And they wonder why the kibitzers of the WCC match keep bringing up Fischer, Spassky, Korchnoi, the “old” players. Perhaps if the “new” players like Anand showed any kind of guts to try to win a game a pawn up, and the final game at that, perhaps we wouldn’t talk about the “old” players so much. Evidently my opinion doesn’t stand alone: the three K’s (Kasparov, Karpov, Kramnik) issued similar statements.
Geez, Anand wouldn’t even play out a no-risk ending to try to win the championship. It doesn’t get any worse than that. Next match, there should be serious considerations to a clause withholding part of the purse should such nonsense be repeated.
This match is a serious blow to the populatity of chess, and something better be done about it.
I could rant on and on, but I better not, hopefully the chess world will, and the weight of popular opinion will force some changes.
Maybe the World Championship itself is an anachronism. Other individual sports, like tennis and golf, do not have a specific overall title. They go by rankings and ratings to determine their number one player for the year. The wrangling, negotiating, and the power it gives champions and organizations like FIDE in the last two decades have wasted a lot of time and money without doing very much to popularize the game.
“guts”? Blaming the players is illogical and always wrong.
Blame belongs to the current rules of chess, or to the people who control the rules.
The current rules make chess too draw prone. These pieces on this board need not be so draw prone. Under different rules they would be less draw prone.
At the root your concerns is caused by chess currently being excessively draw prone. Why obfuscate that fundamental truth with absurd aspersions about supposedly gutless world championship competitors?
Doubtless you mean the same Garry Kasparov who offered draws after 14 move-pairs when trailing late in the match Kasparov-Kramnik 2000.
Casts doubt on G.K.'s credibility in this area.
Anand would loved to have won game 12. Yet he agreed to a draw. Why?
Because his knowledge of chess is so vast that he strongly believes the game would almost certainly end in yet another draw. You are not claiming Anand is wrong in that assessment.
A fleetingly tiny chance for victory is not enough payback for the effort to play it out, partly because…
…Anand knows his skill advantage over Gelfand in Speed chess (during tie-break rounds) is bigger than for long time-controls. Anand will almost certainly “win” this classical match during Speed chess.
I share your dismay over the decision by these Tournament Organizers to not impose a rule forbidding early or premature draw offers.
But I am not going to blame the player one iota for early draws when the T.O. intentionally decided to allow early draws.
Like what changes? It would help us all if you could be specific.
And answering “Sofia rule” is no solution. The Sofia rule has almost no effect on the draw rate (we have stats on that nowadays).
Since 2001, the majority of the 5 WCChamp matches have ended their classical long time-control phase tied: at the elite level, the draw rate is waaaaay too high under the current rules of chess.
What specific changes would correct this interminable “draw flaw”?
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karchad is right. The latest players are playing in a gutless manner.
Fischer would have certainly played for the win when a pawn up. In that position the worst thing that would happen would be a draw, and he could convert the pawn up game to a win at best.
The rules of chess have been this way for many years which included the players that would play for a win.
What rules would you have changed? You can’t seriously be suggesting randomizing the initial piece positions at the start of the game? This is Chess not a variant.
Nakamura showed the exact fighting spirit Karchad refers to in the recent US Championship. He played for a win at all times, and especially when a draw was all that was needed to clinch the championship.
Anand has been a fighting chess player when he was younger. This recent match showed him playing very conservatively and he only showed genius and creativity when he was a game down. With the same rules of the game, he certainly could have played more aggressively than he did.
Kasparov offered draws when he was BEHIND in the tournament. He did end up winning the tournament as well. He also did play very aggressively in many, if not most, of his games.
As karchad mentioned, the draw was in hand for Anand. There was no risk in going after a pawn up chance for victory. If he would have won there would have been no need for any playoff regardless of Speed and so forth and so on.
Well, it has been pointed out that the short length of the match is a problem, and it is. A twelve game match is not long enough for a World Championship. If you look at the matches before 2001, they all ended decisively and had no need to go to any Speed Chess playoff or anything like that.
Face it, this match has been boring and dismal in Chess terms. Anand only showed flourish and tactical genius in Game 8 when he was behind and needed the win to get back to even.
As for what should be done to make things better, well simply increasing the game total for the match would be a very big start, and perhaps finish.
Botvinnik–Bronstein (1951), Botvinnik–Smyslov (1954), and Kasparov–Karpov (1987) all had longer matches (twenty-four games) and all finished at 12-12. The reason there was no playoff is at the time the defending champion would retain the title in case of a tie.
It was a matter of Respect for Gelfand. Anand knew that with best play it would be a draw. I take his draw offer as showing strength not weakness. Integrety not cowardice.
I’ve been struck in this match by how superior the players are to the commentators. Often the commentators have not understood what was happening, and when there was a discrepancy, in every case the players were at least as good as the real-time commentators.
For my own far more humble perspective, as a Gelfand supporter several times I’ve thought he was in trouble, starting in the opening of Game 1, and Gelfand got out of it quickly every time. (Normally when I smell trouble, there actually is trouble. This just shows how much better Gelfand’s understanding is than mine.) The reason these games end in draws is that the calculation accuracy, positional judgment and defensive technique are all incredibly high in this match. There are occasional “human mistakes” in prior matches, but I don’t really see that this time. I’m sure some people are looking for such “human interest” and are bored when the fight is as deep as it is here. Even when each player lost a game, there were no histrionics, in other words a lack of human interest. Even in behavior, one could almost call these men super-human.
These players are really showing why THEY are playing for the title and not anyone else. I expect Grischuk or Carlsen could have given us a good match too, but not a better one. Kamsky perhaps – he gave Gelfand his only scare in the Candidates’ – but he hasn’t shown the same steadiness and adequate opening preparation at the very top level. I hope Nakamura makes it deep into the next cycle, of course.
