FIDE world chess championship decided in rapid tiebreaks
chess24.comA lot of people (me included) thought this series was dire for Ding after watching him get crushed a few days ago by his opponent Nepo where Ding visibly froze and was in a state of total mental disarray after he couldn't decide on his move, wasted a ton of time, and ended up making a bad move anyways.
Commenters said that this was Nepo's strength, even if he doesn't make the absolute greatest move he makes a good enough move relatively quickly compared to his competition and we saw the advantage of that play out.
But ironically that game being successful for Nepo's fast style might've cost him the championship in the end as he tried to replicate the time pressure on Ding every game after to pretty poor results. He might've done better if he didn't get such a dramatic victory that game.
The "Ding froze" assessment from game 7 was the fake-news media meme but wasn't the reality. He explained it after the fact. He knew what he was doing. He thought his position was lost, so he was calculating everything to look for a line to save a draw with perpetual checks / threefold repetition. He felt he had nothing to lose by expending all his time searching for that since he was going to lose anyway if he didn't find it. He was incorrect in evaluating his position as worse than it was (remember the players don't get the computer analysis numbers), but he wasn't incorrect in his time management stemming from that evaluation.
The same went for Nepo's supposed "tilt" in the last WCC match against Carlsen, that was media exaggeration. He lost one game with one mistake, so then had to push into risky positions after that in hopes of catching up, since he had nothing more to lose in match terms. The big discrepancy in score for that match wasn't domination, it was an artifact of the meta-factor of playing for high variance.
c5 in game 9 by Nepo of the match against Carlsen was not a high variance play but just playing way below his level. All the commentators spotted it instantly.
You're not kidding. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7REwQ4dSOk
It's pretty much just an obvious blunder. And with 49 minutes on his clock.
That was the mistake I was talking about - but yeah I misremembered the sequence of events. Nepo was already down by a game then, the very long game 6. After game 9 he was pushing for high variance.
I dunno about variance in Nepo-Carlsen. Game six was brutal, a cat playing with its food. I think it's fair to say Carlsen outclasses Nepo.
Carlsen outclasses Nepo, yes. By a degree that is one or two mistakes across twelve full length games. Not to the degree of "tilt" or "meltdown" that the media coverage was trying to push.
It was an incredibly long and incredibly precise game from both sides played by opponents of virtually equal skill.
I can’t find any video of Ding saying that but I’ll assume it’s true.
Well, then Ding is lying to himself (which would actually be a clever strategy so that doesn’t weigh on your mind the next time you’re in a tough time situation). Ding started his move with over 5 minutes to go. He finally played a move with about 45 secs remaining. He still had 8 moves to make in 45 seconds before time would be extended.
The 5 or so seconds he was leaving himself for each move was close to being physically impossible to achieve. Ding absolutely froze.
Also, it wasn’t “Fake news media” claiming he froze. It was live commentators who are largely GMs themselves who recognized it as him freezing. Anish Giri predicted he froze live when there was about 4 mins to go, from the fact that he hadn’t made a move yet.
The live commentators were doing the same thing as the media coverage - jumping to the immediate shallow sound-bite conclusion, without thinking about any deeper explanation or context.
This is a good point. Ding's time management has actually been excellent in this match besides that one moment where he froze. But that was literally one move. In most of the games he's just close to serious time pressure, but never gets there. He's just very fastidious about actually spending all his time.
Ian definitely slowed down in the latter half of the match as well, but he still played too quickly in key positions.
Think of the chess players as facing a gigantic search problem. They don't have time to search everything, so they have to use intuition to decide what lines to calculate. Their intuition is very good but not perfect. So sometimes you get in a situation where you have computed the wrong lines and see no solution. The solution might be obvious on another day where you randomly don't cull the right lines, and very hard to find on a day when you are culling the good lines.
Ding when he froze was for whatever reason missing the good move, so felt he was lost, searching and searching for some solution. It seems crazy only because the engine is there telling us it is drawn. But the human is culling the lines that work for some misguided reason.
In that vein, when the cheating scandal happened a few months back Hikaru (a top 10 player) said the only information he would need to make a difference in a match is getting a buzz when the position is critical. Not which move to make, but when to spend time analyzing deeply.
It is hard to over-emphasize how much high level chess is about time management.
Congratulations to both players for providing us with so many decisive and interesting games! Particular congratulations to Ding!
I played in the US Chess Open in 1978, but I am not much of a player. I did write the shitty little Chess program that Apple distributed on the Apple II demo cassette tape.
Off topic, but I 100% support Magnus’s decision to do what he enjoys: playing in tournaments and not time spent preparing for world championship matches. Good for him understanding what is most important to him, and acting on it.
That decision is made a lot easier once you've been on top five times and no matter what happens in the championship you're not participating in, everyone knows you're still the GOAT.
"I played in the US Chess Open in 1978, but I am not much of a player. I did write the shitty little Chess program that Apple distributed on the Apple II demo cassette tape."
Sometimes...you meet the most interesting people on here!
