https://www.fide.com/fide-announces...

While Anand feels that the additional scrutiny of Gukesh’s results is unfair, he understands it:

“Look, Gukesh wanted to become world champion, this is what comes with the territory, he’s got to put up with it, that’s all. I don’t think it’s necessarily fair that everybody analyzes him, but that’s the job description.”

"He’s been experimenting in lots of formats. He’s willing to travel, he’s willing to go out there and try again and again.
He’s not sitting on prestige (of being world champion). These are healthy qualities. His year in classical events, it’s fairly acceptable.

I mean, losing a tiebreak at Wijk aan Zee [2025 see Tata Steel Masters (2025) doesn’t mean you’ve had a bad tournament.
His performance in Norway Chess didn’t fit any mold, but in its own way, it was hopefully satisfactory.

Well, sort of. Before the rating system started in 1970 it wasn't the same. A champion might have an off result, but there was no specific metric to say he wasn't the best despite being champion.

For about 50 years after the rating system began we were lucky enough to have the champion also be the #1 player for most of that time. People got spoiled and expect it to be that way all the time, but there's no guarantee. We might go through decades of first-among-equals champions.

Ever since the rating system started there have been people who took it too seriously. No matter how clearly the designers of the system say that it's a general measure of recent results, people ignore that and regard it as an absolute measure of playing ability.

Topalov made that mistake in 2006. Even though he had a heavy lifetime losing score against Kramnik, Kramnik's rating was down at the time due to illness. Topalov declared that Kramnik was unworthy to play him because the ratings showed that he was "half a rating class" better than Kramnik. Who knows how much that belief had to do with his overreaching in the first two games of the match, and losing them both?

Agreed ratings are overrated and were primarily designed to seed players as to what section in a tournament they could play in, the bonus being it helped team captains justify board orders in team matches.

It is a rough guide to a playing strength and probably the best we can have (unless AI comes up with a better one)
It is fairly accurate, certainly not random. The higher rated players does win more often, not always, but often enough to say the prediction formula works and the best players do hog the top spots.

However, It is taken far too seriously, players dropping down by 10-20 points have not got worse overnight. One slip due to any of the numerous reasons why a human losses a game and you drop a few points. As Anand said; 'It's no big deal.'

No metric, but it’s not like most people considered Ding to not be the best player in the world due to the rating system or one off result. His results were just not good enough to make him universally seen as the best player.

<I remember the Anand fans on Chessninja being hugely upset because Topalov came out one point ahead of Anand on a rating list>

I think that one had to do with Topalov widely being considered to be a FIDE favourite, and FIDE for the first time not including the results from Linares on the next rating list in spite of it ending three weeks before the list was published. The result being that Topalov was #1 instead of Anand. I think it was considered an especially big deal since Anand never had been #1 before. FIDE did correct that mistake though:

https://2700chess.com/juniors

My favorite example of the dangers of taking ratings too seriously is the 1968 Candidates Final. Before the match the chessmetrics ratings were:

Korchnoi - 2781
Spassky - 2753

After the match, the ratings were:

Korchnoi - 2769
Spassky - 2766

Anyone else watch the Carlsen videos where he asks a few chessic questions (within 3m) and "guesses" the player's rating?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeG...

Is he asking "Is this a forced win?", or is he asking "Can you personally do it?"

If he asked me the second question, I'd say "Maybe". I mean I could absolutely do it from this position:

click for larger view

But how about from this position?

click for larger view

Speaking of Ding Liren, I spotted a prophetic post from 2011.

Carlsen himself admits that he can't win a world championship match with the level of preparation he's able to make himself put into it any more. Ergo, Gukesh's title is totally legitimate, it's Khalifman, Pono, Kasim, Veselin, and even Vishy who were pretenders. And Vishy eventually became the real deal.

As far as I know, Lasker is the only one who went into a championship match cold, and he didn't start off too badly. According to Bernstein:

<I met Lasker on the evening before his departure. and we had this conversation.

"Have you made any preparations for the match?" "No."

"Have you taken time out to rest?" "No."

"At least are you taking along a chessboard in order to study chess on the voyage? " "No."

"Have you reviewed the openings you will play and studied the games of Capablanca?" "No."

"That is pure madness," I said. There was no answer. The outcome confirmed my fears. Without preparation, and handicapped additionally by age and climate, Lasker lost pitifully.>