World Championship 2021 match will start Nov. 24!!

[Pargat Perrer]

I guess I took it the wrong way. What I meant by the move on comment was I have a certain style of posting - if readers dont find it interesting they should move on from that thread. Im glad we cleared that up.

Me too Hans, and keep posting, your enthusiasm is contagious! :)

[Pargat Perrer]

I don't like blunders either in slow chess or blitz or rapid . Chess is such a complicated game that blunders are there to be made that GM Tartakover famously said. What Nepo did in game 8 and 9 is scoring into his own net in overtime. That's inexcusable in any sport. Nepo beat himself. And that's not what we want to see, we want to see a good fight, me regardless if the game ends in a draw. At that level, draws are part of the game. Tell that to Aronian , Caruana, or Giri who were not amused by Nepo's blunders.

You don't seem to understand chess much Pargat, sorry to say that but you don't seem to love chess like I do, You want to change everything from ratings to etc. Chess is a great game as it is and changes will perhaps be made , there already some changes made, faster time control, chess 960 etc.

I understand a lot more than you realize, although I would never claim to understand everything in chess. But let's take this concept of "a good fight" in chess. What exactly is that? Well, it could be explained as both players making moves that are motivated by a desire to win the game. That would mean moves that have some risk to them. Every move in chess gains something but also gives something up. There are some moves that can be seen as completely safe, giving up almost nothing, but also threatening almost nothing. A good fighting game would be free of most of those safe moves. Do we agree on that?

When 2 players play risky moves, it is bound to happen that blunders will occur. That is the human aspect of chess. Humans don't see the entire search tree for 20 plies deep like engines do. So engines don't blunder, but humans do. Therefore we should accept blunders as part of the human chess struggle. Even the grossest of blunders can happen even to GMs, maybe because they focus on a move that has lots of upside and underestimate the downside. Two players who were famous for playing fighting chess, Tal and Ivanchuk, and both had their ups and downs as you would expect. They played fighting chess, and they blundered. They are still loved by many for their fighting style. And there are others who play much safer. The variance in their results is much less, but they aren't as loved mostly. Nepo plays more of an attacking style, according to what I've read, and so yeah, he's going to blunder. We should expect it. Before this match is over, he MIGHT play a brilliancy or two. Then everyone will be back on his side. I would say he needs to do that in at least one of the remaining games to salvage something out of this match. But he is still playing fighting chess, so why are you so disappointed?

My remarks were more about differences in the perceptions of fans like yourself based on whether it is Rapid chess or slow chess. By coming down hard on Nepo for his blunders, we might make him (and others) play much more safe in slow time controls. Do we want that? If yes, then what I was suggesting is that let's just move everything to Rapid chess where blunders are more acceptable by the fans. Two players playing totally safe in slow time controls is NOT exciting to watch. Unless you're an endgame purist, which most fans are not.

You show little understanding of the things I am doing within chess. Do YOU understand that there is a big difference between CHANGING something and ADDING TO IT?

I don't want to eradicate ELO ratings, I want to add single-game ratings (GPR) that are missing. My chess variants are to add new ideas, new challenges, to chess, to make the word "chess" much more general.

I am not out to change chess, but to add to it. You should make an effort to understand that difference before you accuse me of not loving chess!

[Hans Jung]

This echoes my sentiments Hans, you are a gentleman and I apologize for any offense my comments may have caused. It was never my intent, at least not with respect to yourself. :)

Brad no need to apologize. I didnt take your comments as anything intended towards me. I just thought your comment about best post a little far fetched. Surely Pargat has made much better posts. We have too much water under the bridge to be put out over a few words.

[Kerry Liles]

LOL - a lot of people with thin skin on ChessTalk ... these unmoderated forums often get off topic or degenerate into rancid political/philosophical arguments about nothing at all.

