2018 World Championship in London

[Richard Bates]

Honestly this is the most tiresome debate that we have every time. Whether you have the tiebreaks before or after we would still be at 2-2 after 4 games. To win a match you require one more win than your opponent. Whether that win comes in game 1 or game 12 doesn't make a difference. But nobody is going to take excessive risks in pursuit of victory at the start of the match. People take risks when they HAVE to win. Which only happens in the final stages (the alternative would be in matches much longer than 12 games when there is sufficient time to recover from a setback).

Consider the scenario whereby the tiebreak happens before hand. Firstly this would just recreate the old situation of one player having draw odds. Well that didn't stop large numbers of draws in the early stages of multiple world championship matches in the past.

The player who "wins" the tie break will have less incentive to take risks because they will be protecting a lead. The person who loses the tiebreak will be even less likely to take risks because any loss will now leave them needing two victories to get back in the match. They will continue with a strategy of hoping to nick a solitary win at some point. Even if it means targeting victory in their final white game of the match.

Carlsen and Caruana are probably more closely matched (on rating) than any two World Championship contenders in history. They are inevitably still feeling each other out to try and get an idea of where the focus of each's preparation has been and cautious of walking into a haymaker early doors. Reserve judgement until they start getting a bit more confident that they have the upper hand in being able to sidestep something the opponent is well prepared for. Just a problem that the first big result could potentially be close to decisive because of the length of the match (especially if Magnus wins because of his assumed advantage in tiebreak).

[Stewart Reuben]

It amazes me that I have never seen anybody anywhere comment on the fact that, if Armageddon is used at the end, it isn't chess. It is a Chess Variant, unlike Standard, Rapid or Blitz which are all chess, albeit at different rates of play.
There should be more than one tiebreak day. I quite like the Ashot Vardepatian idea which I call 'First Blood'. The winner is the first player to win a game.
The first player kicks off with one game with white. If that is drawn, the second player gets 2 whites. If they are both drawn, then the first player gets 2 whites. And so it goes on, until somebody wins a game.
I realise there is still the problem of it going on forever.
I think 12 games is not enough for the World Championship.

Ashot wants to hold a discussion on one of the playing days, possibly at 6-7pm, concerning the future of the World Chess Championship. I told him first the objectives of running any event have to be decided.

[Stewart Reuben]

I have just had a bet with bwin https://sports.bwin.com/en/sports/67/be ... sportId=67
on Caruana to win in 12 games. The odds offered are 11/4. I have bet only £50. You will realise that I am by no means confident that this is a good value bet. I am certainly not betting because I think he will win.
Carlsen is quoted at 9/10, and a draw at 9/4.
It amused me that the display says I will win £187.50 if Caruana wins the match in 12 games. This is a clear disgraceful lie. The actual win would be £137.50.

[JustinHorton]

Thanks, though without knowing which moves they were, we're not really there yet...

In C.N. 6315 Alan O’Brien (Mitcham, England) noted that in another match-game, the 28th, this position arose:

Alekhine played 41 Nef4 and wrote:
‘The text move was sealed and it took me an hour and 50 minutes to consider it, the record length of time for this match.’

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/time.html

Heh, a different game entirely then, and I notice he goes on to say

Making all these ‘facts’ compatible with each other is far from easy

[Chris Rice]

Susan Polgar reminisces on FB:

"When Woody Harrelson played 1. d4 instead of 1. e4 as Caruana wanted to play in game 1 of the World Chess Championship against Carlsen, it reminded me of Mikhail Gorbachev. In the 6-game match against me, Karpov wanted to play 1. d4 in the first game. But Gorbachev decided to play a practical joke on Karpov by making the first move 1. g4.



"When Karpov reminded Gorbachev that he wanted 1. d4, Gorbachev smiled and said: “Ooops, touch move!”

[Mick Norris]

John Saunders

VERDICT ON THE VENUE: IT'S AWFUL...