I finished in-the-money in the Open in 1982, which hooked me a bit, and I also later played in the World Open and finished in-the-money in the New York open.
For NY, had to live in Manhattan for two weeks, play 6 days, one day off, then 6 more days, several hours each day. I wouldn't have been able to remotely afford it, but my cousin was out of town for two weeks, and let me stay at her place. Taking two weeks off for an open Chess tournament seems insane to today's player's brought up on blitz, rapid, bullet and hyper-bullet (which I confess I enjoy a lot myself).
It was a very exciting WCC, but I feel like something should be done about the post-match press conferences. Many of the questions asked in the most prestigious chess tournament are not even remotely related to the games that were played, and sometimes plainly disrespectful towards the players.
The first question right after a new World Champion has been crowned was about the weather.
It was also extremely odd to me that there was no Chinese press there. Ding's English is not excellent, and to not be able to catch his first moments in his native tongue seems to have been a major failing of the Chinese press.
Ding was offered a translator but insisted on speaking English himself apparently!
"He said he didn’t need a translator since, “I feel very comfortable now,” " from https://chess24.com/en/read/news/ding-liren-passes-acid-test...
I've seen international competitions where the winner is interviewed by a reporter from their home country in their native language. It can often be a nice touch, and is very different from using a translator to speak to English speaking reports.
Chess isn't really big in China. Maybe will get more popular with Ding now but I'm not holding my breath.
Chess is huge in China. The women’s world champion and also number two are both Chinese.
You are right that Chess is not as popular as Go in China.
Norway is a small country (1/300th the population of China) with Magnus Carlson. Chess could be of interest to a small fraction of China and still produce champions.
Chess is not nearly as popular as Chinese chess (xiangqi) either.
Hard to take the WCC seriously when everyone know Carlsen would have won and just find the whole thing too boring to take part.
I don't see why that implies we shouldn't take it seriously. The world #1 didn't want to play, so we got a great match between the world #2 and #3 with some very interesting and complex games. Do you also think that Karpov shouldn't have been taken seriously as world champion?
I suspect Magnus would disagree.
Ding is in fact the sole player that can make this not statement not true, as he is a candidate with a known positive score against Magnus. A couple WCCs ago Magnus said Ding was the only player that he wasn't sure he could win against -- but that he wouldn't make it, after a poor showing in the candidates at the time.
Anyways, I don't know who would win in a Carlsen - Ding WCC. Nobody does. If the game statistics are to be believed, then Ding would.
Prior to previous championship match Nepo also had positive score vs Carlsen.
And Carlsen attended that match.
Ding has a losing record against Magnus in every time control.
Thanks for the correction. He had a winning record back when Magnus said that quote, and I didn't check the current standings.
What a horrible comment
How so? The eventual winner didn’t win the Candidates and the Candidates winner was crushed two years ago.
The whole thing is already hard to take seriously usually with the whole wild card thing and the format being criticised by approximately everyone.
Or he was scared of losing after spending months preparing. He'll say whatever makes him look good probably but who knows.
He first voiced his discontent with the format around 13-15 years ago (he was #1 player by elo rating, but not yet the world champion), even skipping a cycle or two as protest. Afterward, he participated anyway and hold the title in fairly dominating fashion 10 years straight.
Maybe we should take his words at face value and that he really is fed up with the thing.
Considering how much happier he seems since he decided to forgo defending the title yeah, good chance he just doesn't want it or care about it anymore.
IMO good for him. He won it all and now he is doing new things with his life.
To further solidify this, Magnus crushed Ian in the last WCC 7.5 to 3.5.
I think most folks agree that Magnus is the best player in the world, but the WCC was far better with him not in it.
Magnus OP, ruins meta. needs nerf in next patch devs PLZ
don't hold your breath for that. Carlsen is 2853 and nobody else is above 2800 now.
Great match by Ding and Ian both, and I honestly think Ding deserves the win in the end.
I think Ian got a bit too results oriented and pragmatic towards the end of the match, playing too imprecisely and quickly in key positions and always a little too happy with a draw. Ding was just playing chess.
And as often happens in chess, this ended up being the decisive psychological factor. Ian, going for a repetition, And Ding says no, let's play. This seemed to shock Ian so much that he was unable to find the correct moves. Ding was ruthless and punished his mistakes, showcasing his superior calculation(at least in that moment) and concentration.
I wouldn't agree with the "deserves to win". If you look at the classical matches, probably Ian had the slight edge, and tbh, he could have wrapped up the entire thing in Game 13(I may not be remembering the exact game, but the one where he had a strong position but gave it away and lost, thus leading to a tie).
And, honestly, in rapid, they were really really even. Even one better move at the end might have tied it up.
I think the match showed that they were about equal, not that really anyone was better.
Well, yes he could have, but he didn't. And Ding simply played better than him and beat him in that game. And in the game before that he passed up chances to play for a win with white for an easy draw.