[Hans Jung]

Hans, I am sorry if you took something I posted the wrong way. I wrote that I did not mean to be critical, and that includes my remarks about what you and many others find entertaining in chess. I tip my hat to you, because I can agree that Rapid chess with it's time pressures and less-than-perfect play IS exciting. So please don't think I was being critical of you. What I was really commentating on was not what is or is not exciting in chess, but rather what is happening at a "macro" level, which is that the followers of chess, the fans, are more and more preferring Rapid chess over slow chess. It is no concern of mine as to whether slow chess disappears or not, but from the viewpoint of the fans (which is obviously a majority, not a totality, of them), slow chess is increasingly an anachronism. But I can understand that a core of fans will always enjoy slow chess also.

I myself am not doing much analyzing, although I did create the GPR single-game rating system and will be doing it on the WCM, so we will get an idea of just what ELO level they are playing at. It will be interesting to see just how big Nepo's middlegame blunders were.

In Game 6, Marc Andre posted (post #39) that somewhere in the early part of the game, not sure when but I am thinking middlegame, Magnus blundered and was losing. Then later he posted the game had "stabilized" which means Nepo must have given up his advantage. That was what I was referring to, but maybe Marc Andre's initial analysis was incorrect.

I find it a bit disturbing that you say you post from your perspective, but then you say if I don't find it interesting I should "move on". What is that? I am not allowed to post from my perspective? I hope that isn't what I think it might be, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt and just put it down to overreaction since you did misunderstand my intentions, which were NOT to criticize you or what you find interesting. I hope now that is understood.

I guess I took it the wrong way. What I meant by the move on comment was I have a certain style of posting - if readers dont find it interesting they should move on from that thread. Im glad we cleared that up.

[Marc Andre Beaudry]

I don't like blunders either in slow chess or blitz or rapid . Chess is such a complicated game that blunders are there to be made that GM Tartakover famously said. What Nepo did in game 8 and 9 is scoring into his own net in overtime. That's inexcusable in any sport. Nepo beat himself. And that's not what we want to see, we want to see a good fight, me regardless if the game ends in a draw. At that level, draws are part of the game. Tell that to Aronian , Caruana, or Giri who were not amused by Nepo's blunders.

You don't seem to understand chess much Pargat, sorry to say that but you don't seem to love chess like I do, You want to change everything from ratings to etc. Chess is a great game as it is and changes will perhaps be made , there already some changes made, faster time control, chess 960 etc.

[Brad Thomson]

Hans, I am sorry if you took something I posted the wrong way. I wrote that I did not mean to be critical, and that includes my remarks about what you and many others find entertaining in chess.

This echoes my sentiments Hans, you are a gentleman and I apologize for any offense my comments may have caused. It was never my intent, at least not with respect to yourself. :)

[Pargat Perrer]

Carlsen didnt blunder in the opening in Game 6, nor did Nepo blunder in return at that stage. Less than best moves maybe but it was a sporting contest at the highest level amongst humans and thats what chess fans enjoy. Chess is extremely hard at the highest level - for some its far easier to attack (and yes that is more exciting from a fans perspective). Its much, much harder to defend. I think you need to turn your engine off and just enjoy the games from your own perspective for a fresh understanding.
Longer time controls are not going away. Recently I enjoyed a tournament in North Carolina with longer time controls and I posted only a very small percentage of what I saw. Also the US Championship comes to mind, thoroughly enjoyed that, and there have been many others.

I post from my perspective, what gives me pleasure and what I find interesting. If others find it interesting great. If not, move on. I have total respect for these top players , their level of play is far beyond mine but I understand how they play. What I post is snippets of what actually happened (but usually brilliant combinations and interesting tactics - not generated just because of mistakes - but interesting on their own basis)

The blunders that happen in rapid chess are there because of the intense pressure which builds up ( due to position and clock) and are a natural part of that game towards the finish. Nepo's blunders were of an entirely different magnitude taking place in the middlegame, long before the game should have been decided. Fans disappointment in that case is natural.

Best post on this forum ever???? - give your head a total shake, breathe deeply, and try to see things in perspective.

