13 ms·

Time to change the format. It's understandable you don't want to spend your whole career preparing for these long matches all the time. For the challenger it's

• taude 4y ago
  I know next to nothing about competitive chess, other than watching the Magnus documentary about a younger Magnus. What kinds of things are chess players doing to prepare for a match for 6 Months? Is there something they're memorizing, studying video (what would they be looking fro)? I'd have always just thought they were good to play at any time. This sounds super stressful.
  • sgjohnson 4y ago
    > Is there something they're memorizing Yes. Their upcoming opponent's past games (including analyzing them for strengths and weaknesses), and engine lines mostly.
  • matsemann 4y ago
    In a normal tournament, you meet so many different people (and you often don't know in advance exactly who you will meet of all the participants), so it's hard to specifically prepare. For a match of this kind, however, you know your opponent will prepare specifically against you. So you kinda have to do the same. That entails analyzing all of their games and finding defenses and weaknesses. But also trying to find new novelties in the openings etc. And since the opponent will do the same, you yourself have to prepare defenses for lots of potential new openings 16 moves deep or so. It's an insane amount of studying. Of course, that pays off for future games outside the match as well. But when you know your challenger will spend half a year on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to beat you, you probably have to do the same. So have to say no to everything else.
    • kamaal 4y ago
      Say a player just rote memorised moves from a chess engine and just played it. Would that be considered cheating?
      • moomin 4y ago
        It isn’t, partly because you needed to predict the scenario would come up and partly because your opponent can do the exact same thing.
      • coremoff 4y ago
        That would depend on the opponent doing the same, and picking the same engine and settings for their side too.
      • gliptic 4y ago
        No, that is exactly what they do in opening preparation.
      • ChefboyOG 4y ago
        No, using engines to find lines is a common way to practice (at least, that's my understanding. Obviously, I'm not personally a world class chess player.)
      • 4y ago
  • throw7 4y ago
    I remember Caruana mentioning how he wasn't prepared for how much Carlsen "understood" him (not exact words from the video, but something to that effect). It sounded sort of like a side mind game that Carlsen plays on his opponents. It made it clear that Carlsen really studies his opponents and not just their past games.
  • Scarblac 4y ago
    Going through all of opening theory to invent enough new ideas that might give them a tiny edge, somewhere. And then eventually memorizing what they found.
• sgjohnson 4y ago
  > They have also become less entertaining. The classical World Championship matches have never been entertaining to watch live. In fact they used to take 2 days for one game. > No one dares to take any risks. Caruana was just defensive and all games ended in a draw. Chess, in theory, with absolutely perfect play, is a draw. It's not a game of "risk" in classical time format. You can take risks in blitz and rapid, but in classical you have (almost) all the time in the world to calculate the line you're playing.
  • matsemann 4y ago
    I've found them entertaining to watch. But Norwegians are master of slow-TV, so I guess that's why. They have good experts that manage to explain it to normal people. Interesting guests in the studio between moves. Interact with audience through questions from chat etc. > Chess, in theory, with absolutely perfect play, is a draw. I don't think that's solved, actually.
    • qw 4y ago
      > I've found them entertaining to watch. But Norwegians are master of slow-TV, so I guess that's why. They have good experts that manage to explain it to normal people. Interesting guests in the studio between moves. Interact with audience through questions from chat etc. I usually don't follow chess, but I still end up watching the WC matches on Norwegian TV. They manage to make it interesting and exciting.
      • sgjohnson 4y ago
        I do watch the WC matches myself, but definitely not live.
      • dhosek 4y ago
        I love the idea of being somewhere that (a) what the world chess champion does is big news and (2) there are resources dedicated like this to the broadcast of chess matches. American culture is just so ostentatiously mauvais ton in comparison with so many other countries (my other point of comparison was being in England in ’93 and watching a game show where it was clearly a competition of intellectual skills and the winner’s prize was a dictionary—I just cannot imagine that being on American television).
• kamaal 4y ago
  For those of us who don't follow this closely, why is the format such a problem? Is it because its stressful, and demands too much work and prep from participants. Just asking as competitive sport at the top level be it chess, football, or even swimming for that matter demands lots of work and a kind of work ethic not easy for most of us.
