The Levellers
Steve Giddins’ Chess Blog
stevegiddinschessblog.blogspot.com
Yep.
It has been in its last year or two for some decades now. Think back to all of the game-killing draws from the first K-K match and remember how chess was unable to survive after that. 
Everything in the article is wrong.
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The games in Moscow are not content-less. Things looked pretty hairy for Gelfand in Game 1 until suddenly they started looking pretty rosy until …
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Therefore they are not necessarily boring either. Well, the one today (Game 4) was pretty boring even for me, but not the others.
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I seem to remember the “GM draw” and long matches with endless draws. Chess was most famous for that before computers. There are more decisive results between GMs now. Does Nakamura play for the GM draw? Does anyone any more? The computer has made the game more dynamic. Players’ memory is also limited, even if their computer memory is not.
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So the “content” this guy wants to see is the result of superior home prep, not an equal struggle in a new position over the board. Computers do the research much faster than humans could do it before, coming up with many new, truly unclear positions from which games can really start.
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He seems to be one of those people who wants to see someone lose and doesn’t really care what sort of game it takes to get there. There are a lot of such people, but I don’t think much of them.
It’s like the song says. We’ve done our market research, and have concluded that this game “chess” will be around for a month or two.
Bill Smythe
The game isn’t dead. The players playing for the championship are, though. Average number of moves per game: under 30, what is that an indication of? While the length of a single game is no indication of its quality or excitement, a sample size of 4 consecutive certainly is.
Out of four games, three were pretty tasteless (game 3 was good). Game 1? Well, marginal. Game 2 and 4, dreadful. It’s not the draw that’s boring, it’s the way the draw is played. Take no chances, keep the draw well in hand in your back pocket, go for that .2 advantage (that’s what the computer told them), and hope for the best.
One reason for this tasteless WC match is the length, or lack of. With 12 games, if you lose one, you’re in a lot, a lot of trouble. So the players don’t take chances.
The other reason is, the players themselves quite simply lack guts. Did Fischer-Spassky play a SINGLE tasteless game out of 20? Not that I can find. You can point to K-K 1984, but that was an unlimited match, so throw that out as an example. Look at the the rest of the K-K matches, boring draws are few and far between. Look at the recent Aronian-Kramnik match. Four draws of six games, but I don’t consider any of the games in the dreadful class of the monstrosity being displayed currently in Russia.
I’ve become a big fan of Nakamura. When he plays, I can follow his game live, and I’m ALWAYS guaranteed an interesting game. Has he played a single boring draw in the US Championship? No. Even when he plays at top level, there might be an occasional GM draw in the mix, but it’s so rare that it’s noticeable.
Anand and Gelfand are great players. That doesn't give them the right to produce tasteless chess just because they are afraid to take a chance. Fans don't have to make believe the games are interesting when they are NOT. And don't blame computers, don't blame opening prep. Don't blame chess - it's not dying at all. Put the blame squarely on where it belongs: the guys making the moves.
All the GM's might suffer when the fans withdraw. I will not follow any more of the World's Championship. Not worth my time. And next cycle, there just might not be enough money to even hold the event. And who's to blame?
I'll tell you what's going to happen someday soon. Since computers are so much better than humans, that means there's plenty of room for improvement (putting the lie to Kramnik's statement that if you try to win too hard, you lose at top level). Some dude is going to come along that has the ability to take chances and win games, and he's going to make the others look silly. We need another Fischer or Kasparov. And he will come along. Is it Carlsen? He's only 20, so maybe he'll get even better. Aronian? Maybe at his "late" age, he's taking those chances and winning games. Whoever it is, it will happen.
A better question might well be: “Is chess becoming tic-tac-toe?”
“Death by draw” goes all the way back to Capablanca. Yawn.
Players who want to win games will find a way to create complications and imbalances in the hope of out-playing their opponents. Nakamura, for example, is not afraid to take chances in tournaments. He might not play the same way in the match of his life.
As Giddins wrote, in a 12 game WCh match you can barely afford to lose even one game.
We may yet see a few gems from this championship match.
