Sinquefield Cup

All Things Chess
21

I just did the computation using the September FRL (which are the ratings that will be used when the tournament is rated for the October FRL). The results are exactly the same for performance rating and rating change. The average rating of the competition (Rc) dropped from 2801.8 to 2801.6, which still rounds to 2802. And the win expectancy (We) is still exactly 5.00.

Don’t forget – unlike the USCF rating system, the FIDE rating system does not use “post-event” ratings from other tournaments that finished before a given tournament finishes to calculate rating changes for a tournament. The rating changes for all tournaments registered for the October FRL will be computed using the players’ September FRL ratings. I’m guessing the 2700chess.com ratings are post-event ratings?

22

The 2700chess.com ratings are calculated game-by-game. I don’t know for certain if FIDE maintains floating-point calculations, although I have been told it has since the days of five-point published rating increments.

23

Another loss for Nakamura. Only two rounds left to salvage something. Next game with Black vs. Caruana. Will Fabiano let up on the pedal, now that he has won the tournament, or will he try to press a rival to the wall?

Caruana will likely be within 30 points of Carlsen at the end of the event. Ahead of Anand and all of the other candidates. Makes the coming world championship in November anticlimactic, if it even comes off. The fans will be itching for a Carlsen - Caruana match. Look out guys, Carissa Yip is coming to get you. :sunglasses:

24

Very interesting games in round 9 (well, at least two of them were).

I’m sure that, if someone had told Caruana two weeks ago that he’d be 8/9 without a loss heading into the last round of this tournament, he’d have taken that in a heartbeat. However, if it is possible for a player to be disappointed in such a score, it would be Caruana.

He let Carlsen off the hook in round 8 with what looked like a classic case of “wrong rook syndrome” (29. Rfd1 got him everything he got in the game, plus his c-pawn wouldn’t have been hanging…and I have no idea how Carlsen holds back the invasion on the d-file).

Then, round 9 was probably even worse from Caruana’s perspective, as he achieved a massive position against Nakamura, then missed a couple of winning pawn breaks plus an exchange sac that would likely have compelled the American’s resignation. However, credit must be given to Nakamura for fighting all the way, and then seizing the one drawing chance he was given. He’s having a miserable tournament, but he is going down swinging at least. Maybe he can win his last game and maintain his top-10 position on the FRL.

As for Carlsen, he got a gift in round 8 (see above), then gave a gift in round 9. He squeezed Aronian into a lost R+P ending, then delayed playing Kc2 one move too long. Aronian then gave a lesson in the concepts of the Vancura position. Carlsen, probably disgusted with himself, played the game until there were just kings left.

I’m still just blown away by how well Caruana’s playing. Really, he was just two moves (Rfd1 vs. Carlsen, Rxf6 vs. Nakamura) away from being 9-0. Obviously, mental fatigue is likely a major contributing factor to Caruana’s recent imprecision (of course, everyone’s probably tired at the end of any super-tournament).

25

I get a 3081 performance rating for Caruana. I assume that is a record. Is it the first 3000 tournament performance rating ever? Caruana and Carlsen also have the first official 2900 USCF ratings ever.

26

We no longer use the ‘performance rating’ metric, so we have no records for it.

27

Even though Carlsen doesn’t have a USCF rating because he never played in a USCF rated tournament…

28

Irony? Carlsen got a 3001 USCF rating from the 2013 Sinquefield Cup. This dropped to 2959 (unofficial) after this year’s Cup. Caruana gained 57 rating points and has a post-tournament rating of 2938.

29

And the rating inflation at the very top continues. There is a convenient narrative that it is because of the expansion of players that the ratings have gone up. This type of supertournament creates an elite who are way above the rest of the players and who rarely play those below them. It is a small pool that easily protect their rating by playing only each other. Comparisons with past players and ratings are difficult to do. Can any of them really say that they are better than some of the former world champions and great players of the past? Their rating numbers says so. The quality of the games, the blunders, and sometimes spotty endgame technique does not. FIDE seems to have inflated the ratings over time, which is great for its commercial purposes, but for historical comparison does everyone a disservice. It is hard to believe that some of these guys are better players than Fischer, Capablanca, Lasker, and Alekhine. Do they play better endgames than Rubinstein? Are they really better fighters than Korchnoi, Tal, and Larsen who were in the top 10 for much of their careers? The numbers say they are.

30

The argument about rating inflation ignores some basic math. The more opportunities a player gets to play and study, the better that player will perform over time in terms of rating. This could be observed anecdotally as well.

As chess has expanded, more high rated players have emerged. Russia is no longer the sole center of the chess world, as the recent Olympiad demonstrated. This doesn’t denigrate the great champions of the past (who, it should be noted, played under different conditions than today’s best players).

Comparing players from different eras directly against one another is, IMO, a fruitless exercise. That’s true in most competitive endeavors. What you can look at, when talking about the best players ever, is how far ahead of their contemporaries they are/were at their peaks. This is why most people don’t argue about players like Morphy, Fischer and Kasparov being on the short list. Mr. Soltis’s identification of Kasparov as a historically dominant champion speaks to this point.