  • bfuller 4y ago
    No idea their reasoning, but if I were a top football, swimmer, or other athlete and knew that a computer could outperform me even at my highest level would be pretty disconcerting.
    • chalst 4y ago
      I guess swimmers have known that the performance of powered aquatic vehicles runs circles around them on many metrics for longer.
      • Gare 4y ago
        Not to mention some other mammals.
    • Cass 4y ago
      That's already true of most sports, though. There's plenty of mechanical constructs that can move faster than the fastest human. The challenge is to be the fastest human using nothing but a human body, not to outrun a car or a boat (or even a humanoid running robot, which I assume we could build at this point, if anyone was interested in putting enough money behind it.)
      • bfuller 4y ago
        Of course a human can't outrun a car. This isn't some unprecedented idea, people have retired for this reason before: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50573071 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50573071
  • 4y ago
• enugu 4y ago
  How about a very short gap, say a week, after the Candidates tournament to the Championship match to avoid long opening preparations?
  • NhanH 4y ago
    That just forces 8 players in the candidates to do their preparation BEFORE the tournament. Economically speaking, that won't be enough time for advertising, setting the venue or getting sponsor up either. It matters who plays in the WCC match before you can do either of those things. We still don't know when or where the match for this cycle will happen even now.
    • chongli 4y ago
      Not only does it force the 8 players to prepare before the tournament, it forces the champion to prepare against all 8 players, making their task even worse!
      • _ph_ 4y ago
        Worse or, and that would be the point of the change, entirely different. You would do some study of all possible opponents, but you obviously can no longer do so much focus on the single player. Which means, the better preparation would just to prepare your best chess against whomever you are going to play. Which could be much more fun and make the games more interesting, as there is much more space for tactical surprises.
• Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
  > And against Nepo it was a steamroll, understandably meeting him again isn't that exciting. The first half of the match wasn't even close to a steamroll. It's just Ian broke mentally after that famous 6th game. The candidate tournament showed that he had more than recovered from that loss and I think he would be in a much better shape to challenge Carlsen again. Also, with Carlsen's current attitude, it is quite possible that he would be closer to breaking first. (One may assume he already broke since he gives up the title without a fight)
  • taneq 4y ago
    Does it count as 'breaking' if you're just tired of the game and don't want to play any more? Surely it's OK to stop and do other things eventually?
    • Enginerrrd 4y ago
      Yes, that's what people mean, almost by definition. In highly competitive events, even a slight break in focus and drive toward winning are often really problematic. Once that wolf-like focus and readiness to fight is broken, a competitor is usually done.
      • SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
        Even wolves are only focused during occasional hunts. They also play, raise their young, mate, sleep, and care for their sick and injured.
      • Bootvis 4y ago
        I think Magnus just changed focus to being the first 2900. I bet the way the last match went was a bit of a let down for him as well.
        • cupofpython 4y ago
          i have to imagine there are only so many 'tricks'/new lines left for him to use to win games at that level. revealing them on center stage for a single win is wasteful of the resources he has. the WCC games get studied by everyone, not only live with the worlds best engines, but after the fact too. much better to use those resources in tournaments where you can actually play a lot of games with it before people really get a chance to study it in depth. By resources i mean things like going into a position that gives your opponent an incredibly small advantage but is hard for them to play. It's one of the best ways to win games. it's hard work to find those lines, and he's been doing it for so long at WCC level it's not surprising that he's tapping out against someone he's already beaten. if you use a line in the WCC, it becomes very risky to use it again - because if your opponent studied it and plays it correctly then all you've done is make it even harder for you to win the game. to reach 2900 he has to win games, not tie
• dmurray 4y ago
  > It's also almost impossible for a new person to get a chance. > when [Carlsen] first did he almost didn't win it to be allowed to play the WC match. These complaints are in opposition to each other! You can have an open process which gives an outsider a chance to qualify, or you can teleport the incumbent best player straight to the final, but you can't have both. The current Candidates structure balances it pretty well, in my view. Most of the 10 players who have a realistic chance in a match reach the final 8, but it often features one great-but-not-elite grandmaster who had a good tournament, and it's theoretically open to even the worst amateur who shows up to his Continental Championship and performs well in that followed by the World Cup.
  • matsemann 4y ago
    The candidates being the WC deciding event would solve both of them, though. So while the points are in opposition to each other, a new format could find a better way to solve it than now, in which both things happen.
