Comment by veidelis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by veidelis | Hacker News Reader

First of all, I have the greatest respect for the two individuals who played their hearts out in this event.

Personally, I'm on the side which thinks that this format is a total stagnation. Maybe the new no-increment under 40 moves is an improvement, but overall it does not count. I agree with Carlsen that the format has to be drastically changed to determine who is the better player. Much more games, shorter games. Fischer said a long time ago that chess is dead. Considering how deep some of the variations go into theoretical territory, I can surely relate. Magnus has also expressed that it's very hard to find novelties. I'm also totally on the side that Fischer Random (chess 960) has to be included in this tournament. I believe that ultimately it will happen - sooner or later. Magnus also said that he thinks that his match with Caruana was of extremely high quality - those 14 games were all draws. I totally understand why Magnus didn't want to defend his title. On the other hand I can't comprehend how FIDE let this happen because a lot of people don't think of current tournament as high as they maybe should be, just because Magnus is not participating. That's a shame. Not on Carlsen, not on chess. On FIDE.

> Personally, I'm on the side which thinks that this format is a total stagnation.

I was with you until this WCC.

In almost every game, Gukesh took Ding out of prep extremely early. It wasn't always a success for him either! Leaving the opening book typically means you accept an objectively-worse position, but one that your opponent has to spend a significant amount of time finding the right ideas in. Even in the cases where Ding found the right idea, Gukesh put him in serous time-trouble as a result.

Yes, many of the games resulted in draws. But they were extremely sharp and imbalanced, and in virtually every game one side of the board (typically Gukesh) had a serious advantage and very strong attacking opportunities. The resulting draws were due to not finding the right ideas in time (and very likely both players psyching themselves out of the "obvious" correct move) rather than inherently boring and drawn positions.

Overall it seemed to be an extremely effective strategy for Gukesh. But it was also actually exciting to watch unlike some previous WCCs where almost every game was likely in prep through the first 20+ moves and where the resulting positions had ample drawing chances for both sides.

This lacks some context. Gukesh took Ding out of prep bc Gukesh prepped for 7 months, while Ding prepped for 3 weeks and basically wanted to retire from chess. Ding would be out of prep by move 8 as white and be an hour down on time very consistently.

Ding says he wants to continue playing for a long time after the final. Sounds like you’re getting defensive.

There's a recent video where Caruana says he doesn't believe Ding prepped at all!

Gukesh repeatedly played opening lines that went out of book shockingly early. No amount of prep can prepare you adequately for someone willing to go off script on move 6.

That is what high level chess has been for years: preparing lines where you have the disadvantage if your opponent plays perfectly, but it uses up their clock and gives you opportunities to punish mistakes in their calculation.

The same technique is used in ameture level chess too, although these are more likely to be piece gambits than merely positional ones.

Really funny people complaining about classical chess, I don't know which games they have been watching.

Nepo Magnus game 6, Nepo Ding many many games, Nepo Caruana draw on round 14 of candidates. ALL OF THEM WERE TERRIFIC GAMES.

I don't understand what people mean by stagnation

I agree, watching the World Rapid and Blitz Championships is more intense and interesting (IMO), for sure. That said, it's much more difficult for a non like me to follow those games; I can't even imagine how tiring it is for the commenters in those shorter time formats. Commenting those games is its own very specialized skillset.

I find it funny when people say it's not on Carlsen when it was entirely his decision to not compete. We already have rapid and blitz world championships that are separate. This is the classical world championship and I think the format is both exciting to watch and decently fair.

I don’t know what you’re talking about. Maybe for someone that watched every chess game all year that might be the case but I watched all 14 of these games and thought they were fantastic.

of this tournament, i think magnus would have loved to play against ding, and not at all gukesh.

prep memorization remains a bit of a cheat where its your memorization and prep picking thats playing the game, rather than actually playing the game.

i think a randomly chosen "start from x position, with y time, and z increment after move c" for some 30 games over two weeks would do pretty well. Steal the formats from engine chess.

I think after the performances seen in the match, it is fair to say, that Carlsen would probably have won against both of them, at some point taking the lead and they might have never evened the score after that.

I think something like game/30 would be better, but I’m not terribly edumacated on the intricacies of classical chess time controls.

Absolutely. It would be AMAZING if no prep was possible. Memorizing engine lines 20 deep is nothing to be proud of.

That's the appeal of Chess960 / Fischer Random / Freestyle Chess / whatever they're calling it this week.

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