chess online
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ace_kyi 19-May-12, 13:16 |
 Blame the computers for drawish, boring world chess championship match!events.” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Round four reflections – it's the computers! By Steve Giddins Several friends have reacted to my blog post regarding the tedium of events in Moscow. A brief flurry of excitement on Monday was followed by another bore-draw on Tuesday. I should perhaps make clear that I am not blaming the players. They are just reacting to the circumstances they find themselves in, and are doing what they think they have to do, to have the best chance of winning the match. Likewise, nor do I give any credence to the claim that all would be rosy, if only the match organisers had imposed the infamous "Sofia rules", to prevent early draw agreements. Having Sofia rules in place for the first two games in Moscow would have forced the players to play another 20 or so moves, before agreeing a draw, but all that would have meant was two largely contentless 40-move games, instead of two largely contentless 20-move games. It is true that the shortness of the match contributes to the problem, by making the players even more cautious than they would otherwise be. With so few games, a player cannot afford to risk even one loss. Therein lies part of the problem. But even that is only a small factor. The real problem lies elsewhere. That problem is that computers are killing the game. They have already killed correspondence chess, in all but name, and now classical chess is heading down the same twilight path to oblivion. The computer is now so powerful, that it becomes impossible to out-prepare another top player in the opening. In pre-computer days, Kasparov could analyse so much better than the other top GMs that he could routinely uncork novelties that refuted entire opening variations. Nowadays, though, that is just impossible – everybody is analysing the same opening lines, using the same powerful computers and programs. As a result, everybody is coming to the board, with much the same opening preparation, with the result that nobody can get a serious opening advantage any more. Imagine the following experiment. Lock Anand and myself in separate flats, for a week, on our own, to analyse a certain opening variation. Even if I work every bit as hard as Anand, or even harder, at the end of the week, he will have analysed the line much better than me – he sees tactics faster, his positional judgement is better, etc. There will be a large gap in the quality of the analysis we each produce. But now repeat the experiment, only this time, give each of us a powerful laptop and the latest version of Rybka. By the end of the week, Anand's analysis will still be better than mine, but I can assure you that the gap will be very much smaller, especially if the line we are analysing is something fairly sharp and tactical. Despite the enormous disparity in talent and ability between myself and Anand, if I put in the work and use the computer fully, he is not going to be able to out-analyse me to any huge extent, thanks to the levelling effect of the computer. And this is the crux of the problem in world championship matches. There, we are talking about a very small disparity in strength between the players, which makes the problem even greater. Against me, even if Anand gets nothing from the opening, he will still be able to outplay me over the board, and win. But he cannot do that to a top-class GM, who is only marginally weaker than himself anyway. If he gets nothing from the opening, he will have huge trouble beating a player like Gelfand, and vice versa. The result is a whole series of effectively contentless games, where the players are just checking each other's computer-aided preparation. Once in a while, they will hit on a gap, and get some advantage, but most of the time, there will just be what we have already seen in Moscow – 15-20 moves of preparation, 4-5 more accurate moves, a dead position, and a draw. So, what is the solution? Sadly, I don't think there is one, at least not without abandoning traditional chess, in favour of Fischer-Random, and I hardly know anyone in the chess world who wants to see that (I certainly don't). It grieves me to say it, but I think classical chess is in its last days. Source: Steve Giddins' Chess Blog Readers who have an opinion on the subject or want to comment on Steve Giddins' theses can write to us, using this feelback form. Please use "Computers to blame" as the subject line, otherwise your message might not be registered. |
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ace_kyi 16-Jun-12, 22:15 |