31

I like the show on ESPN, “Numbers Never Lie.” I like it mostly because it shows that numbers can lie a lot when looking at players. It provides the basis for spirited arguments over many sports questions. Baseball is hugely into its history and statistics. While many changes have taken place in the game, there are still many things that stay the same allowing for comparison with players of the past and today. You still have to be able to hit a curve and a fastball. A .300 batting average of the past and present are respected and comparable. You can argue whether Mickey Mantle was a better outfielder than Roberto Clemente or whether Sandy Koufax is better than Clayton Kershaw using the numbers. Baseball is baseball, as Yoga Berra once said.

In chess, we have ratings to use as measurement. This allows us to see how good a player is in relation to others. They can also be used to “prove” that present supertournaments are stronger than past tournaments. After all, numbers never lie. Only rarely do I see the comparison of Fischer or Kasparov on the basis of the difference of their rating to the pack. Most of the time, I hear people talking of individual ratings and that a player is say, 5 points away from Fischer, as if making it to 2780 makes the indicated player as strong as Fischer was. Ratings are now being treated as chips to gather and hold rather than performance indicators. In the end though, chess is chess. Time controls have changed. Players have adapted. And playing 1. P-K4 was just as good as playing 1.e4 today. Yes, Lasker and Capablanca played with different playing conditions than today. The tournaments they played in were longer. They were mixed tournaments, requiring more wins. There were fewer tournaments, so they had to make every game count for their reputations and wallets. They did not have quick chess tournaments to give them a quick payday. Yep, conditions were different. In looking at games, I wonder how many modern players could have held the game Emanuel Lasker played with Edward Lasker in the New York 1924 tournament. No computers, few books to speak of on any chess subject at the time. Just pure brain power, will, and experience. And yet today there are a over a hundred players today who have ratings above what ELO says was Lasker’s peak.

32

For people interested in comparing ratings of players past and present I highly recommend Jeff Sonas’s site chessmetrics.com. He has his own system of ratings designed to avoid ratings inflation. Unfortunately he stopped with his December 2004 rating list.

33

Amen.

34

Garry Kasparov has talked about how Chess has developed, changed and even improved over the years in his series of books on his Great Predecessors. A number of concepts and ideas that worked in the past no longer are right as research and practical play has shown. Therefore the players of yesteryear are playing a different sort of Chess game that is played now. With the advent of computer use both with databases and playing engines getting to strong, it is also difficult to accurately compare players from different eras.

Taking an individual player’s rating and comparing it to someone from years ago is also not accurate because the rating is a performance measure in rated games. The same holds true when comparing a player’s rating to his contemporaries versus another past great and his rating compared to his contemporaries.

Just recently people were looking to compare Carauna with Fisher while the former was doing so well in the St. Louis tournament. Comparing performance results in tournaments is probably the best way to compare players from different eras even though it is also not perfect by any means.

Fischer won a lot of games in a row and dominated a good number of tournaments and candidate matches putting together quite a streak of wins. Bobby was obviously way ahead of all others in the world as far as ability to play in his time. And the people he was ahead of were no shrinking violets in the Chess board either.

Garry Kasparov also dominated the Chess scene in his era. While he didn’t have the devastating effect on all the others in Chess at his time as Bobby did, Garry held his position for a lot of years.

Both Carlsen and Carauna are quite young in their respective Chess careers so time will tell more in either of their abilities and performances compared to each other and to all the past greats.

What would Fischer or Kasparov or even Lasker or Morphy done in this latest elite tournament if they were in their prime? Now, that’s the million dollar question isn’t it. How would Fischer’s and Kasparov’s games be different if they would have had all the technological and Chessic advances at their disposal?

Bobby Fischer was one of the greatest if not the greatest. Why? Because he did it in the great majority on his own with only books and a chess set. He had no seconds or teams of GMs (other great chess players) to help him research or give him ideas as his contemporaries and successors did. And his performance was nothing less than stellar compared to all others of his time.

Garry Kasparov also was one of the greatest if not the greatest. He dominated the Chess scene in his time for many years. Many scholars and otherwise Chess authorities have made this claim as well with evidence of Garry’s play to back up their opinions.

Which one was better? Was there any other than these two that would compete for the greatest ever? After all we are still talking about the same game board and pieces and all that. Sure, the time controls have changed but the strong players still are at the top.

So, with this latest iteration of the Sinqufield Cup over, who would have won if Fischer and Kasparov, in their prime, would be included in it?

35

How about throwing in two other players who dominated the tournaments in their eras? Lasker and Capablanca had a high tournament win ratio. Both were evaluated by Arpad Elo as being over 2700 at their peaks and ahead of their peers by a large margin. Ah, to have so many world champions playing at the same time, that would be a tournament to see. Perhaps someone can develop a simulation similar to the way they do it to project the Superbowl winner or who was the greatest NFL football team of all time.

36

Perhaps this has already been done but after being beaten senseless by Stockfish on my new phone I believe the day has come that computers could evaluate what player ranks where. I think I read somewhere that Capablanca would get the nod because of his style; however, it has to be remembered that Alekhine defeated him in a set match. I suspect the computer would rank both Morphy and Alekhine below say Petrosian because of their styles.
I believe that Fischer would not have continued playing chess if he couldn’t have dominated his opposition as rapidly as he had. Once he became World Champion there was nowhere else to go. Kasparov was the last human “best chessplayer” I think the idea of not being the best chessplayer and possibly no longer the best human player keeps this worthy player from competition. There is much interplay of variables concerning people who play chess. One day the machines may be able to consider all the other factors as well.