There exist world rapid and blitz championships, where skill in rapid and blitz time controls is celebrated, but as we so clearly saw in the tiebreaks, they are not the same thing.
The Chess Thread - Page 103
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Sn0_Man
Tebellong44238 Posts
There exist world rapid and blitz championships, where skill in rapid and blitz time controls is celebrated, but as we so clearly saw in the tiebreaks, they are not the same thing. | ||
LegalLord
United Kingdom13774 Posts
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Sakat
Croatia1599 Posts
On December 01 2018 02:34 iamthedave wrote: Why is that a problem? Are you against one of the best chess players in history being the world champion? Wow man. That's streching my post to it's limits. Magnus is ofc the overall best player so I wouldn't be against this, I simply stated a fact | ||
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
I'd be really interested to see a distribution of ages against ELO peaks for speed chess formats and whatever other formats there are. | ||
IgnE
United States7681 Posts
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iamthedave
England2814 Posts
On December 01 2018 03:48 LegalLord wrote: Classical chess championships should be decided in games of classical chess. If you find the rapid format more interesting, it exists and is played by the top players as well. Throwing in rapid games just because classical has stalemates isn’t the right solution. It wasn't called the Classical chess championship, though, it's called the World Chess Championship. It's the most prestigious event, it attracts the most attention and viewers by far, and the person who holds that championship is considered the top chess player. I'm not against the idea of having a new, pure classical championship, but the world champion should be the best at chess overall, and testing them in different time controls and formats is good for that reason. And again, it's arguable if the classical chess championship is even that anymore because it's all about rote memorisation of computer lines than your own moves and preparation. Adding to Igne's point above: Both Hikaru Nakamura and Alexander Grischuk feel the same way. And of course going way back even Bobby Fischer felt it needed a bit of a change. | ||
sertman
United States540 Posts
On December 01 2018 03:48 LegalLord wrote: Classical chess championships should be decided in games of classical chess. If you find the rapid format more interesting, it exists and is played by the top players as well. Throwing in rapid games just because classical has stalemates isn’t the right solution. There needs to be a tiebreak mechanism because matches can't last indefinitely. I'm sure the PK analogy is used quite often, but it rings true here. There isn't a realistic or pragmatic format where Magnus is incentivized to play for a win. Fabi and Magnus could have easily gone another 12 without a decisive result. Magnus said himself that more emphasis needs to be put on faster time controls, and in the current era of computer preparation I'm simply not sure if you have players as skilled as Magnus and Fabi, if classical chess will retain its reputation for producing brilliant game and being the benchmark for the best players in the world. I hope that getting master norms remains with classical chess, but at the absolute highest level we now have 2 decisive results in the last 24 WCC classical games, and the chess community and media no longer has the patience for Kasparov-Karpov 1-esque marathon matches with 40 draws over 48 games. The reality is that the chess landscape is changing and it's better for chess if someone like Magnus, who is dominant in rapid, blitz, and even bullet, is the WC. Any tournament that the World Champion plays in, he is favored to win. During the GCT this year, Fabi scored 9th place out of 10 in two separate rapid/blitz tournaments and got absolutely smashed by Levon in this years SCC, 20.5-6.5. He needs to start improving his intuition and processing speed if he wants to keep up in any of the competitions that are going to start attracting much more attention as we start limiting calculation time in an effort to make chess exciting for spectators and allow more people in chess to make a good living by playing online and speed chess tournaments. | ||
Longshank
1648 Posts
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iamthedave
England2814 Posts
On December 01 2018 22:39 Longshank wrote: Does there have to be a champion though? If you could end up with no champion you would make sure both players goes for the win. All tiebreak scenarios will most like favour one of the players who will be content with playing for draws. Yes, of course there does. If you don't beat the champion, you're not the champion. Simple as that. | ||
bluzi
4703 Posts
On December 01 2018 03:48 LegalLord wrote: Classical chess championships should be decided in games of classical chess. If you find the rapid format more interesting, it exists and is played by the top players as well. Throwing in rapid games just because classical has stalemates isn’t the right solution. Its no longer Classical , computers ruined that for us , its actually the least classical format today at the top level , it was amazing to watch Magnus bishop sac on the live stream , I stood up out of my chair and ppl at work asked me what's going on , classical is fun to watch as well , but there is no denying the players are unable to perform due to computers , the first person out of prep that needs to think about moves knows he is behind because he plays vs elite computer line and its very stressful and immediately he thinks about drawing the match , they played so many times vs a computer and lost that they KNOW they cannot beat it , so they try to get to a point where the other player is not a computer anymore and have a non losing position. Maybe Classical time control needs adjustment , make it faster but not as fast as Rapid. | ||
