed separately. The latter doesn't followfrom the former. <The basic premise of the world championship system since 1886 is that in order to become a world champion, you have to beat the reigning world champion.> By why should beating be required? Why is proving oneself equal not enough? Also, if we put aside the Armageddon, tiebreak is just a "finer" test of pure chess skills. Classical games determine the better player (at the moment of the match!) with a low precision (i.e. a draw is possible with quite significant differences), while quicker games make the precision higher. I.e. beating the champ in Classical means "the challenger was significantly better" while doing it in Rapids means "the challenger was better, but the difference is not significant enough to be determinded in classical games". |
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May-18-12
 | | wwall: Anand was 30 when he won his first FIDE world championship in 2000. He won it again in 2007 by winning an 8-player tournament in Mexico City at age 37. |
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May-18-12
| | Eyal: <By why should beating be required? Why is proving oneself equal not enough?> If it was enough, then a draw at the end of the classical stage of a world championship should have been enough - and then the challenger would have enjoyed draw odds... The fact that they go into tiebreaks means that some sort of "beating", or proving superiority, is required here as well. There's no point in going again into the all the pros and cons of draw odds vs. tiebreaks - my point was that there's certainly nothing "weird" or illogical about the idea of draw odds within the current system of the world championship. |
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| May-18-12 | | solskytz: <Petrosianic> didn't get it that I didn't actually say that the match was great. Oh well (exasperation) |
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| May-18-12 | | Atalante: These first six games must be the most boring start of any World Championship Match yet. |
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| May-18-12 | | Petrosianic: <solskytz>: <Petrosianic didn't get it that I didn't actually say that the match was great. Oh well (exasperation)> I don't even get what comment you're referring to now. It's not even on this page any more. If you learn to state things a little clearer, you'll be less exasperated. |
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| May-18-12 | | jhelix70: <if A is Superman and the later born B has exactly the same powers, is B not a superhero too?> If person A has the title of champion, why take the title away and give it to person B if person B can't BEAT person A? That is why draw odds makes sense...B has to prove he is better than A (not just his equal) to take the title away. |
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