Hans, I am sorry if you took something I posted the wrong way. I wrote that I did not mean to be critical, and that includes my remarks about what you and many others find entertaining in chess. I tip my hat to you, because I can agree that Rapid chess with it's time pressures and less-than-perfect play IS exciting. So please don't think I was being critical of you. What I was really commentating on was not what is or is not exciting in chess, but rather what is happening at a "macro" level, which is that the followers of chess, the fans, are more and more preferring Rapid chess over slow chess. It is no concern of mine as to whether slow chess disappears or not, but from the viewpoint of the fans (which is obviously a majority, not a totality, of them), slow chess is increasingly an anachronism. But I can understand that a core of fans will always enjoy slow chess also.

I myself am not doing much analyzing, although I did create the GPR single-game rating system and will be doing it on the WCM, so we will get an idea of just what ELO level they are playing at. It will be interesting to see just how big Nepo's middlegame blunders were.

In Game 6, Marc Andre posted (post #39) that somewhere in the early part of the game, not sure when but I am thinking middlegame, Magnus blundered and was losing. Then later he posted the game had "stabilized" which means Nepo must have given up his advantage. That was what I was referring to, but maybe Marc Andre's initial analysis was incorrect.

I find it a bit disturbing that you say you post from your perspective, but then you say if I don't find it interesting I should "move on". What is that? I am not allowed to post from my perspective? I hope that isn't what I think it might be, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt and just put it down to overreaction since you did misunderstand my intentions, which were NOT to criticize you or what you find interesting. I hope now that is understood.

[Brad Thomson]

Best post on this forum ever???? - give your head a total shake, breathe deeply, and try to see things in perspective.

The best post by Pargat in my opinion, yes. Not the best post on this forum ever. Hans, I agree with what you say, but I do think he has a point. People love the blunders in rapid chess but complain about them in slow chess.

[Hans Jung]

Now that this match is almost decided, let's digress to something more interesting.

There seems to be a set of paradoxes among those who enthusiastically follow top-level chess here on ChessTalk and maybe elsewhere as well.

For starters, when Rapid tournaments are held among the top players, these aficionados seem to love to see time-pressure mistakes leading to decisive wins. Even if the mistake is a total blunder, it seems ok. Hans Jung will call such games very exciting chess because one player or another cracked in time pressure, or it could even be a series of mistakes made in time pressure. It's all great, no one complains. Hans made some remark recently about it being such entertaining chess. So entertainment is the name of the game and it consists of players cracking under pressure and making critical mistakes.

Now we have the WCM at slower time controls, and someone cracking under any kind of pressure and making mistakes is a huge disappointment. Yet at the same time, no one wants to see perfect chess, with all games drawn as happened with Caruana and Carlsen in the last WCM.

As a further paradox, we have computer engines playing tournaments against each other, all rated many hundreds of ELO points above even Carlsen, and there are still decisive games, yet no one ever posts about them or seems to even notice them. These are games that last well beyond 100 moves typically, and some tiny little imperfection will decide the game (if it isn't a draw). There are no blunders, there are only miniscule imperfections that might lead to a zugzwang, for example. No one on ChessTalk ever posts about these games.

So it appears that in the slower time controls and at WCM level, these aficionados want to see some tiny little mistakes only, not total cracking under pressure. They want to see tiny mistakes, BUT! NOT so tiny as to be at the level of top computer engine chess.

Game 6 of this WCM seems to have been the Goldilocks game. Notwithstanding that someone mentioned that Carlsen actually blundered early on and should have lost, but then Nepo blundered back and gave back the initiative. It seems that got ignored in the enthusiasm for the long endgame, but that long endgame was very similar to computer chess. Another paradox! Everyone liked it, but they don't like computer chess!

What I am getting from this is that slow time controls need to just go away at the top levels, and everything should just be Rapid chess. That would be the most entertaining for the watchers and followers. They are ok with the human mistakes, BUT only at shorter time controls. If we go to the slower time controls, then there is only a very tiny window of acceptable mistakes, anything worse is disappointing, anything less is computer chess.