• SpacePortKnight 4y ago
  Maybe a format with 60 minutes + 30 seconds increment from move 40, could be more entertaining to watch than the current 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one format. Most rounds would finish in around 2 hours, just like several e-sports games. Have 2 rounds a day and finish it in 8 rounds. With a more e-sport like approach, chess could bring in even more viewers and hence more sponsorships.
• V-2 4y ago
  12 games - or even 14, since the last WC (games, not "matches", excuse the nitpick) isn't long, it's short. There's never been a shorter format for chess WC. And this is precisely WHY players don't take any risks - because dropping even a single point means there won't be many chances left for equalising the score again.
• dalbasal 4y ago
  Chess' centre of gravity is increasingly online centred now. Carlson himself has a lot to do with it. So do other charismatic super GMs like Nakamura. A light hearted, unplanned and unadvertised naka-carlsen bullet match can attract a lot of viewers. They both stream, and lots of other chess streamers will switch to watching and doing commentary when these matches happen. They'll play silly openings like the double bong cloud and have fun. Carlson's into this new egaming vibe. He's good at it, and it's good for chess. Meanwhile, high-level classical is brutal. The level is so high that the game is hard to follow. It takes forever and is draining. Most games end in a draw. I feel like Fide should focus more on rapid, and get more involved in the online scene. Maybe this is the opportunity. I suspect the most anticipated, spectator matches of the future will be rapid matches and alt formats like team tournies (go Norway gnomes). They're just more fun for everyone but your cranky old chess instructor, and even she loves it in secret.
  • tux1968 4y ago
    > They'll play silly openings like the double bong cloud and have fun. It's kinda fun to see this referenced recently in a television quiz show: https://youtu.be/aD2mUHeBIRA https://youtu.be/aD2mUHeBIRA
    • dalbasal 4y ago
      Guggling.. gas!
  • econnors 4y ago
    > A light hearted, unplanned and unadvertised naka-carlsen bullet match can attract a lot of viewers. I'd bet a 20 game rapid series over 4 days between naka-carlsen would attract more viewers than the world championship.
    • literallyWTF 4y ago
      Oh fuck yes it would. I rather have a classical 960 tbh
• deltree7 4y ago
  Cricket went through a similar revolution and now we have a single game that last 5 days (Tests) which is an intense high-skill perseverance play, a game that last a whole day (One Day Internationals) and a much shorter format (Twenty20) that last 3 hours. All three formats are thriving with some superstars playing all three formats and official World Championships being played in all three formats
  • Someone 4y ago
    I don’t see the test format as thriving. It often seems the players don’t have the patience anymore to play it, losing games that they could have drawn if they had the perseverance needed to try so. (For those who don’t know cricket: if your opponent is outscoring you heavily, there’s no way to win the game, but by playing defensively, there still is the possibility of “not losing” the game (called a draw. That’s different from a tie, where both teams score the same number of runs. Ties are extremely rare (about 1:1000 matches. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tied_Test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tied_Test), draws fairly common (about ⅓ of all test matches)). Part of the charm of test cricket is that trying harder to win a game also increases the risk of losing it, so teams have to make educated guesses as to whether to pursue that)
    • kamaal 4y ago
      >>It often seems the players don’t have the patience anymore to play it Not enough monetary incentive either, it doesn't pay as well as T20. Second problem is bowling doesn't pay as well as batting. And that brings only batsmen centric view to the game, which is boring to watch after a while, even in T20.
  • kamaal 4y ago
    Cricket had a different problem. The game moved to be very batsmen centric(pitch construction) for a good part of 90's and 2000's. This caused most games to end in draws. Batsmen would just play days to make records. Ricky Ponting even said no Australian captain would allow the match to be played purely for records and not for winning. This eventually happened in ODI's as well. It just all reduced to batsmen playing purely for records. Competition dried out. T20 suffers from the same problems, and is a big reason why people are so burned out. I have barely watched any cricket in years. In matches where is there is a good pitch, and something for the bowlers, the test matches are super interesting to watch.
• gentleman11 4y ago
  Chess960 or other variants would be nice to mix things up over time
• huevosabio 4y ago
  I would make the following changes: - Make the candidates be the main event, the winner is WC. - score games as in soccer, 3 points for a win, 1 for draw, 0 for lose. These changes increase the stakes, incentivize offensive chess, allow the sitting WC to play all the best players rather than one, reduces the time commitment to a single event for the challengers, and allows the WC to partake in the most prestigious tournament.