iamthedave
England2814 Posts
On December 02 2018 17:19 bluzi wrote: Its no longer Classical , computers ruined that for us , its actually the least classical format today at the top level , it was amazing to watch Magnus bishop sac on the live stream , I stood up out of my chair and ppl at work asked me what's going on , classical is fun to watch as well , but there is no denying the players are unable to perform due to computers , the first person out of prep that needs to think about moves knows he is behind because he plays vs elite computer line and its very stressful and immediately he thinks about drawing the match , they played so many times vs a computer and lost that they KNOW they cannot beat it , so they try to get to a point where the other player is not a computer anymore and have a non losing position. Maybe Classical time control needs adjustment , make it faster but not as fast as Rapid. Or rules preventing the use of computers for preparation. Allow it in other tournaments, but for the World Championships you get a chess set, your team, some books, and time. And that's it. No laptops, no pcs, no internet. Strip it back so it's pure human brainpower again. | ||
Chewbacca.
United States3633 Posts
On December 02 2018 19:27 iamthedave wrote: Or rules preventing the use of computers for preparation. Allow it in other tournaments, but for the World Championships you get a chess set, your team, some books, and time. And that's it. No laptops, no pcs, no internet. Strip it back so it's pure human brainpower again. Being able to monitor the players and ensure they don't use computers for the months leading up to the championship seems nigh impossible to accomplish. | ||
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
What kind of edge do they give? What, do they have computers play the style of whatever opponent they are going to play, and then use another computer to help beat that style? Genuinely curious here. Used to love chess when I was a kid but never play it anymore, still watch a match from time to time though. | ||
Jockmcplop
United Kingdom8727 Posts
On December 03 2018 00:47 travis wrote: What's wrong with using computers for the months leading up to the championship? What kind of edge do they give? What, do they have computers play the style of whatever opponent they are going to play, and then use another computer to help beat that style? Genuinely curious here. Used to love chess when I was a kid but never play it anymore, still watch a match from time to time though. Computers have explored all the best openings and found the exact optimal moves, which is easier in the beginning of the game when there are fewer sensible positions the players could find themselves in. All of these positions are fully mapped out by computers so by studying them players tend to fall into identical or very similar patterns of moves. This makes half of chess the study of these computer 'mappings' of opening theory. If you want to discover a player's chess 'personality' it doesn't even come into play until the middlegame. This is why top level chess looks so different now to 50-60 years ago and the classic players. On the discussion of spicing up the world championships, I would prefer to see a chess960 classical game before the rapid games. If you wanna throw out preparation 960 is a great way to do it. A computer can find even starting positions easily, its just the weird castling that might be a problem. | ||
GreenHorizons
United States21791 Posts
On December 03 2018 01:58 Jockmcplop wrote: Computers have explored all the best openings and found the exact optimal moves, which is easier in the beginning of the game when there are fewer sensible positions the players could find themselves in. All of these positions are fully mapped out by computers so by studying them players tend to fall into identical or very similar patterns of moves. This makes half of chess the study of these computer 'mappings' of opening theory. If you want to discover a player's chess 'personality' it doesn't even come into play until the middlegame. This is why top level chess looks so different now to 50-60 years ago and the classic players. How does this phenomenon change with skill? Approximately how many optimal starting moves should/would be memorized by various levels of chess players? | ||
Jockmcplop
United Kingdom8727 Posts
On December 03 2018 02:09 GreenHorizons wrote: How does this phenomenon change with skill? Approximately how many optimal starting moves should/would be memorized by various levels of chess players? Most average skill players know 2-3 openings fairly deep (like 10 moves) with a few branching paths. The number of these openings and branches you need to know multiplies quickly once you start getting above 1600 (which is where I'm at). Personally I feel like this is the big thing stopping me from improving. The amount of preparation done by World Championship players is insane. They will know every single opening up to 20 moves and further, such that once the opening position takes shape, there will only be 4-5 possible divergence points. My numbers might be off by quite a bit, I don't follow top level chess particularly closely, its just the feeling I get from watching these recent Carlsen games. If someone here is more experienced with higher level chess they may be able to answer this more accurately. | ||
