Magnus Carlsen wins longest world chess championship game of all time(chess.com)
chess.com
Magnus Carlsen wins longest world chess championship game of all time
https://www.chess.com/news/view/fide-world-chess-championship-2021-game-6
166 comments
And unfortunate choice of news outlet. As a developer, I can't help mentioning how baffling it is part of the chess community keeps using a proprietary website filled to the brim on dark patterns while a better and free as in freedom alternative is available.
I think that chess.com pays some people to use their website on streams, etc.
Although Lichess isn't perfect and it's kinda annoying. One of the bad things about Lichess is how unrealistically inflated their ratings are; 2100 on Lichess is equivalent to about 1800 on Chess.com. Chess.com is much more similar to the FIDE rating and other real-world systems. Lichess is just super inflated for some reason and it makes it kinda hard to compare your progress to other metrics.
Although Lichess isn't perfect and it's kinda annoying. One of the bad things about Lichess is how unrealistically inflated their ratings are; 2100 on Lichess is equivalent to about 1800 on Chess.com. Chess.com is much more similar to the FIDE rating and other real-world systems. Lichess is just super inflated for some reason and it makes it kinda hard to compare your progress to other metrics.
You cannot compare ratings between these websites and FIDE for two reasons:
- they use different rating systems (Elo for FIDE, Glicko-2 for LiChess and afair, Glicko/Glicko-2 for chess.com)
- ELO / Glicko rating is calculated for a _player pool_. Which means it will never correspond between FIDE-registered players and chess websites because they don't have the same player base.
It has nothing to do with being “inflated” or “unrealistic”. The difference is “by design”
- they use different rating systems (Elo for FIDE, Glicko-2 for LiChess and afair, Glicko/Glicko-2 for chess.com)
- ELO / Glicko rating is calculated for a _player pool_. Which means it will never correspond between FIDE-registered players and chess websites because they don't have the same player base.
It has nothing to do with being “inflated” or “unrealistic”. The difference is “by design”
I am not a chess player, but as a go player who has played on several different servers, all of that can be true and it can still be easier to compare progress relative to a real world association on one server vs another. ajkjk's point still makes sense to me.
I think there's a third, bigger reason: FIDE rating is based on classical time controls. Nobody uses classical time controls online for various reasons. Even rapid is a somewhat different skill set than classical.
Of course these things are correlated, but e.g. there have been times in the world championship when one of the players thought about a position for 20+ minutes before making a move. That's hard to do, and requires very strong visualization skills.
Of course these things are correlated, but e.g. there have been times in the world championship when one of the players thought about a position for 20+ minutes before making a move. That's hard to do, and requires very strong visualization skills.
There are FIDE ratings for other time controls too. Here are the top blitz players for example: https://ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=men_blitz
Oh interesting, I didn't know that. Thanks!
The bottom line is still that a chess.com rating will be more indicative of what a theoretical FIDE/USCF rating would be, and there's value in that, even if it's not rigorously tethered.
Comparison sites will give you ±150 Elo relative error (with I assume P=0.95).
150 Elo on levels below 2700 FIDE is almost night and day difference.
Chess.com ratings show nothing about theoretical FIDE ratings. Comparison tables have been built with data mining and lucky guesses, there's no quality difference between Chess.com <-> FIDE and LiChess <-> FIDE.
150 Elo on levels below 2700 FIDE is almost night and day difference.
Chess.com ratings show nothing about theoretical FIDE ratings. Comparison tables have been built with data mining and lucky guesses, there's no quality difference between Chess.com <-> FIDE and LiChess <-> FIDE.
Yes they do show 'something'. They correlate with them.
It's just a fact that chess.com ratings are closer to 'real' ratings than Lichess are. It's not perfect but that doesn't mean it's a zero-information statement either.
It's just a fact that chess.com ratings are closer to 'real' ratings than Lichess are. It's not perfect but that doesn't mean it's a zero-information statement either.
[deleted]
If you want to know why the ratings are centred around 1500 it is simply because this is the value in the original glicko2 paper [1]. It doesn't seem unreasonable for them to implement the algorithm as the designer specified.
