2018 World Championship in London

[Mick Norris]

Yes. That too. Caruana still playing on with Magnus now having two queens... (Caruana really wanted this, I think.)

Oh, he has resigned now. Carlsen retains his title.

Pity it went like that, but much better than going to blitz

Ok, so that puts Caruana in the Candidates wonder who the other 7 will be, and if he can win it again

[Chris Rice]

Caruana:

[JustinHorton]

All in all an unsatisfactory spectacle, of interest to the connoisseur, but unlikely to bring new recruits to the game.

When was the last WC match that significantly did??

Interesting question. I'd maybe propose Carlsen beating Anand, which must have accelerated interest in the game in Norway, Anand playing Kasparov even though he lost, and maybe Anand winning the divided title. Nothing on an international level though.

[JustinHorton]

Caruana possibly regretting his decision to accept the draw in game 12 of the classical phase of the match.

Regretting his 24th move in game 8, more like

And maybe regretting losing the rook ending earlier today, when he must have felt he had weathered a storm and was looking forward to two whites out of three from an equal score.

[Alex Holowczak]

I would expect the more talented player to win at skittles. Magnus is the more talented player. But the stronger player? He didn't prove it. They could have played 24 games of classical with no one winning.

All in all an unsatisfactory spectacle, of interest to the connoisseur, but unlikely to bring new recruits to the game.

I don't know, I suspect the whole thing was more interesting to the average casual viewer/interest than the established players.

It seems to me that it is a consistent pattern across a wide range of sporting events, that experts/insiders are consistently talking down their own product, often citing those other than themselves as those allegedly being put off by the spectacle offered. Whether it be cricket ("test matches are so boring/complicated to the average fan"), motor racing ("no overtaking"), football (various 0-0 championship finals), cycling ("Team Sky dominance"), golf (…. well OK i'll give you that )

For the casual viewer it really shouldn't be too difficult to build up a narrative of "incredibly closely matched players, tension building up over time, couldn't be separated in normal time, one player finally cracking in the tie breaks etc", should those in charge of advertising the product so choose

I think chess will get an above average number of people passing an interest compared to other sports. For example, if there's a Test Match at Lord's, well, there's always a Test Match at Lord's every year. When the Chess World Championship comes to London, it's new and different, so you briefly peer in to see what's going on.

I think you're right, in general that longer matches are about the narrative of how you got to the tense part at the end. However ... The World Snooker Final is 35 frames, takes two days to play, and each frame is won by somebody. In a 5-Test series, the series score is rarely 0-0 going into the final Test. There's a natural toing and froing between the combatants as the match/series progresses. But here there was none of that - everything was a draw. Had the match got to 6-6 where half of the games were decisive, and there was a bit of ebb and flow, then I think it would have been a much stronger narrative.

[Roger de Coverly]

When was the last WC match that significantly did??

The 1993 match with the blanket Channel 4 coverage gave a boost to adult membership in many chess clubs.

Before that it was 1972, but there was a fairly constant stream of new (young) players in the years between.

[Matt Mackenzie]

1978 had some effect as well I would say, but the point is those times were the exception not the norm.

[Nick Grey]

The punter in the street (my office) got excited by last night's Standard and editorial comment & picked up on Armageddon.
I was clear that the match was not gripping me - so I'm not leaving the office early.
I also commented that chess may seem like a matter of life or death but it is far less important than that to most chess addicts.
As we were working on what seems to be the worst education settlement ever & brainstorming how we can help schools in managing their finances we came up with charging those wanting to use premises premium prices for any discretionary activity (as there is no money in budgets for these items).

So with a 3-0 win I think all I can say is Magnus is a better rapid player, kept his nerve, and knew what he was doing all along. Hopefully he got to watch Barcelona on the TV.

[Chris Rice]

Carlsen telling Kasparov & Kramnik where to get off:

"I’ve been a chess professional now for many years & my chess career dates even further back than that & one of the things that I’ve never done very well is listen to other people’s advice. I’ve always gone my own way... and it’s brought me this trophy today!"

