5 ms·

My read on the situation is that Magnus had two goals: 1) remain world champion 2) get to 2900 elo #1 got in the way of #2 because all the elite grandmasters

My read on the situation is that Magnus had two goals: 1) remain world champion 2) get to 2900 elo #1 got in the way of #2 because all the elite grandmasters constantly focus throughout the year on preparing for Magnus, which creates a headwind in the non-world champion tournaments where he must perform well to reach 2900. My guess is he will focus on 2900. Then, come back as world champion. Then, retire after 7 championships or his performance deteriorates.

epolanski 4y ago
Isn't elo eventually inflated by the number of ranked players anyway? The more people will be eventually fide rated and climb through the distribution the more the better players will drift at higher elos. That's also a reason why in modern days we have more 2750+ ranked players than ever. One common, wrong, argument is that modern players play better, while this is true this does not affect the elo ranking at all. The elo system merely tracks how did you do against opponents with a different ranking and assigns a score based on the win or loss, how well the players did is absolutely irrelevant to the distrubition.
- matsemann 4y ago
  I think that the rating inflation debate has concluded that there isn't that much inflation. Compared to the old 2600 generation, the 2700 people now are just that much better. An analysis here: https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-elo-ratings-inflation-or-deflation https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-elo-ratings-inflation-or-d... It claims that a 2500 player now is better than a 2500 player in 2000. So in that sense it's actually been a deflation. Also https://www.playmagnus.com/en/news/post/rating-inflation-myth https://www.playmagnus.com/en/news/post/rating-inflation-myt...
  - epolanski 4y ago
    But that's my point: elo distribution has nothing to do with how good players are, it merely tracks your win/lose status against opponents with a different elo. If you take, e.g. two unranked players that are very bad at chess or two unranked masters they are still going to end up with a +16 and -16 elo change. And you can keep adding great or bad players to the pool, and elo is still going to only look at the outcome not how players play. The point with elo is that if there's only 2 players it is basically impossible to reach a 2000 elo, because even if one consistently wins at some point he's not gaining any point by beating the same opponent, thus to go from 1700 to 1800 he'll need to face an opponent that has a similar elo. The more people slightly below his skill the more he'll rise in the elo distribution, this trickles down all the way up and down. Of course it is very likely that modern 2500 players are better as they have better tools than players of 20 years ago, but the same applies to people lower and higher in rating. Thus, at the end of the day, the only factor that matters in an elo distribution and how wide it is, is the number of games and players. If tomorrow there will be an influx of another million ranked players the distribution will get a bit wider and this would also inflate in the long run ratings of the highest rated players.
    - JacobThreeThree 4y ago
      >elo distribution has nothing to do with how good players are Nothing to do with it? That's a bit much. It's not a perfect system, nor is it a trivial problem to solve, but elo definitely highly correlates to how good the player is.
      - PebblesRox 4y ago
        I think the point is it's a relative rather than an absolute measurement and you can't compare across time because the number of players in the system influences the scores.
      - epolanski 4y ago
        > but elo definitely highly correlates to how good the player is. it only measure how good a player is compared to the other ranked players.
mbauman 4y ago
> #1 got in the way of #2 because all the elite grandmasters... ... also focus on grabbing draws. Draws against lower rated players (that is, everyone for Magnus) drop your elo. Winning the world championship may very well drop Mangus' elo score if it involves only a handful of wins and lots of draws.
- matsemann 4y ago
  Carlsen was 2853 rated in November 2016, December 2016 it was 2840 after playing the WC match against Karjakin in November. Winning against Anand in 2013 gave him 2 points. I think he got 1 point for beating Nepo in 2021. With that, reaching 2900 seems almost impossible. He was at 2882 two times, but when you need almost perfect score to achieve it it's hard.
endorphine 4y ago
My read is he's being honest and will not in fact enjoy playing the World Championship.
- CSMastermind 4y ago
  I think he had issues with the challenger selection process. That's why he was willing to play if it was Firouzja but isn't interested in a rematch with Nepo. And I think pretty much everyone predicted that had Naka won Magnus would play.
  - tzs 4y ago
    Nakamura on a video posted to his YouTube channel earlier today said he also thinks Carlsen would have played if he came in second in the Candidates. His reasoning was that he and Carlsen are the two most widely known and followed active chess players at the moment, and Carlsen is not going to allow a world where Nakamura is Champion instead of him. Nakamura doesn't seem upset or anything over not coming in second at the Candidates, which up until the last game it looked like he almost had a lock on. The person he said is probably the most upset by Carlsen's decision is Caruana. Caruana collapsed in the second half of the tournament, which Nakamura thinks is because Caruana thought that only 1st mattered and so had to play for wins to try to catch Nepo. If Caruana had played for top 2 instead of 1st, Nakamura thinks he would have had no trouble achieving that.
    - BbzzbB 4y ago
      Nakamura also said he doesn't believe Magnus won't play the WC. Perhaps, just maybe, Nakamura doesn't quite understand what Magnus thinks, being different humans and all. So far it seems Magnus has been more accurate at predicting what Magnus will do.

