V-2

Kramnik revived the idea during his collaboration with DeepMind (where he tested several chess variants, revolving around only minor, albeit impactful adjustments to the ruleset).

One potential problem with no castling is that players may end up castling "manually", which takes several moves and becomes a mundane "housekeeping" task, actually sucking some dynamics out of the game. That was probably the reason why it was invented in the first place, to sort of automate the obvious thing away.

By the way, European chess added much more to the original version beyond just castling. The Queen would originally move in the same manner as the King (only by one square), the "mad Queen" thing is a European invention. So is the pawns' ability to move forward by 2 squares from their initial position. (And I'm guessing the incentive for that was of similar nature as above - to speed the game up).

However, once a player becomes more proficient, not only the obvious superiority of the Queen, but even of the Bishop (other things being equal, Bishops are thought to be actually somewhat more valuable, especially as a pair) starts becoming apparent.

Obviously I meant a rank (horizontal), not a file (vertical), sorry. Cannot edit the comment anymore

Such evaluations are only a rule of thumb intended for beginners.

It's all context dependent. There are positions where a Bishop is more powerful than a Rook. Other things being equal, Bishops tend to be preferred over Knights in serious play (especially when you've got a Bishop pair, which is synergically more powerful than one Bishop times two), even though both are theoretically "worth" 3 pawns. Two minor pieces are usually worth more than a Rook and a pawn, and more often than not it isn't a good idea to exchange the former for the latter, even though the total value appears the same (3+3 = 5+1). And so on.

This design doesn't account for many special qualities and behaviors pieces exhibit. It doesn't indicate that

* while pawns do capture diagonally (forward), they are pushed forward in straight line

* they can capture en passant

* they can move by 2 squares from their initial file, and only from the initial file

* they can be promoted to another piece

* Knight moves are not inhibited by the presence of other pieces (unlike any other piece, a Knight can "jump over" pieces)

* castling

* special status of the King (unless it's conveyed by that circle in the middle, but it's not nearly as readable a symbol as a crown)

So this design kind of works if you already have complete information from elsewhere, but isn't that great if it were your first source of info.

It also loses the poetic aesthetics of the traditional pieces, with queens and kings and bishops etc.

* https://centrumdruku3d.pl/jak-zrozumiec-roznice-pomiedzy-dok...

* https://automatykab2b.pl/technika/54301-dokladnosc-i-precyzj...

* https://learn.microsoft.com/pl-pl/office/troubleshoot/access...

* https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dok%C5%82adno%C5%9B%C4%87_i_pr...

etc.

It makes it easy to achieve great accuracy in the long run, but hard to be accurate in the short run, because you don't want false alarms. So 99.9% of cheaters may get banned after a few games, but since they keep on coming up (it's not hard to simply register another account, after all), the frustration they're causing is always going to be there.

That's a bit like saying that mathematics or physics are "memory games", because if you take them seriously, you can't avoid learning tons of equations and formulas instead of being creative (and reinventing the wheel by going from scratch) :)

While memorization is certainly a part of chess:

* Opening theory doesn't matter all that much up until a very high level. Below the master level chess is about 90% tactics. You can pretty much rely on general principles in the opening, and your opponents won't know enough opening theory anyway (so what's the point of eg. memorizing the theory on Sveshnikov Sicilian up until move 15 if you won't ever use it, because your opponents will be out of the book and play something non-theoretical long before).

* Even when opening theory does matter, memorizing it blindly is not enough, and it would be very difficult when done that way. It has to be based on deeper understanding of themes, underlying structures, typical plans for both sides in resulting types of positions, crucial squares to control etc.

I remember this scene in "Suits" (courtesy of YT recommendation algorithm - never watched the entire series, so I don't know the broader context). A guy without a degree walks into a law office, and the boss says "sorry, we only hire from Harvard", but he demands that the boss opens some law book on a random page, and he can quote the book perfectly like a savant. Needless to say, he's hired on the spot : )

This is what people may imagine the work of a lawyer revolves around, but it's not really accurate.

Not in my experience. I'm rated 1900+ on lichess and 1600+ on chess.com. That's after playing a significant number of games (nearly 500 on chess.com, thousands on lichess).

The way I feel about it, a 1900 player on lichess is an intermediate beginner (like myself), whereas 1900 on chess.com already represents a decent club player level.

For reference, "in real life" (Elo rating / FIDE) I'm rated below 1300 in classical chess, and about 1400 in rapid - although I've played only one rapid tournament, and I don't have a blitz rating at all, which makes comparisons a bit tricky.

For what it's worth though, as far as I can tell, these proportions are about typical.

This being said, I don't think anyone NEGATES Carlsen's achievements though. Certainly noone in the thread. So this looks like a textbook strawman to me

As for computers, they've certainly changed the landscape tremendously, but it doesn't mean that players simply play like chess engines. You don't just get to transfer the chess engine heuristics to a human mind. Chess engines help players find ideas, refutations etc., and they're certainly significant when it comes to opening theory. The role of memorization in opening theory (at the highest level) predates computers though.