That's why I think the final game became sort of a microcosm of the match as a whole. Ian's concentration slipped and he was thinking of making a draw, and the match situation, and not the position at hand, and when Ding rejected the draw he was too flabbergasted by it to handle the position whereas Ding just kept calculating.
It was a very tight match, and both players would have deserved it had they won they tie break. But I think overall in decisive moments Ding was just a little bit more collected and concentrated, and that's why he ended up winning.
It would be fair to say that it was the championship that Nepo lost, not the championship that Ding won. Game 12 was an insane blunder.
I think these are nothing but quibbles. In the end, the player who makes the least mistakes wins, and that was Ding. Ian had opportunities he didn't take, and so did Ding, but in the end Ding took more of his opportunities than Ian.
In the end, if Ian deserved to win more than Ding, why did Ding win?
Yes definitely. Ian must’ve been shifting into draw mode after the first repetition. Hard to adjust again with ~2 minutes on the clock.
I think as well that Black had more viable moves as the position continued to develop; Ian on the other hand had to be very accurate.
Brilliant from ding really. There’s a reason he’s about 100 Elo points stronger than Ian in Rapid.
In the final game, the commentators on the chess.com stream pointed out that Ian could have gone for a draw, but wanted to push on.
There were definitely moments in the game where they both had the option, but I am referring specifically to 46. ... Rg6 [0] which occurs after two repetitions of the position, initiated by Ian.
[0] https://lichess.org/broadcast/fide-world-chess-championship-...
It should be noted that one of the reasons this WCC was exciting is because of Richard Rapport who helped Ding Liren with his preparation, he is well know for being creative with his openings, and his contributions were pretty obvious in games (we even saw a London System), specially that Ding is usually predictable.
Yes, but I still don't see the point of the 4.h3 novelty, which wastes a move. Ding lost that game badly.
Weirdly enough, the opening actually turned out okay for Ding there, but instead of plcing Nxc5 with a stable advantage he went for the double edged Nxf6 and he played poorly in that game.
Ding had a really bad start though, he really wasn't himself, especially in the first two games. Not sitting at the board much which is very unlike him.
I think if Nepo had played something more challenging in game 1 than the exhange variation he would've probably won the game and possibly been able to kill Ding off while he was still settling into the match.
I'm really glad it was decided in rapid if it couldn't be in classical. The first three rapid games were of incredibly high quality, just as good as the best games in Classical in terms of accuracy and much more exciting than you'd think just hearing they were draws. The last game had its ups and downs but seemed to be a clear draw until the very end. Under time-pressure both players made some mistakes but there is no other way for a winner to emerge really.
As a middling player a draw in Rapid is quite an achievement. Playing that accurately in such a short time control is really so impressive. Especially given the pressure they were exerting on each other during those first three games!
Here's the decisive tiebreaker to anyone who didn't watch it:
https://youtu.be/cSxNZix1Xwc?t=12404 (3:26:44 – 4:38:10)
https://lichess.org/broadcast/fide-world-chess-championship-... (just the moves)
Thanks to the commentators to make the game accessible to us 1100 elo ><.
It's funny because at my level I thought it made 100% sense to decline draw and go Rg6. With two beautiful passed pawns and a bishop in the middle ding had a clear plan and very low risk (to me) to lose while Nepo had to do so many super accurate queen moves to defend... which seemed impossible (to me) in time pressure. It's basically (to me, again) the same problem than the super long game 6 in 2022 against carlsen.
Rg6 is an amazing decision (note that I didn't say it's the right one as clearly I wouldn't know). Think about it, after months of preparation and a couple weeks of playing long games, and getting so much pressure, he can take a draw with black and then play blitz. Nobody would have blame him for it.
But he realized that he has some chance for pressure, and that Ian has spent his extra time on the clock. So he puts his gloves on for the last fight. Whether or not it is the right strategy, both in this particular game and regarding the situation of the match, it shows incredible courage and fighting spirit.
Also earlier in the same game he canceled an attack realizing that he would be overextending and Ian has everything to defend. That is really really hard to do when you are attacking and had an advantage a couple moves ago, to just hold back like that.
Ding played really well at many points and absolutely deserves the title. I just think saying "it shows incredible courage and fighting spirit." might be an exagération when the decision was 100% logic to me.
The point is that he had 0 reason in fact to accept the draw. First, if Ian initiates a draw, its because he thinks its good for him so why help Ian ? Secondly it was either fighting now, or later in blitz. So just why delay the fight ? Literally why ? Theres no reason to. At the end of the day you win when the other makes mistake, and his position plus time control was really likely to make ian make errors also.
If anything i thought it was very a bit careles from ian to assume he would accept, and for what is worth Hikarus more or less said something in his recap along these lines and that he could have simplified a lot more before to make a draw more likely. I hope my point is clear despite my english
It was only low risk in hindsight. Yes the two pawns looked good, but the black king wasn't exactly completely secure either.
Hence they said (to me) because low elo players are going to underestimate value of activity & king safety
Yea that's a fair rebuttal. At higher ELOs, you start to develop a sense of paranoia about the King. For example, opening the center before castling feels very wrong intuitively, and in this case, pinning one of your few remaining pieces against your own King with an envelope of only two pawns is one of those "maybe I should be concerned" types of scenarios.