epolanski 4y ago

Isn't elo eventually inflated by the number of ranked players anyway? The more people will be eventually fide rated and climb through the distribution the more the better players will drift at higher elos. That's also a reason why in modern days we have more 2750+ ranked players than ever. One common, wrong, argument is that modern players play better, while this is true this does not affect the elo ranking at all. The elo system merely tracks how did you do against opponents with a different ranking and assigns a score based on the win or loss, how well the players did is absolutely irrelevant to the distrubition.

matsemann 4y ago
I think that the rating inflation debate has concluded that there isn't that much inflation. Compared to the old 2600 generation, the 2700 people now are just that much better. An analysis here: https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-elo-ratings-inflation-or-deflation https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-elo-ratings-inflation-or-d... It claims that a 2500 player now is better than a 2500 player in 2000. So in that sense it's actually been a deflation. Also https://www.playmagnus.com/en/news/post/rating-inflation-myth https://www.playmagnus.com/en/news/post/rating-inflation-myt...
- epolanski 4y ago
  But that's my point: elo distribution has nothing to do with how good players are, it merely tracks your win/lose status against opponents with a different elo. If you take, e.g. two unranked players that are very bad at chess or two unranked masters they are still going to end up with a +16 and -16 elo change. And you can keep adding great or bad players to the pool, and elo is still going to only look at the outcome not how players play. The point with elo is that if there's only 2 players it is basically impossible to reach a 2000 elo, because even if one consistently wins at some point he's not gaining any point by beating the same opponent, thus to go from 1700 to 1800 he'll need to face an opponent that has a similar elo. The more people slightly below his skill the more he'll rise in the elo distribution, this trickles down all the way up and down. Of course it is very likely that modern 2500 players are better as they have better tools than players of 20 years ago, but the same applies to people lower and higher in rating. Thus, at the end of the day, the only factor that matters in an elo distribution and how wide it is, is the number of games and players. If tomorrow there will be an influx of another million ranked players the distribution will get a bit wider and this would also inflate in the long run ratings of the highest rated players.
  - JacobThreeThree 4y ago
    >elo distribution has nothing to do with how good players are Nothing to do with it? That's a bit much. It's not a perfect system, nor is it a trivial problem to solve, but elo definitely highly correlates to how good the player is.
    - PebblesRox 4y ago
      I think the point is it's a relative rather than an absolute measurement and you can't compare across time because the number of players in the system influences the scores.
    - epolanski 4y ago
      > but elo definitely highly correlates to how good the player is. it only measure how good a player is compared to the other ranked players.

mbauman 4y ago

> #1 got in the way of #2 because all the elite grandmasters... ... also focus on grabbing draws. Draws against lower rated players (that is, everyone for Magnus) drop your elo. Winning the world championship may very well drop Mangus' elo score if it involves only a handful of wins and lots of draws.

matsemann 4y ago
Carlsen was 2853 rated in November 2016, December 2016 it was 2840 after playing the WC match against Karjakin in November. Winning against Anand in 2013 gave him 2 points. I think he got 1 point for beating Nepo in 2021. With that, reaching 2900 seems almost impossible. He was at 2882 two times, but when you need almost perfect score to achieve it it's hard.

endorphine 4y ago

My read is he's being honest and will not in fact enjoy playing the World Championship.

CSMastermind 4y ago
I think he had issues with the challenger selection process. That's why he was willing to play if it was Firouzja but isn't interested in a rematch with Nepo. And I think pretty much everyone predicted that had Naka won Magnus would play.
- tzs 4y ago
  Nakamura on a video posted to his YouTube channel earlier today said he also thinks Carlsen would have played if he came in second in the Candidates. His reasoning was that he and Carlsen are the two most widely known and followed active chess players at the moment, and Carlsen is not going to allow a world where Nakamura is Champion instead of him. Nakamura doesn't seem upset or anything over not coming in second at the Candidates, which up until the last game it looked like he almost had a lock on. The person he said is probably the most upset by Carlsen's decision is Caruana. Caruana collapsed in the second half of the tournament, which Nakamura thinks is because Caruana thought that only 1st mattered and so had to play for wins to try to catch Nepo. If Caruana had played for top 2 instead of 1st, Nakamura thinks he would have had no trouble achieving that.
  - BbzzbB 4y ago
    Nakamura also said he doesn't believe Magnus won't play the WC. Perhaps, just maybe, Nakamura doesn't quite understand what Magnus thinks, being different humans and all. So far it seems Magnus has been more accurate at predicting what Magnus will do.