I would like to see 12 draws. If the 2 best players in the world can’t play perfect games then we lesser mortals have no hope and nothing to strive for. One doesn’t win a game – one’s opponent loses it.
It makes sense for the defending champion to play it safe in order to hold on to his title, so I don’t blame Anand. But Gelfand is trying to take the title away, or at any rate he’s supposed to be trying to. At the very least, he should be squeezing every drop of potential out of the first-move advantage when he’s got white. If he’s not, doesn’t that bespeak a lack of confidence that he really deserves his seat at the table?
Gelfand is, arguably, somewhat playing for a win with Black. The Gruenfeld is not the most solid opening. I can really feel that, because I used to play the Gruenfeld. I gave it up because it was too scary against strong players – you’re on a knife edge. He almost went over the edge in Game 3, without any apparent mistake.
But as noted above, one cannot win unless the opponent makes a mistake. (I’m pretty sure the opening position is a draw with best play.) What else would you recommend against Anand playing d4 – the Benoni!? Benko Gambit? Nakamura might play the King’s Indian, having dug up that stuff from 40 years ago to win some big games.
Since chess has 4 elements, and tic-tac-toe has essentially 2, the answer would be no.
Sadly, yes. Soon, it will be as dead as correspondence chess.
Agree.
Anand has been willing to “play for three results” with White. He’s content to tread a narrow path with Black: this can backfire easily. The Cambridge Springs did not kill chess in 1927, and the Chebanenko isn’t killing chess today. (Did Gelfand introduce this move order at the top level? Anand annotated Kasparov-Gelfand, Linares 1991 for ChessBase…)
Gelfand’s Black preparation has been excellent; his White, less so.
Whether it’s 6 wins each or 12 draws, it’s still the same score at the end, but it’s easier to prepare to draw with Black, than to win with White. Alas for us.
Ergo, if your claim is true, none of the eight most elite grandmasters in the 2011 Candidate’s tournament (won by Gelfand) wanted to “win games”.
The 90% draw rate is that fiasco is apparently proof nobody wanted to win games.
The crucial point is the reason they cannot afford to lose even one game: The draw rate is waaaaayy too high in elite chess. A draw rate over 25%-30% is very bad.
The current rules are to blame for the high draw rate.
Until a second start position from chess960-FRC is adopted and reused for a couple decades, draws will restrict elite chess to its sickbed forever.
A second setup would enable grandmasters to prepare clever powerful novelties for use in the early part of the opening phase. Such novelties have a better likelihood of elegantly producing an advantage that could be nurtured to victory.
If you honestly want grandmasters to “create complications and imbalances”, then you should consider the claim that a consistently reused second sensible setup would instantly provide the grandmasters the unresearched territory they need to create novel complications and imbalances.
You have to weigh the pros and cons against the love of tradition for its own sake.
Discard the “Random” from Fischer Random Chess!
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The concept of “blame” is orthogonal to the moves played by WCChamp contestants.
While you are at it, you should also blame most of the world’s best chess players, because in 2011 as a group in the Candidate’s tournament they played chess at a draw rate of 90%. Although that is better than the 100% rate of the first half of Anand-Gelfand 2012.
If too many chess matches between elite players are generating too many dull draws, any blame is entirely the fault of the current rules of chess.
Sporting competition is supposed to happen on the scoreboard too, not just on the chess board. Decisive games are the competitive aspect that is under-represented on the scoreboard.
Under the current rules of chess, you are correct that, at elite levels, chess is not “dead”. I am content to point out how faint that praise is.
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Could a pure Armageddon tournament (every game played under Armageddon rules) be rated? That would get rid of the draws for sure!
Then see how many players show up to play. Chess is mainly a participant sport. The World Championship match sends the video coverage out for free, and I can’t imagine they make a lot on ticket revenue in the auditorium where the games are happening, so spectators are not even a part of the revenue model at that level.
Having frequent draws is symptomatic of a game/sport that’s really only enjoyable by those who know something about it. But even if we had no draws, even the most exciting unbalanced chess game is still two people moving little wood chips on a table between them. That’s what it has always been. So why mess with it?