It's been a brilliant tournament, absolutely fantastic to follow. Genuinely gripping, exciting stuff with incredible games and lines.
Carlsen did us all a favour by stepping back. I don't think the rest of the pack are too far behind these two, we should be seeing a really dynamic, entertaining fight for the top spot over the coming years.
I'd rather have the best current player in there. I thought this WCC was rather pointless.
Honestly, I think this is just fine. We know Carlsen is the best [1], but as someone who's been casually following for a while now, I found this series of games far more fun to watch. It's great for the game.
A new challenger will appear over time, Carlsen will come out of retirement. We're just part way through a nice big story arc. I'm happy to enjoy entertaining chess.
[1] A friend and I were going over some classics whilst watching the game yesterday. Carlsen was just leagues ahead, such a gorgeous and brutal game. It's like he's wielding nunchaku at the end. https://lichess.org/broadcast/world-chess-championship-2021/...
What are they supposed to do, not have a world championship?
It's happened before when Fischer refused to defend the title. And yet Karpov got the title without having beaten Fischer, who he probably wouldn't have beaten in a match even if Fischer was nutty bananas at the time. But at least he had played a match to win the candidates tournament at the time.
This time around, Ian hadn't won a match, and so the match made sense to me, because the world championship is decided by match, not tournament.
> What are they supposed to do, not have a world championship?
Perhaps change the format. Carlsen stepped down, because it's too much preparation year after year. And with him being the GOAT, everyone was always preparing defensively and hoping for a blunder, making it somewhat "boring" games (quotes, as in draws doesn't have to be boring).
But doing that when Carlsen announced his forfeit after the candidates would be silly. If there's a time to change the format, it's now before the next cycle begins, not in the middle of the previous cycle.
Carlsen was pretty clear on this all along. He said there was a _slight_ chance of him changing his mind if Firouzja won the Candidates, which he was nowhere near doing. The announcement after the Candidates was just the final confirmation. Everybody playing knew very well that the second spot would give them a very real shot at playing the WCC, Ding and Nakamura included.
That's true. But Carlsen still leaving the possibility meant it was always going to be a match in this cycle. So if Carlsen forfeiting should have consequences for the way the cycle is structured it should be now, after the match, not instead of it
Btw, are you in any way responsible for analysis.sesse.net? I've been using it every day!
I don't think Carlsen demanded changing the cycle, so indeed. (Well, he voiced opinions ten years ago, but this time around, there were no negotiations AFAIK. Just him plain stating he wasn't likely to show up.)
a.s.n is my site, yes. I haven't been following this match as closely as the previous ones, so it's been a bit delayed some days (and I haven't bothered dealing with some bugs in the source PGN, so the clocks have been off at times).
Carlsen is clearly better than his contemporaries, no doubts about it. But calling the GOAT is a stretch.
Eh, like 2 others that could contend it. You might disagree, but its not a stretch.
Are you saying that he isn't even in the conversation, or that it's too hard to push him past Kasparov, Fischer, and Capablanca relative to his peers?
(I can't reasonably put Morphy in this conversation, and I'm not sure anyone else has an argument.)
Not sure about GP, but he's definitely in the conversation for me though I think Fischer and probably Kasparov would be slightly ahead of him.
I would happily have Morphy in the conversation too, because he was so far ahead it's simply mind-boggling. He made his opponents, often the strongest players of the time besides him, look like idiots.
If we're judging only by strength relative to contemporaries, I think Morphy would take it.
If we judge only by absolute strength Carlsen at his peak is probably it. For some mix of the two, all the ones mentioned are potentially valid picks, and I'd include Lasker in that group as well.
Tal probably would've been if he was a lot healthier, but he doesn't make the list in an unfair world, though I'd be amiss not to at least mention my favourite historical player :)
I am inclined to think that Karpov would have very likely defeated Fischer, and that Fischer was afraid of losing to him.
Yes, it's hard to imagine Karpov losing this match.
> What are they supposed to do, not have a world championship?
Yes, that’s a reasonable proposal. Title matches don’t have to happen on a fixed schedule like the Super Bowl, and in the past, they didn’t. They were ad-hoc and happened whenever a worthy contender raised enough prize money to challenge the current champion, who had a lot of leeway in negotiating the format and venue.
That's not a reasonable proposal. Carlsen made his announcement after the candidates tournament was completed. So what, they just tell the players "hey that title you were playing for? Never mind, because Magnus can't be arsed."
Carlsen could either defend his title, or give it up. He chose to give it up. He didn't choose to keep it indefinitely or demand an opponent of his liking. Even he's not that unsporting.
This isn't the early 20th century anymore when world champions dodged challengers until one they knew they could beat appeared, and hasn't been for a long time.
There's a reason the current format came about; lots of prima donna behavior from the world champions at the time.
