I would not for one second overstate my influence on the World of Chess, but as Chairman of the Trainer’s Commission, I felt I had the right to mention one idea to the FIDE President about the future of the World Championship. I did not have any great new ideas; smarter people than I have already come up with many possible improvements:
* Have the play-off before the match and play it with draw odds.
* Let the Champion have draw odds, but play an odd number of games, for example 15.
* Demote the Champion to the Candidates in the case of a drawn match and play the Candidates in a two groups with 4 games against all three opponent’s system, and then a match.
* Demote the Champion independent of the result of the match. Why have a Champion starting in the final at all?
* Speed up the game. Make it more based on a rapid, which is a purer form of chess.
All decent ideas as far as I am concerned. But I put my tiny voice between what I think was gathering less attention: to hold the Open and the Women’s Championship at the same time and the same place. Yes, it would require a bigger prize fund and more strain on the sponsor, but the Women’s events have been very fascinating chess with little attention. This could solve a lot of issues at the same time.
The last of the listed arguments is of course attributed to Carlsen. Nakamura scored an impressive -3 in Classical chess on the Grand tour and won it convincingly. In long games he was constantly outplayed by his peers, but in faster formats only Carlsen is his obvious superior.
At the moment there seems to be an assault on classical chess. Sinquefield is not a great fan and has done a lot to promote rapid events and created this horrific Universal Rating System, which has meant that qualification for classical events has been determined by blitz performance.
Speed chess is fun. Puzzle Rush on Chess.com is fun. But it lacks the one thing classical chess has to offer. Quality and depth. Chess is an incredibly deep and rich game, but without time humans will not have a chance to play great chess. The top players will constantly be faced with stronger and stronger engines evaluating their play, as they have less and less time to make their moves. It is turning top chess into a form of X factor, where the attraction is not to see great performances, but to see people fail.
The real problems with many draws have been the tournament system. Ever since the introduction of a rapid play-off at the World Championship, it has become an obvious part of the match strategy. Carlsen clearly favoured his chances in the rapid the last two times and won them both convincingly. The Grand Chess Tour was detrimental to attractive chess even when it was full of classical events. The same guys playing each other again and again and half of them wanting to stay in the top 10 so they are invited again next year. The endless amount of Berlin draws was unavoidable. In the Candidates there is only one winner and the same players manage to create immense drama each time. The format is the problem, not the time control.
Or what do you think?
Well put. I agree strongly. I want to see beautiful games that can be appreciated generations from now.
Presuming this is Jacob posting but not sure Magnis ever called rapid a purer form of chess. in the interview I read he said it was purer sport as you were able to hide your chess skill deficiencies easier. For me it’s a bit like tennis….you can win matches by having a great serve on grass but not such a good all round game and I guess Magnus is suggesting rapid is like clay where the serve isn’t so important.. f
Having had a longer read through I’m not quite sure of Jacob’s view and priority. Absolutely agree with his comments about the Grand Chess Tour format but not sure if the ‘quality and depth’ fits with avoiding draws. You maybe can’t have both easily with the strongest super GMs.(think with less strong players this may be less an issue) .We see Magnus having to play deliberately poorer quality opening moves just to avoid a draw in classical and the Candidates similarly were playing risky but subpar moves as drawing your way through the tournament was of no use but how this transfers to your average tourney eg Wijk I’m currently watching . I watch chess for entertainment more than some ‘ quality’ index even though that is a factor ( eg those bullet games with flying pieces that mostly tests how quick you can move are of very poor quality) but while you may have the cup half empty of “seeing people fail” , I’d see it as the half full ‘great attacking chess’.
For me Wijk has got the time format about right with only a 30 second increment ( this avoids the flying pieces nonsense) but not quite enough time to play perfect chess and calculate everything out and you get the exciting games I’m currently watching…. Stockfish and possibly Jacob maybe don’t consider this quality classical chess ( is it even slow enough time control to be considered classical?) . Does Jacob really want perfect chess? Stockfish Vs Leela classical would be perfect but dull and giving the top GMs lots of time to calculate with big increments to even allow even the most time trouble addicts a get out clause and the creep of opening theory into late middlegame starts to approach this. Whatever Jacob’s view of rapid Vs classical the current top players are playing better quality rapid chess than the older masters at classical format so it’s not that you are getting constant poor quality moves…their engine evaluations are often still in the 90s so as a club player I can still see quality level examples of play but see that humans are still not perfect at the game which is the mix I am looking for. A football match with negligible goal chances due to perfect defensive prowess both sides is not what spectators want and it’s the same in chess.
Some ideas for “improving” classical
1. Secret opening book eg like in Tcec events where a chosen complex opening position that isn’t mainline theory they will have looked at before ( prefer this to fischer random)
2. online events they don’t know who their opponents are (only viewers know) so play the board not the player
3. invite players based on some degree with their Smerdon rating not just their ELO
4. Spot prizes for combativity and imagination but if that’s what you are looking for maybe you can have a prize for most perfect games too
5. Some version of points system that disincentivises draws ( though I’m not a fan of Nigel’s no stalemates)
6. Rating system penalises inactivity
I’ve very much enjoyed round 1 of classical in Wijk, real excitement and sport was Jacob really disappointed as a viewer as it wasn’t ‘great (enough) chess’ and wanted 7 solid accurate quality snoozefest drawn games?