ZigguratOfUr
Iraq16955 Posts
On December 03 2018 02:17 Jockmcplop wrote: Most average skill players know 2-3 openings fairly deep (like 10 moves) with a few branching paths. The number of these openings and branches you need to know multiplies quickly once you start getting above 1600 (which is where I'm at). Personally I feel like this is the big thing stopping me from improving. The amount of preparation done by World Championship players is insane. They will know every single opening up to 20 moves and further, such that once the opening position takes shape, there will only be 4-5 possible divergence points. My numbers might be off by quite a bit, I don't follow top level chess particularly closely, its just the feeling I get from watching these recent Carlsen games. If someone here is more experienced with higher level chess they may be able to answer this more accurately. At 1600 memorizing openings isn't even close to the top of the list of things to improve on. As for the world championship, how much of the game is memorized varies quite a bit depending on how early one of the players succeeds in surprising the other. For example in Game 2 Caruana surprised Carlsen with 10 ... Rd8 putting Carlsen out of preparation by move 11 (with Caruana staying in preparation for another ~6 moves). It isn't always obvious how much is prepared (especially if one of the players forgets some of their prep. or intentionally takes their time to bait their opponent into playing more aggressively), so I don't think you can get solid numbers on how many moves are memorized. | ||
Puosu
6982 Posts
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pmh
1344 Posts
On December 03 2018 02:09 GreenHorizons wrote: How does this phenomenon change with skill? Approximately how many optimal starting moves should/would be memorized by various levels of chess players? Opening theory has always been importent in chess,computers did not realy change that they just go deeper. some players know lots of theory,others know less. There is no given amount how much one should know at a certain level. Even some club players know their favorit openings 15 moves deep,and most of the popular sub variations that can occur. You can still see difference in playstyle,for example by looking what opening and variations of it people do prefer. Some like tactical variations and others like more positionsl variations. You can go a long way in chess by just studying openings. More importent to study/practice is tactics though. almost every game at club level is decided by tactics. For world championship i like te old system and old time controls (winner keeps title when drawn) It is very unfair to the challenger but the system did create legends. Rapid is popular though,and also more interesting from an esports perspective. Not only becaue it is faster but also because it seems to give less draws in general. I do like the rapid part in the current system but i do not like the blitz part or even worse the armageddon game. Maybe 6 or 8 blits games after the normal games and if it still is a tie then the champion will keep the title. | ||
GreenHorizons
United States21791 Posts
On December 03 2018 07:29 pmh wrote: Opening theory has always been importent in chess,computers did not realy change that they just go deeper. some players know lots of theory,others know less. There is no given amount how much one should know at a certain level. Even some club players know their favorit openings 15 moves deep,and most of the popular sub variations that can occur. You can still see difference in playstyle,for example by looking what opening and variations of it people do prefer. Some like tactical variations and others like more positionsl variations. You can go a long way in chess by just studying openings. More importent to study/practice is tactics though. almost every game at club level is decided by tactics. For world championship i like te old system and old time controls (winner keeps title when drawn) It is very unfair to the challenger but the system did create legends. Rapid is popular though,and also more interesting from an esports perspective. Not only becaue it is faster but also because it seems to give less draws in general. I do like the rapid part in the current system but i do not like the blitz part or even worse the armageddon game. Maybe 6 or 8 blits games after the normal games and if it still is a tie then the champion will keep the title. That's helpful. When I played chess I sometimes got too in my head and while thinking several moves ahead fail to return to the very first one in the series I've imagined and move a wrong piece and get caught. I imagine at masters level and possibly before that's a pretty rare issue (unintentionally/surprisingly) losing a piece and has to be intentionally set up more than a move or two in advance? When making a move how many moves ahead do the various levels of chess players typically imagine or recall? Also is there an online (audio visual, rather than textual) resource you guys would recommend where I could learn more about the theory behind chess and other faq's for noobs? I'd probably prefer one more youtube entertainment style over some masters having a discussion just so you all have an idea what I'm looking for. | ||
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