Long World Championship matches and normal tournaments are two very different beasts. Kramnik [convincingly] defeated Kasparov for the world championship in 2000, yet Kasparov was still the indisputably strongest tournament player in the world, and would remain so for the entirety of Kramnik's 6 year reign. Magnus' recent title defenses, except against Ian, have not been convincing. And against Ian, he was largely gifted games after Ian lost one good game and then went on monkey tilt. In the 2 world championship matches prior, Magnus had a grand score of +1 =22 -1. Magnus is dominant in regular tournaments, but that level of dominance has not carried over into his world championship matches.
I think he simply wanted to go out undefeated. The only opponent Magnus was willing to defend his title against is Alireza, the 4th in the world behind Magnus, Ian, and Ding. But he is by far the least experienced. He has 0 classical match experience against top players, is 20 years old, and also has tilt issues. Throw in the pressure of a World Championship match and he would almost certainly have been the easiest opponent for Magnus.
This event showed who the strongest match player in the world is, and as of today - that is Ding Liren.
He was undefeated for 10 years and you're rationalizing that he somehow isn't the best player because some other guy once lost in this format? And his undefeated streak over 10 years wasn't convincing enough for you?
That just... doesn't make sense.
That "some other guy" was the undefeated world champion for 15 years, the world #1 player for 21 years, and more. He was much more dominant than even Magnus. Yet it was a similar story for him where his match dominance ended well before his tournament dominance did. Even after losing the world championship title, he would remain world #1 for about 6 more years.
Maintaining dominance against a peer (and their team) who spend the better part of a year doing nothing but preparing for you, is very different than maintaining it in the relatively far more casual environment of tournaments. And there's a big ego trap here. Quitting is easy, especially when you're on top. Continuing to fight until the day you fall is hard, and requires immense character.
> This event showed who the strongest match player in the world is, and as of today - that is Ding Liren.
The problem with the current WCC is that it’s very much up for debate, and this is like, your opinion.
I don’t think Ding Liren is a better player than Magnus Carlsen.
The current title is mostly symbolic. It means “the second best player in the world”.
You have to consider match vs tournament play. The two are really very different. In tournaments you're playing a small number of games against a large number of different opponents, of often dramatically different skill levels. The large number of players also often also all but guarantees that some of the players will be off form, and easy pickings for the rest of the crowd. It's a really fun and interesting dynamic but very different than match play.
For the world championship players spend the better part of a year, generally with a large team of other world class players, intensely preparing to play games against only a single player, studying their games, and finally unleashing absolutely everything they've discovered. And then there's a constant metagame knowing each game you play one day will be deeply studied by your opponent and his team, and he will come back fully prepared the next day.
Carlsen gave up his title because he no longer wanted to put the massive amounts of work in that are required to maintain it. Would he be the best match player if he started putting this work in again? Maybe? But he's chosen not to do that.
I genuinely think Ding could beat Magnus is the WCC 14 game format. Magnus does better on tournaments but 14 games against the same player is a different beast and while Magnus has performed well in the past he has also shown plenty of weaknesses in the format.
Magnus plays WC for draws to eliminate risk, because he knows he is much better at rapid. He was still unbeatable.
Yes. This is the meta strategy. Nepo was also doing this when he was a point ahead.
As Magnus noted in his reasons for stepping down from the match, your first sentence is entirely correct. The 1v1 format of the world championship makes it largely a battle of opponent-specific prep. For a round robin, players generally play their strongest lines and prepare for their opponents' likely responses. For the championship, each player is trying to prepare surprises for the other, and it's largely a battle of who can get their opponent out of prep most effectively without sacrificing advantage, and how effectively you play when out of prep.
>This event showed who the strongest match player in the world is, and as of today - that is Ding Liren.
Reread carefully your arguing against Carlsen. If it applies to Carlsen, then why not to Ding Liren? That doesn't makes sense to me at all.
The chess engines don’t show up either, it seems the competition is fine with only mortals engaging in it.
I felt the same way at first, but I’ve come to realise that a huge part of being a world champ is getting to the table. For whatever reason Magnus couldn’t do it this time around.
I know it’s not 1:1, but how many times did Kasparov face Karpov in a world championship match? I think it was 4 in total…
Meanwhile, Magnus...
He tweeted 30s after Ian resigned though.
Edit: https://nitter.net/MagnusCarlsen/status/1652663581542891531#...
Seems like there’s some major suppressed regret there for not taking part…
I watch the Botez sisters and even this kind of grosses me out.
Why? Looks like a few normal young people drinking and having fun, what is wrong with that?
I only saw that few seconds, but there's clearly a painful sexual drama/tragedy going on.
Note magnus's overly blank face, the sunglasses, the spirited (but joyless!) dancing.
I find Botez sisters obnoxious tbh
They've been a massive positive for chess.
People (especially young people) aren't being introduced to its excitement and beauty via Ding & Nepo playing loooooooong matches in championships like this.
They may go on to watch the world championship after Botez have converted them though.
I'm sure they also abetted people losing their savings in FTX though.