How many players actually thought White had significant winning prospects in the final position today? There’s a list above including Grischuk’s name, but I don’t think he was even in the booth today. Svidler was in the Russian booth, and Kramnik in the English booth.
Kramnik was not really focused on actual game analysis today and made a couple silly mistakes that he would not if he were focusing on it at all. But he conveyed an interesting proposal that he says is not his originally:
Play the speed chess tiebreak before the classical chess.
Then the match is played with draw odds, and they’re not just “champion’s advantage” but actually earned in the prematch tiebreak. The classical match always ends in a decision, and the most critical decisions in the match are made by the players at the classical time control as they should be.
It’s really a brilliant idea. It works the best in a 2-player match where the speed chess only has to involve two players.
But in the US Championships, whenever there is a playoff, we could do the same thing for that playoff match. Speed chess, then one classical game. Winner of the speed games can decide to take White or draw odds. It’s not great, but I think it’s somewhat better than what we do now. Much better if there’s time for two classical games, one with each color. Maybe with this change getting rid of Armageddon and other undesirable finishes, we could have some great matches for the US titles.
Speaking of missed winning opportunities, the analysis on the official website suggests that Gelfand could have had winning chances by simply taking the pawn when Anand pushed e5 today.
Look at the position evaluated by “Houdini Aquarium” as -0.20 at the end of that variation (you have to click on + to expand the variation), after 15. Re1. To me it looks like Black is winning. Black is a pawn up. White’s pieces are doing nothing on the queenside, all Black’s pawns are safe, and he can push pawns on the kingside, eventually opening the game for his bishops. Off the bat he can play Nd4 to control a lot of nice squares in White’s position, and White is surely lost if he kicks it away with c3; then the d3 pawn is very weak. So what is White to do? The evaluation says “quiet position” so there isn’t much for him to do, but I just described a long-range plan for Black. Computers often miss long-range plans. Of course White may have better play earlier, but what?
They appear to be “calculating machines” only because they are playing boring, riskless chess. At that level, in such positions, its easy to look like a computer…
From your perspective, if 2 players play sharply, and risk a win, then they are paying inferior chess because mistakes are made. From my perspective, Aronian's chess and Naka's chess (to name just two) is the REAL chess. Damn the evals and computers, thats not what it's about at all:I'm a human playing a human, let's get it on!
I think it’s ludicrous to declare that these two are playing the best match possible. Almost nobody believes that, from the lowly amateur to the top players in the world.
Just because Anand is a superb player doesn’t mean the chess world has to agree to the nonsense he pulled in offering a draw in a superior position in the last game of an even championship contest.
I just had a chance to look over the last “classical” game of the present World Championship. If I did not know the names and ratings of the players, I would have guessed that the moves were made by two amateurs with around a 1200-1300 rating. Even that level of player would have been sheepish about the quality of the game but would have played it out. Maybe the draw offer was made and accepted because both players were ashamed of themselves. Or, more cynically, that the result was pre-arranged. Oh well, on to the silly quick chess games… Both players have managed to damage their reputations and marketability in this match.
When boxers aren’t throwing haymakers like amateurs, that doesn’t mean they’re not really fighting.
How does White play for a win against the Sveshnikov? Or the Chebanenko? (The Grünfelds have been fighting games: perhaps the contract should have required six Grünfelds and six Najdorfs.)
Rather than complain about scoring, or about no fighting chess, simply change the prize fund to award some of the money for game victories rather than having it awarded for a match victory. One way to do this is to incorporate a sort of “tontine” to the prize fund:
Consider a normal sort of match prize (assume a 10 game match for ease of discussion.)
$1m, split 60/40 winner/loser.
Now consider these variants:
A) $1m, $500k in a “match prize” split 60/40 to the winner. $500k in a game prize, $50k per each win - when a game ends in a draw, the $50k rolls over to the next win, if all games end in a draw the $500k rolls to the match playoff winner.
B) $1m, $500k in a “match prize” split 60/40 to the winner. $500k in a game prize, $50k per each win - when a game ends in a draw, the $50k rolls over to match winner (not split)
C) $1m, $500k in a “match prize” split 60/40 to the winner. $500k in a game prize, $50k per each win - when a game ends in a draw, the $50k is forfeited.
Its funny that people continue to complain about GAME results when prizes are for match/tournament results. If we want the behavior to change, pay for game results.
On the otherhand get rid of cash prizes completely. The larger the prizes, the larger the chance for corruption. Play chess for chess sake. Give the victor a big fat trophy.
Here’s a possibility for incentivizing fighting chess in a WC match. Haven’t thought out all the details yet, but this is what came to mind quickly.
Take the current 12-game match and $1.5M prize fund. Give each player a $100,000 honorarium. Then, award the following prizes for decisive games.
Games 1-4: $50,000 per win.
Games 5-8: $100,000 per win.
Games 9-12: $150,000 per win.
Match winner: $100,000 bonus.
Each drawn game causes the prize fund to roll over to the next game. The winner of the match is the player who has accumulated the most prize money at the end. If the total prize money is tied, the last player to win a game wins the match. Any money left over after Game 12 goes back to the organizers. The players would then play a tiebreak for the $100,000 winner’s bonus and WC title.
If this prize fund were applied to the current match, Boris Gelfand would be the new world champion, having won $500,000 to Viswanathan Anand’s $100,000. Then again, if this prize fund were applied to the current match, you’d probably see an entirely different set of game results.
Well, if you don’t want any professional level chess I suppose you could do that - for awhile. Then someone with business sense and understanding what attracts people would offer cash prizes and replace the fuddy-duddy organization with one that recognizes that professionals deserve to be paid.