So at the very top levels of chess, Rapid seems to be king now. Forget about having separate Rapid ratings and Rapid championships. Just make everything Rapid chess and let the mistakes and even blunders begin! I'm not being critical about this, I'm just pointing out that these slow WCMs are an anachronism now. Chess has changed in this century, for better or for worse depending on what you like.

Carlsen didnt blunder in the opening in Game 6, nor did Nepo blunder in return at that stage. Less than best moves maybe but it was a sporting contest at the highest level amongst humans and thats what chess fans enjoy. Chess is extremely hard at the highest level - for some its far easier to attack (and yes that is more exciting from a fans perspective). Its much, much harder to defend. I think you need to turn your engine off and just enjoy the games from your own perspective for a fresh understanding.
Longer time controls are not going away. Recently I enjoyed a tournament in North Carolina with longer time controls and I posted only a very small percentage of what I saw. Also the US Championship comes to mind, thoroughly enjoyed that, and there have been many others.

I post from my perspective, what gives me pleasure and what I find interesting. If others find it interesting great. If not, move on. I have total respect for these top players , their level of play is far beyond mine but I understand how they play. What I post is snippets of what actually happened (but usually brilliant combinations and interesting tactics - not generated just because of mistakes - but interesting on their own basis)

The blunders that happen in rapid chess are there because of the intense pressure which builds up ( due to position and clock) and are a natural part of that game towards the finish. Nepo's blunders were of an entirely different magnitude taking place in the middlegame, long before the game should have been decided. Fans disappointment in that case is natural.

Best post on this forum ever???? - give your head a total shake, breathe deeply, and try to see things in perspective.

[Brad Thomson]

Elite level Rapid chess is followed a lot over the internet and generates a lot of watches, would the watchers lose interest and their numbers diminish?

Yes. I think this is understood by the players and the organizers, and this is why the players play much more dangerous double-edged moves when playing rapid. They know we are getting bored shitless with all of the draws taking place at the slower time controls. I have long been of the opinion that the correct response to the fact that chess is played out is to play Fischerandom with the position not being shown to the players in advance, but set up only when they arrive at the board. But if chess is going to remain in the stone ages with the standard opening position, then lots of rapid where the players are not afraid of screwing up, thereby leading to more "exciting" chess, is the answer.

[Neil Frarey]

...top players versus each other?

No. Just MC's record against the top 30. I grabbed it from r/chess...

https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comme...e_against_ian/

...:)

Here's a few other links mentioned...

https://2700chess.com/all-fide-players
https://www.chessgames.com/index.html

...:)

[Pargat Perrer]

Interesting ... there's only one player in the overall top 30 who has a winning score against Magnus in Rapid chess ...

Garry Kasparov ... 2 wins 0 losses 3 draws

Is there a single web site that you got that information from, i.e. a site that shows the Rapid win-loss-draw records of the top players versus each other? I wouldn't mind seeing that.

[Pargat Perrer]

Pargat, that is the best post you have ever written in this forum. I do not agree that all chess should revert to rapid, however, and for this reason. Because the classical rating is the important one, when playing rapid the players are willing to take more chances, which leads to more exciting games, only because their classical ratiing is not at risk, and they have the short time controls as an excuse for blunders. If you make rapid the slowest chess, then this will become the most important rating, the players will stop taking chances, though they will blunder more due to the time constraints, and the games will end up in draws almost as often as do classical games. Then only blitz games would tend toward decisive results.

Thanks, Brad, and I hadn't thought of it from that angle. I guess the question then becomes, if the players were to play Rapid much more carefully and agree to draws more readily, what would the reaction of the fans be? Elite level Rapid chess is followed a lot over the internet and generates a lot of watches, would the watchers lose interest and their numbers diminish? Well, in that case maybe the status quo is the best we can hope for, and we should all just enjoy the more reckless atmosphere in Rapid chess at elite levels while it lasts.

[Neil Frarey]

Interesting ... there's only one player in the overall top 30 who has a winning score against Magnus in Rapid chess ...

Garry Kasparov ... 2 wins 0 losses 3 draws