I agree they should stay clear of stuff they haven't done due diligence in, learn from mistakes and hope that money doesn't become the overriding motivator. It is fair to be sceptical though if and when they screw up and don't sincerely acknowledge and apologise.
A stunning end. those last minutes everyone had assumed it was a draw and Ding had the courage to keep pushing.
The main commentator stream was (reasonably) blindsided by Rg6, with comedic timing.
Sachdev: "Rg6 is not a move that you'd consider here, right? It's the only move that I feel with black keeps the game going, but it looks more like a losing move than a winning attempt."
Caruana: "If Rg6 is not better for white [Nepomniachtchi], I'd be shocked"
Ding: [plays Rg6]
I do wonder if Fabiano Caruana (the commentator in question, world #7) is going to have some introspection following these events, because that pattern occurred several times during his commentary. He came up with endless (and completely valid) ways for both players to 'kill'/simplify/draw the games at various points, but the players chose far more ambitious routes ultimately culminating in the final game where it decided the world championship.
For some context here, Fabiano played a world championship match against Magnus Carlsen. Every single classical game was drawn, and he then lost 0-3 in the tiebreaks. Fabiano plays relatively weaker in faster time controls, whereas Magnus is also the strongest rapid player in the world by a fairly wide margin.
The weird thing is that, if you look for stylistic differences in super-grandmasters, Fabiano is one of the most combative in tournament play. In any random day, he is far less drawish than Ding himself, or Anish Giri, the commentator earlier in the match. It's not that Fabiano was too passive: It's that the two players in this tournament took unreasonable risks with black.
If you look at the Fabiano/Carlsen matches, what you see is that both players know Carlsen is the better calculator, but that Fabiano is going to have better prep almost every single time. He is one of the best theoreticians alive. So what did he play? Give absolutely nothing Carlsen could grab on to when playing black, yet the scariest possible theoretical openings as white, sometimes still being in-book for 5-10 moves over Carlsen. When Fabi was white, he had plenty of ambition and plenty of chances, but the calculation wasn't quite good enough, as Carlsen's worst moves were never significant, visible blunders.
The Fabiano of that championship would have won this year's championship with relative ease, just because he'd never lose with black, and would capitalize on blunders. The way he played really is the best chance he had.
The wonderful spectacle of a match we just got only comes from two players that, inexplicably, kept trying to win with black, and fail. Good for us, but I suspect that for a top professional it's very hard to understand.
Ding vs Fabiano is +6 =10 -3 (including 2 wins with the black pieces)
Nepo vs Fabiano is +7 =21 -2 (including 3 wins with the black pieces)
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I think a lot of what we're seeing is not about openings, but risk tolerance. Fabiano has incredible, and fighting, opening preparation. But what really matters is what happens after the opening. In high level chess you often find yourself in a scenario where you see two main ideas in a position. One gives you slight winning chances, but basically zero losing chances. The other gives you good winning chances, but the position will be complex and difficult to play - your opponent will also have plenty of winning chances. And Ding, in particular, seemingly had just zero fear of risk this entire match, which is largely what drove everything.
I'd also add this drives another common misconception in chess. If two very strong players both play a game while making a conscious effort to avoid complexity, you'll end up with a draw that has an extremely high level of accuracy. By contrast if they decide to enter into these sort of unclear positions, you'll see even the best in the world make mistakes, and even blunders, because chess is hard! So people outside the game see the mistakes as driving the results, and that's certainly true. But the reason those mistakes are happening is not because the players are just playing weaker, but because even the best in the world will make mistakes in complex positions.
Fabi's 4th in the world in Blitz, dude can play fast.
Carlsen is just a beast.
Their match was played in November 2018. Here are the classical [1] and rapid [2] rating lists from that time. Fabiano was 12 points behind Magnus in classical, and 91 points behind him in rapid. It's all going to be relative. Obviously Fabiano is extremely good at all forms of chess, but all top players (in any sport) are going to have relative strengths/weaknesses when compared against each other.
[1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20181003104802/http://ratings.fi...
[2] - https://web.archive.org/web/20181009092541/https://ratings.f...
Classics is an extremely impractical format for ratings, because the games are so long so players can't play many games.
It's like Heisenberg Uncertainty.
Yet my impression is that the rapid list is volatile and often not reflecting the reality, the classical rating is better in tune with actual strength
The number of games does influece the stability of the ratings but the result is the opposite - classical ratings are more reliable because there are regular organised events while there are very few serious blitz and rapid events. Most top players only play the rapid and blitz World Championship, no other events in these time controls.
I think Fabi is licking his chops thinking he can now finally be a world champion since Carlsen is out and Ding maybe won't be too hard to best. He predicted lots of lines in the match or saw better ones from his commentator chair (granted the eval bar helps a lot). But you are right he will have to take some risks probably.
He must first defeat Nepo in the candidates.
“The eval bar helps a lot” is a very significant factor, to be sure.
I agree as a spectator that draws are boring. However strategically it probably makes sense to draw ambiguous games and only push for a win when you have a certain advantage.