[Christopher Kreuzer]

A question:

Carlsen beat Anand in the classical phase in matches (twice).
He 'only' drew with Karjakin and Caruana (and beat them on tie-breaks).

Does this inability to win two of those [EDIT: four] matches without the need for a tie-break impact his overall legacy and place in the historical chess pantheon in any way? [Maybe it would be more accurate to say that the drawn matches enhance the status of Karjakin and Caruana, rather than put any question mark over Carlsen.]

Maybe comparisons can be drawn with other drawn matches. Anand defended his title in a tie-break after drawing with Gelfand in 2012. No-one really cares about that now, do they, when assessing Anand's status in the history of the game.

I'd forgotten that the 2006 match between Kramnik and Topalov went to a tiebreak (and was really controversial, with a defaulted game and toiletgate and so on). Topalov came really close to winning two times (this one and against Anand).

The most nerve-shredding match (though maybe trumped by the 1978, 1985 and 1987 matches) must be the Kramnik-Leko one from 2004. No tie-break, but the last game was critical. I wonder if Leko still thinks about that and what might have been.

Oh, and for the trivia fans, Caruana isn't the only challenger to go through a match without winning a game. That happened before with Anand in his loss to Carlsen in 2013, and for Kasparov in 2000 in his loss to Kramnik. Oh, actually, in both those cases, it was the incumbent (the champion) who failed to win. So maybe Caruana is the first challenger in a long time to fail to win a game in a championship match?

[The 1961 match between Botvinnik and Tal had fifteen(!) decisive games out of 21. Those were the days! Similarly, the 1954 match between Botvinnik and Smyslov had 14 decisive games from 24, and a run of eight(!) decisive games in a row. Would you ever see that today?]

The 1921 match between Lasker and Capablanca is another case where one of the players (Lasker) failed to win a game. Technically, Lasker was the challenger (having resigned his title in 1920). But you could argue that he was the incumbent.

Janowski and Marshall failed to win against Lasker in 1910 and 1907.

That is it, all the way back to 1886.

[John McKenna]

In our heart of hearts we all suspected it would end as it did...
and it did. No complaints from me - I thought we got a contest.

[Alex Holowczak]

Does this inability to win two of those two matches without the need for a tie-break impact his overall legacy and place in the historical chess pantheon in any way?

In my mind it shows that chess has moved on significantly, and there are now a number of players capable of playing as well as the World Champion for a prolonged period of time, rather than the old days where over a match of this length, you could be reasonably sure the stronger player would outplay the weaker player. This is a reason why the format of the World Championship cycle is unsuitable in modern chess, in my opinion.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Does this inability to win two of those two matches without the need for a tie-break impact his overall legacy and place in the historical chess pantheon in any way?

In my mind it shows that chess has moved on significantly, and there are now a number of players capable of playing as well as the World Champion for a prolonged period of time, rather than the old days where over a match of this length, you could be reasonably sure the stronger player would outplay the weaker player. This is a reason why the format of the World Championship cycle is unsuitable in modern chess, in my opinion.

I agree that chess has moved on significantly. I think the old format still has something going for it. (I meant two of four matches, btw, though that should be obvious from the context.) I was surprised at just how many decisive games there were in the matches in 1954 and 1961. I am sure someone has done the draw percentage over time in WCC matches, but is it published anywhere on the internet?

[John Townsend]

The 24-game matches seemed to work well. Regarding the arrangement that allows the champion to retain the title in the event of a draw, it is perhaps prudent to allow him that edge; after all, it means he has withstood the challenge of the best the world can throw at him at that time.

[Neill Cooper]

Whatever we ('serious' chess players) think, the final day show down appealed to the media.
The BBC enjoyed talking about 'Armageddon', 'Blitz' and the analogy with penalty shoot outs.
They even put a video about it on their 'Sport' website - under snooker: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/snooker/46384047
Some good publicity for chess.