What is Sofia rules ? In chess, a draw by (mutual) agreement is the outcome of a game due to the agreement of both players to a draw. A player may offer a draw to his opponent at any stage of a game; if the opponent accepts, the game is a draw. The relevant portion of the FIDE laws of chess is article 9.1. The vast majority of drawn chess games at the amateur club/tournament level and higher are draws by mutual agreement rather than the other ways a game can be drawn (stalemate, threefold repetition, fifty-move rule, or impossibility of checkmate) (Schiller 2003:26–27). Can you imagine how will the spectators react if the football or tennis tournaments are drawn by mutual agreements between the two competing teams without playing to the end of playing time. This is perfectly legal in chess until recently. This happened to me in a 5 games Swiss chess tornament. I was winning 4 out of 5 chess games already. In the last fifth game I needed only half point drawn game to clinch the first prize. After 10 moves of the fifth game in equal position I offered my opponent a draw and he needed half point to get the second prize. If he lost he would get nothing. Because my rating was 200 points above him he readily agreed to a draw, perhaps he was thinking that it would be hard to beat me. During Soviet era chess after second world war when they dominated, the Russians did the same nasty tricks of mutual draw or even loss between the games among Russians to keep the title. This kind of tricks can be done during round robin or Swiss system chess tournaments. Fisher won over Russians and became a chess champion because he was competing in a knockout chess tournaments. To prevent this nasty trick in some major tournaments a mutual draw cannot be claimed until certain 40 moves are completed. Surprisingly, there are no Sofia rules in the recent last world championship match between Anand and Gelfand. The idea of 40 moves chess rule is that it will be more interesting to watch a longer game and the longer one plays there is the possibility of making mistakes. Thus, there will be more decisives games of wins and losses rather than draws. Some may dispute that no matter how many more moves play by players of super GM strength caliber will result in draws. Counter point- Remember that in the 12 games match between Anand and Gelfand both of them won one game each resulting in draw. Most GMs who analyzed these won games agree that one game won by each of them were due to blunder of the opponent. I believe 12 games match is too little to watch and 24 games world championship match would be much better for the internet age with a lot of spectators around the world to watch. I also believe Sofia rule should be enforced in major chess tornaments for the beneftis of chess. |
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Sofia Rules The problem is stakes: 12 games for a WC match? Let us make the tenuous assumption that, being both GMs, and the computer era serving to make GMs' openings almost infallible, they will draw 50% of their games anyway under even the Sofia Rules. That's 6 games to decide a world championship. Aye Karumba! One thing though I wish to point out. What happens at the professional level, for the proliferation of a sport, is, in some ways, irrelevant. Going back to my darts, the work of Phil Taylor and the PDC has, admittedly revitalised Darts as now, it's no longer just a game for drunk fat blokes in pubs. Now you can make several hundred thousand pounds as a professional annually. I'm a pre-service teacher, when I get a gig next year you can bet your house that two things I'm going to try and champion in whatever lucky school employs me is chess and darts. Chess is a soft-sell, it's established, it's distinguished it will no doubt receive quite a bit of backing. Darts on the other hand, may receive some resistance (despite the fact it forces players to subtract on their feet, no pad and paper, no calculator, only your mind). The PDC will be my Excalibur to cut through this narrow-minded opposition. And so professional sport does need to keep flying the flag and move with the times. BUT, it's not worth a penny-weight without the grass-roots. GK in both its existence, its services to free members and its DB, Chess Puzzles and Chess Tactics, especially does all it can to encourage grass-roots chess. And so, even if it does become a stale old event at the top, as long as we all do our bit to keep the grass roots green (hah what a terrible mixed metaphor), it shall continue in its popularity long after we've all turned to dust. (At the rate I drink, I won't turn to dust at all. I'll be too well pickled! Better insist on incineration, sorry, CREMATION, but warn the crematorium to expect my body to go up like a Molotov!) That's my two cents. With the strong Aussie dollar, I should really charge three. (PS GK, Chess Tactics and the Games DB could not exist without computers. Let us not hate the microchip) |
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ace_kyi 20-Jun-12, 17:28 |
Are Anand and Gelfand best chess players in the world? If Kasparov could comment like that, I would like to ask the same counter question. There is no question that Kasparov was one of the greatest chess players in his heydays beating all the top GMs with one exception. He never played with Bobby Fisher. If there was a match between Fishcher and Kasparov who is likely to win? I am in favor of Fisher you may say this is my wishful thinking because chess battles can be decided only on the chessboard. This is not Kasparov's fault because after Fisher was crowned world chess king he never played serious chess again. So, what do you think? |
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ace_kyi 20-Jun-12, 17:56 |
Is world champion Anand losing motivation? |
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