Tania's commentary verges on annoying.
I'm guessing she was briefed to sensationalise everything to try and keep it exciting. It was too much for me, I mostly watched the much more calm chessnetwork stream instead
Super stoked to see what the impact of this would be on the Chinese chess ecosystem and consequently on the chess world. Maybe China will host more chess events and in return we might see more prodigies coming out of China.
Does anyone have tips on how to watch chess? I got pretty into chess during lockdown. I read several books on the subject, was playing a few hours each day. I had friends who got into it as well, and they would watch the tournaments and high profile matches, but I couldn't enjoy them. I didn't feel like I understood the game enough, and the commentary sometimes went over my head/went by too quickly. Anyone been in the same situation?
The thing about watching chess that’s different from other games, is that it’s not obvious to inexperienced players when important things happen and why.
The only way is to increase your skill level. I played for years before I could appreciate a live game played at the IM or GM level.
At tournaments there’s typically a watch room with a board and a proctor that tries different lines and variations on the position. If you didn’t understand something then playing out the line would help understand the motivation.
Not sure if there’s a good proxy for that now, since honestly I haven’t played much since the advent of chess AI started offering far better analysis than a kibbitz room. But maybe there’s some software that can help with the explanation now.
But practicing is the only way to understand it. So if youre interested, keep at it!
I think many games have important events that aren't obvious to inexperienced players/spectators. In football/soccer, for example, off-the-ball movement is very important, but usually ignored by inexperienced players.
Yes, but the subtleties in games other than chess or go typically don’t impact the game hours later.
For example, understanding why the placement of a piece on move 12 can have serious repercussions on move 42 doesn’t really translate to other games.
How about tactical choices like which players to put in which positions, who to guard whom or which zone, etc.? These choices are often made before the game and may only have effects towards the end, when the speed difference between two players becomes larger due to tired legs.
Alright since everybody gives his favorite streamer / youtuber, I'll share mine : GM Ben Finegold. If you can support the dad jokes, he doesn't bore you with theory and often goes quickly to parts of the game where there is something to learn, whether you are casual or club-level. He has decades of teaching and coaching and has good pedagogy as a result.
Particularly the candidates games (qualifier of this wcc match) are 10-20min long. He also uploads entire courses on his channel that he gives on stream or that he gave live in his current or previous club.
I really liked Hikaru's recaps of the games [1] this tournament, prefer those to watching live because it feels for me like to actually enjoy live classical chess you need to pay full attention and the games are way too long for that, if I only pay a tiny bit attention I don't really get much out of it.
Highly recommend Chessnetwork vids
GM Daniel King explains games in an accessible and very insightful way on the PowerPlay Chess youtube channel.
absolutely my favorite commentator both for his game analysis and his depth of experience from his own chess career
I really enjoyed Giri and Caruana's commentary. I can't really understand chess at the WC level but listening to them explain it along side IMs shows that even IMs are in similar a position. Sure they understand more than I do but they miss most of the deeper or sutbler ideas.
Agadmator on YouTube makes excellent post-game analysis videos: https://www.youtube.com/@agadmator/videos
You can watch chess streamers like Gothan Chess and similar. It makes games more aproachable to some degree.
It was amazing to see Ding grow in confidence with each match. Kinda reminded me of Vegeta. I hope Ding will continue to grow and start dominating tournaments just like the previous champion, Magnus.
I didn't expect Ding winning Nepo in the tiebreaks after watching him getting crushed by the pressure and time in previous games. Well played! The last game has been incredible. Watching the world cup being decided in less than 10 minutes was something I didn't expect.
chess.com are still streaming if you want to see the analysis coverage: https://www.twitch.tv/chess
This match was super exciting to follow, I would not have predicted this outcome even a few games ago. It really felt like in both the candidates and now here Ding just grinded things out, so props to his mental endurance.
I hope they find better journalists to ask questions next around, they rightly got a lot of flack in this one.
Does the world championship use any detectors to check if participants arent cheating? Via some communication device, sounds, lights etc. that would tell moves taken from a computer or a set of helpers?
Alternatively someone could put some device inside their body. Are the participants scanned somehow?
There is security beforehand. Not seen specifics on this event, but metal detector arches have been part of it in other events.
The playing hall is, I think, essentially closed after the start of the match.
I don't think Ding is quite at Carlsen's level, but maybe being World Champion will inspire him to get even better. I wish someone would sponsor an unofficial match between Ding and Carlsen. Only FIDE can organize an official match for the title.
I was such an exciting match. It was hard seing Nepo blitz so many bad moves when he often had a comfortable time advantage.
Edit: context
Congrats to Ding but brutal for Nepo. Had a winning position in game 12, and rushed that move in game 14 when Rc3? would have been winning. Winning the candidates tournament twice is such a huge feat, not sure if he can win again to challenge.
Nepo has brought it on himself, losing that dramatic 12th game while leading in the score with a an unbelievable blunder. Hope he comes back for the next title challenge.