• kzrdude 4y ago
  One thing they could change with the format, without changing the format(!) is to schedule the game very close to the candidates, say with four week's distance. That way the match is the same but the half year of prep is gone.
  • SamReidHughes 4y ago
    That only takes prep time away from the world champion, not the candidates winner.
    • thomasahle 4y ago
      The candidates winner probably won't have spent that much time preparing for Magnus, since they had to prepare for all the candidates matches.
  • Scarblac 4y ago
    They need to know who the players are so they can look for sponsors willing to put up the prize money and organising costs. The events are often sponsored by companies from the home country of one of the players. Doing it before the challenger is known makes the pool of potential sponsors too small.
    • thomasahle 4y ago
      The WC would basically become a part of the candidates tournament. So they could use the same sponsors.
  • thomasahle 4y ago
    This would be really great. Less prep could also lead to more opening mistakes and decisive games.
• V-2 4y ago
  > Time to change the format The format has been changing way too often, if anything. > 12 matches is long (edit, 14 now), but no one dares to take any risks. Not really: 12 or even 14 games is short, which is exactly why players aren't particularly willing to take risks - short format makes it hard to catch up should they fall behind. The format used to be 24 games in Kasparov times, and some WC matches were decided by the "first to X wins" rule, which could last very long, given that draws wouldn't push things forward (and for example Alekhine beated Capablanca after 34 games). > And against Nepo it was a steamroll, understandably meeting him again isn't that exciting. It wasn't such a steamroll, the score doesn't tell a full story. Nepo's play quality was excellent and he arguably had more winning chances throughout the first half of the match. His first loss was in the longest WC game ever played (136 moves, and theoretically drawish almost until the very end when Nepo finally slipped). He collapsed psychologically right after, starting to make errors that - in his own words - were "simple things you would never overlook in a blitz game". In part due to that gruelling, exhausting loss, for sure, but some have theorized he may also have folded due to realizing how many good chances he had missed before that. GM Sam Shankland (US champion of 2018, for those not up to date with the who-is-who of chess world) went as far as to say Ian was two different players in the match: Nepo A and Nepo B. Subverting people's expectations, Nepo won the Candidates now so convincingly (some suspected he might not recover, and certainly not to such an extent) that I see no reason why one would expect a landslide Carlsen's victory in the upcoming match. Especially since there's an enormous difference between having NEVER played a WC match (which was Ian's situation the last time), and having already played one. To quote Kramnik reminiscing on his first WC match: "it was still a very unfamiliar situation, like playing all your life for Lokomotiv and then coming out to play for Real Madrid in the final of the Champions League. Of course, you have to get used to the new situation, kick the ball a couple of times so they don't laugh at you." > Even Carlsen didn't like the format Yeah, well - he didn't like it, isn't that a bummer :) But come on, it's not like Carlsen has no say in the matter of the format, especially now that he already is a 5x world champion. He could have negotiated a different one with FIDE - or at least try. Obviously it's too late for that once the challenger has already been revealed, the time for that was before the cycle started. The format isn't set in stone though, far from it, and the #1 player, the reigning WC, has a lot of weight to throw around. Carlsen may have not liked the format from an objective point of view, but the format was certainly very convenient for him. He excels in rapid chess, so if his winning chances are, say, around 80% in the classical portion of the match, they probably reach something like 95% once it comes to rapid tiebreaks. And the shorter the format, the larger the likelihood of getting to the tiebreaks. > I wonder how this will affect the status of the title, when it's in practice is now a title-fight between the second best players. This isn't something new. Kasparov was still the world's #1 for years after he lost the title to Kramnik. (He had actually hoped for a rematch, but they couldn't work the conditions out, and since age was catching up with him, he finally retired.)
• shudza 4y ago
  You can't just change the format. Then it's not the same sport. It's like saying we should change football (soccer), reduce the field size, make goals bigger and reduce play time to 60 mins. Then it's not football anymore, it's another sport. If Magnus doesn't want to play this sport anymore, it's his decision, and totaly understandable. But don't try to change like a century of tradition (much like the rules of chess). EDIT: fix typo