Computers have also levelled the playing field, improving (buzzword alert) inclusiveness. Players from countries with flourishing chess tradition, such as Russia, don't have the inherent advantage anymore. That's why the current top 2 (on the rating list) are from Norway and China, which would be rather unlikely a few decades ago.

[Citation needed] :) Says who? What exactly indicates the best players "don't want to compete in traditional matches"? What implies that Magnus forfeiting his title (having collected five) is a result of such general trend?

Either it's "best players", or only Magnus, in this specific situation, having already built a remarkable legacy.

> and the chess watching public doesn't want to follow it anyway.

[Citation needed] again : ) Because I'm not sure if the chess watching public KNOWS that it "doesn't want to follow" traditional matches. Regarding the previous world championship match:

"Total viewership for the event exceeded 12.6 million hours watched with a record peak streaming viewership for chess of 613,000 concurrent viewers making the FIDE World Championship in Dubai one of the most watched events in streaming globally."

https://kommunikasjon.ntb.no/announcement?publisherId=168238...

> In total, viewers of the World Championship spent more than 12.6M hours on broadcasts, which is twice as much as at the World Championship 2018. The average audience of the World Championship 2021 was 239.7K viewers, which is almost 2.5 times more than at the previous iteration of the tournament

https://escharts.com/news/fide-world-chess-championship-2021...

Guess the chess watching public didn't get that memo. Viewership can grow substantially, despite this era of shortening attention spans. I can't see a problem in need of fixing here, much less a trend going in the opposite direction that these numbers show.

> If you think FIDE involvement in rapid/online cheapens chess...

Involvement in and of itself, no. It has its place. And they're involved already. There are World Rapid and World Blitz championships. But these titles don't hold the same value as "the" World championship. Ask Abdusattorov ("who"? Exactly :)) if he wouldn't prefer to be the classic world champion.

What I'm saying is that this involvement should be kept in proportion, and pushing towards rapid/online, with the goal of attracting more publicity (which is already larger than ever before, the internet takes care of itself without the need for any official blessing), steers towards diminishing returns, while the long-term costs would tend to increase.

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.)

This cheapens the tradition and the prestige of the discipline. Chess has attained a revered status over the years. It's not perceived as a game like any other. That's why it's able to attract luxury sponsors, if nothing else. Shifting the focus onto the "double bong cloud drunk banter blitz" territory destroys this legacy. This casual, fun aspect exists and does very well independently of the official, suited up aspect. They are complementary. But I'd really think twice before trying to remove one of the pillars. Chess is the most known, researched and commented mind game on the globe, it doesn't suffer from niche viewership. There's no need to try and fix a problem that doesn't exist. Tradition and legacy is something no amount of online clicks could ever buy.

If anything, Carlsen's WC matches fell definitely on the short side (which is one of the reasons why 2 of them were only decided on rapid tiebreaks, which is kind of ridiculous in and of itself; not saying it's Carlsen's "fault", but still). And all but the last one - where Nepo self-destructed anyway - were 12 games long.

Back in the dya of Kasparov vs. Karpov a WC match was at least 24 games long - so for example Carlsen's both wins against Anand in 2013 and then 2014 combined were only as long as a single match before his era. And the (in)famous aborted match of 1984-85 lasted for 48 games. The struggle used to be much greater.

How does the analogy with Jordan fit here exactly?

"However, one cannot say that he has beaten Caruana or Karjakin convincingly. [Both matches were decided on tiebreaks]. There were questions in his match against Anand too. If he had beaten all three of them as clearly as he won against Nepomniachtchi, I would understand Carlsen. But is he already tired of winning after winning one match clearly?" (Karpov)

But if you only ever lost 1 or 2 wars, you're no longer on the world map.

Yeah - if they fail (or are arguably failing, in Putin's case). Not really the case of, say, Charlemagne or Alexander The Great.

Still, "strong men", the way I read it, means "adamantly striving for the increase of power" (not just military power) rather than "being powerful already".

When it comes down to such vague and ambiguous terms, the whole thing becomes as open to interpretation as a horoscope - basically unfalsifiable : )

However such general sentiments can 'survive' the knowledge that kickstarted them and propagate in the collective consciousness without it.

It bursts at seams with brilliant "do not say!" type of tutorials - one my favorites is "How to Survive a Coup". Here's some of the advice given by the expert authors (who clearly must have survived a few coups back in the day):

"The most important thing to do during a coup is to stay out of range of gunfire [...] Stay tuned into social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to get regular updates on what is happening [...] If you have television, then you can also try watching your local news channel for updates [...] Leave the country or go to a safer region if the conflict continues"

So remember, try staying out of range of gunfire and don't forget to subscribe, everyone

And we now have this knee-jerk reaction to aggressively cut through fluff even when there's actually no fluff.

Back in the day the list of shopping Sundays would be printed in my pocketbook calendar that I'd buy in early January. And it would be a simple list without all the "...shopping for goods is such an important part of life, you need to eat after all (sometimes too much, am I right!). But did you know that on some days..." BS. Because paper is an actual commodity, and no editor would publish a pocketbook calendar the size of a brick. Unlike paper though, kilobytes cost nothing, so there you go.