Shhh...There is a World Chess Championship That's Gone to Overtime.

[easysurfer]

I was just a kid when during the days of Fischer vs Spassky in 1972.

Don't look now, but there's a world chess championship that's gone to overtime after 12 draws in a row.

Not USA vs Russia this time but USA vs the champ from Norway.

In the most recent game, shockingly the current champ offered a draw despite having a seemly nice advantage.

Commentators and chess computers seemed to give a slight advantage to the champion, Magnus Carlsen of Norway, for much of the match on Monday in London, since he was ahead on the board and had more time available for his remaining moves. But Carlsen nonetheless offered a draw after a paltry 31 moves. The challenger, Fabiano Caruana of the United States, accepted, making it the shortest of the 12 games in the championship.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/26/sports/world-chess-championship-draw-tiebreaker.html

 

[SecondCor521]

There was some discussion in the fivethirtyeight.com article on Game 12 that Carlsen has even more of an advantage in the overtime games. I guess Carlsen is a measurably better player than Caruana when the games have tighter time limits.

 

[easysurfer]

Yes. Which may have been Carlsen's plan all along to go into overtime with the time limits.

 

[cathy63]

I've been reading the articles on fivethirtyeight also, and I'm not understanding the speculation that Carlsen wanted to go to the rapid games. He could have won the whole thing yesterday and gotten 60% of the prize money. Even if he wins in the rapid rounds, he can only get 55%, so wouldn't it have been better to keep playing and try to win yesterday?

Anyway, I liked Kasparov's comment:

"In light of this shocking draw offer from Magnus in a superior position with more time, I reconsider my evaluation of him being the favorite in rapids. Tiebreaks require tremendous nerves and he seems to be losing his."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1067125702712004609

 

[easysurfer]

I read an article (don't remember where) saying that a few years back, no way Carlsen would have taken a draw but he doesn't have the killer instinct of grinding things out in battle like in earlier days.

 

[mistermike40]

Should be interesting tiebreak games tomorrow. After yesterday I'm now rooting for Fabiano, but I'm really hoping it comes down to an Armageddon game!

 

[Sunset]

Why is this not on the 6pm News ??

I remember the Bobby Fisher days. Loved playing chess back then.

 

[socca]

OMG - I haven't thought about chess in decades.

Back in high school, I played competitive chess with the Chess Club and was ranked 1940 by the USCF. Even today I remember how delightful it was to carefully and methodically build a winning position by a combination of analysis and intuition, and then watch in delight as my opponent continually squirmed in frustration as my sequence of dominant positions led to victory. I think that as a form of mental training competitve chess is valuable. Are today’s kids mostly flabby, under-exercised minds living inside flabby, under-exercised bodies? I hope not.

What ruined chess for me as a hobby was the rise of computer chess. Even decades ago the computer chess programs were astonishingly good. Yes, back then I could beat a computer chess program on the highest difficulty level, but it was a long, hard slog. I shudder to think how good the chess programs must be today on our superfast home computers. I currently have other ways I'd rather expend my limited mental energy.

 

[dirt_dobber]

I always thought I was a decent player - but a dear friend of mine (who recommended this forum to me) was a child chess prodigy and was one of those guys who would play 10 people at a time. He retired from competitive chess around age 18 (he is now 64). Anyway - after a good bit of time begging him to play me he did - man that was brutal - no match lasted beyond 15 min and I gave up after the 10th game. Really impressive to see how powerful the mind is.

 

[SecondCor521]

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