Wouldn't it be better to locate world chess championships somewhere where they will make a difference or be better appreciated by the residents? No, I don't mean Khanty-Mansiysk in the middle of Siberia: but maybe another city in Britain or elsewhere in western Europe. My vote would go to Manchester, a city which was promised a world championship match in the 1990s but had it cruelly snatched away. I've been to Manchester a few times in recent years and found it a really agreeable city. They have an excellent transport system, an airport and, significantly, a large proportion of the BBC's television service which has decamped there from London, maybe giving a better chance of getting chess on national TV there. Just a thought...

[Joshua Gibbs]

I have just had a bet with bwin https://sports.bwin.com/en/sports/67/be ... sportId=67
on Caruana to win in 12 games. The odds offered are 11/4. I have bet only £50. You will realise that I am by no means confident that this is a good value bet. I am certainly not betting because I think he will win.
Carlsen is quoted at 9/10, and a draw at 9/4.
It amused me that the display says I will win £187.50 if Caruana wins the match in 12 games. This is a clear disgraceful lie. The actual win would be £137.50.

for anyone else wanting to know the best odds check here https://www.nicerodds.co.uk/chess

[JustinHorton]

My vote would go to Manchester, a city which was promised a world championship match in the 1990s but had it cruelly snatched away.

Fortunately they've had a clear-out of the sort of people who do things like that

[Nick Burrows]

There arent too many Russian billionaires in Manchester

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Mike - thanks for the review. I'm on my way there now and it's useful to know what to expect.

Having now returned, I would echo Mike Gunn's assessment of the venue. In practice, there was little difficulty in getting successive slots in the main playing arena if you wished. So, I spent three-quarters of my time watching the game in the main hall, with the remainder in the commentary room, which was about right for me. That said there seemed a large number of people just watching on the screens located throughout the building.

If you looked beyond the organisers' hoardings (which were everywhere), the fabric of the building itself seemed rather dilapidated.

Thanks for this, Nigel. Very useful to know that it is possible to get successive slots in the main playing arena if you wish. Hopefully that will be the case when I visit, which is a Monday (game eight) so hopefully not too crowded.

Thanks also to Mick for posting the link to the blog by John Saunders (and to John for the blog and photos).

John said in his blog: "a few years ago they put on a FIDE Grand Prix event in London to which the public wasn't admitted at all". I vaguely recall that as well. Can anyone remember the year and details? I think it was London 2012, held at Simpson's-in-the-Strand:

http://theweekinchess.com/chessnews/eve ... ondon-2012

Forum thread back then is here:

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=4796

Outrage expressed here:

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=4796&start=15#p101606

[JustinHorton]

Or indeed

[Christopher Kreuzer]

On the theme of selling tickets to a venue without access to the live game (to be fair, this is not precisely what is happening at these London WCC):

$100 to not see games? The Warriors' 'In the Building' pass is Silicon Valley in ticket form (Guardian)

"They do not get a seat and they don’t even get a chance to see the game in person. Instead they can watch the action unfold on the various televisions at Oracle and, if they want, enjoy some ridiculously priced food and drink at the various bars and restaurants within."

Hopefully chess events in the future will still retain some part of the 'live chess' experience and not go totally this way.

EDIT: For clarity, Justin Horton pointed out this article yesterday.

[JustinHorton]

On the theme of selling tickets to a venue without access to the live game (to be fair, this is not precisely what is happening at these London WCC):

$100 to not see games? The Warriors' 'In the Building' pass is Silicon Valley in ticket form (Guardian)

"They do not get a seat and they don’t even get a chance to see the game in person. Instead they can watch the action unfold on the various televisions at Oracle and, if they want, enjoy some ridiculously priced food and drink at the various bars and restaurants within."

Hopefully chess events in the future will still retain some part of the 'live chess' experience and not go totally this way.

Ah yes

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Oops. I need to follow your links more... (maybe if you said what they were, instead of just a cryptic word?) [I may even have opened your link and read it quite a bit later having forgotten that I had got it from here? I actually spent about 5 minutes trying to find that article today, having remembered reading it yesterday.]

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Mickey Adams providing annotations for Chessbase for game 4:

https://en.chessbase.com/post/world-cha ... 018-game-4