Not just a blunder, but a blunder made too quickly when he had plenty of time. If Nepo won a third straight candidates (he's automatically qualified) that would be an extremely impressive achievement that would be a first in world history I believe.
I wonder if Carlsen will participate. I'm actually rather salty at him for forfeiting the title. If you are a chess champion, you have to defend the title until you lose, or die, whichever happens first. After he had refused to defend the title, it made the title of his successor automatically less worthy. That's bad.
It definitely devalues the event and title - we all know that Magnus is the best in the world - but it (the world championship) is starting to look dusty and outdated in the world of streaming successes like Hikaru, ChessBrah, Botez, etc.
Chess has moved on significantly since Magnus first became champion (partly due to the man himself).
If Fide is struggling to move with it, there will be a limit to what it can ask of its dominant figure in the context of an event that requires huge investment in time, money and energy for participants.
Be mad at FIDE for failing to adapt the match format to something less ridiculous. For years Magnus advocated for changing both the World Championship Cycle and the format of the games (classical, rapid, blitz). FIDE did nothing, as expected.
Currently the World Chess Championship is just a collection of very talented chess players spending months having supercomputers evaluate positions looking for the slightest imaginable edge.
Having watched Karpov/Kasparov battles as a child, I don't think that the match format is ridiculous. I'd only change the tiebreaks rule to use the same time control as the main event.
Well yeah, the match format wasn't ridiculous in the 80s and 90s when it was still human prep vs human prep.
So, now you have computers that show you the best moves, ok. But this knowledge still has to be squeezed into a human brain. So I don't see any problem with the match format. And even 'draw death' talks are laughable after latest candidates tournament and yours championship.
Memorizing 20-30 or even 40 lines is next to trivial for a Super GM. And prior to this year with more decisive games, the championship was becoming incredibly stale with every event being decided by tie breaks. And despite how exciting this event was, it was still decided by rapid tiebreaks. So do what Carlsen says, reduce the number of classical games and throw in rapid and blitz, winner takes all. That makes the most sense.
Quite the opposite approach would be better. Tiebreaks only happened because players are actively seeking them for various reasons, playing to 14 draws in previous matches. Set the formula to 5 wins in classical (like it used to be), and it would be a real chess championship event. Players would no longer seek draws hoping for some luck in the tiebreaks.
...and then you get what happened in 84-85, a match that lasts 48 games and 159 days.
And that would be great.
When the two greatest chess players of all time both have issues with FIDE regarding the world chess championship title, I think it's fair to give both of them the benefit of the doubt: FIDE is probably doing something wrong, in one way or another.
I think I agree with you in that I am too feeling weird that Magnus decided to let go of his title, and unlike others like Bobby Fisher he is still playing chess.
When you get older, you realize "world champion" is meaningless, and the adjudicating organizations are profit-driven, even if they're legally non-profit (the NFL being the most brazen example).
NFL was non profit because it istrade association that serve the (for-profit) teams. It's not a nefarious scheme. They changed it because their customers are vocally stupid.
FIDE doesn't make a profit. But the revenue they get from the match (about $1m) is a large part of their budget.
Forfeiting is almost like accepting the defeat, not in the ability kind of way but "i can't go through the torture anymore" way ..but yeah it's like you accepted the defeat, so it's okay to assume he lost.
I love Nepo but I truly believe he should forget about being World Champion anymore. I just can't see the poor dude suffering another time.
Good to see human beings are still challenging themselves in chess after AlphaGo
AlphaGo plays go, not chess. Computers have crushed humans at chess for 20+ years.
Good to know, thanks. And yet we are still celebrating human victory in chess. Tears again.
Ironically engines made the game better IMO.
Hopefully engines make the game more fun for humans. >_-
I think they have, depends on what level you play at.
I'm a lowly 1400-1500 rated player so I'm not using engines to prepare the sorts of crazy lines you see in a WCC but they help me understand when a position has outs/things to play for and/or quickly identify when a winning line was available.
i.e I mostly use it for post-game analysis and it's been really good. I don't have the sort of money to pay for 1:1 chess mentorship so engine is the next best thing.
I derive my enjoyment in chess from improving, engines help me improve ergo engines make chess more enjoyable for me.
Yep, I use ChatGPT the same way. It is the next best thing to a human mentor when I need to quickly grasp a new concept.
By that logic 100m dashing should be abondoned after the invention of cars.
This is a good viewpoint. You actually make me feel relieved. I used to worry about human jobs being taken by AI. Now that I think of it as something like cars, I can see human life will be much more convenient as long as we go through that transition.
Spoiler alert! =(
Congrats champ!
Alternative replay: https://lichess.org/study/SkQqKSso
It's absurd that the classical world chess champion is decided by rapid games.
This keeps happening: 2012, 2016, 2018, 2023.
For over a decade most of the classical world chess champions were decided by their ability to play rapid.
It's time to reform FIDE. The world chess championship is languishing, barely getting any news attention or coverage. Just kill this failed format and play rapid. The games are much more engaging for viewers. We could maybe actually get people to watch chess!