With rating systems, the absolute scale doesn't matter, all that matters is the predictive power of the system. Every time I have benchmarked, glicko does a better job in predicting win/loss/draw probabilities than ELO ratings used by FIDE.
If you want to know your rating relative to other players on the site, you can check the distributions here [2]. If you want to compare them to FIDE ELO, or chess.com, you can use this site although I am not sure about exactly what methodology they use [3].
I wouldn't agree that lichess ratings are inflated or unrealistic relative to FIDE Elo, or any other rating system any more than kilometers are unrealistic and inflated relative to miles. They are simply different measurement systems.
[1] http://glicko.net/glicko/glicko2.pdf
[2] https://lichess.org/stat/rating/distribution/rapid
[3] https://chessgoals.com/rating-comparison/
With rating systems, the absolute scale doesn't matter, all that matters is the predictive power of the system. Every time I have benchmarked, glicko does a better job in predicting win/loss/draw probabilities than ELO ratings used by FIDE.
If you want to know your rating relative to other players on the site, you can check the distributions here [2]. If you want to compare them to FIDE ELO, or chess.com, you can use this site although I am not sure about exactly what methodology they use [3].
I wouldn't agree that lichess ratings are inflated or unrealistic relative to FIDE Elo, or any other rating system any more than kilometers are unrealistic and inflated relative to miles. They are simply different measurement systems.
[1] http://glicko.net/glicko/glicko2.pdf
[2] https://lichess.org/stat/rating/distribution/rapid
[3] https://chessgoals.com/rating-comparison/
Just forego pathetic chess.com and fide ratings, lichess is the best thing that happened to chess since castling.
Totally agree! Here’s why: https://travelhead.medium.com/rampant-cheating-on-chess-com-...
Why is lichess so good? Just because it’s free?
It's because there's a very hard working person focused on making great software without relying on profitable privacy abuse. Go donate to them.
Sorry, I meant to ask what makes it so good.
It's just good in almost every way. It's super well-made, has tons of features, and is free, even including compute tasks like having servers run analysis on your games. It's like one of the nicest things on the internet, I swear.
The study and game analysis features in lichess are waaay ahead anything in chess.com. The only thing chess.com does better is having more content, lessons, etc. But you're probably better off buying courses in chessable, reading books and getting a good coach anyway.
Usability-focused, very efficient and user friendly software.
Its just a relative number. After getting to your stable rating, you don't care about the actual number, you are just focussed on improvement.
Lichess is overall better in my opinion, better & slicker product, free analysis, opening explorer etc. Chess.com only leads in video content imo.
Lichess is overall better in my opinion, better & slicker product, free analysis, opening explorer etc. Chess.com only leads in video content imo.
I don't care except when I am talking to people IRL -- if I talk about chess and we compare ratings, we also have to talk about site they're from, essentially only because Lichess is such an outlier.
https://www.chessratingcomparison.com/Graphs
There's also https://chessgoals.com/rating-comparison if you prefer a table
There's also https://chessgoals.com/rating-comparison if you prefer a table
I'm amused to plug in my 2100 rating on Lichess and find that I was almost exactly right; the site says it's 1780 on chess.com +- 100 or so.
That's not exactly true. chess.com matches closer to FIDE in the 1400-2000 range and lichess matches in the 2000+ range, whereas chess.com gets inflated in that range. All in all, they are all different systems with different player bases.
Indy streamers do a better job in this case (and most, probably). GM Ivanchuk covers all games live on his Twitch channel, and is my choice for analysis.
Are you referring to lichess? I second that if yes.
I can't get over how incredibly laggy chess is. It's the single reason I moved to lichess as I started on chesscom.
I have the opposite problem - Lichess lags like a dog for me while chess.com is almost invariably rock solid.
Do you use both? I regularly use both and there is definitely some aspects that li is not better.
You all need to watch GothamChess if games of chess seem boring :)
I love Jerry, and I do watch him occasionally. But https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhJl3BKA-n8&ab_channel=Gotha... is well done.
(If you do want to watch Gotham for this particular match, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoY5RSCi5pE&ab_channel=Gotha... starts the series, I think.)
I love Jerry, and I do watch him occasionally. But https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhJl3BKA-n8&ab_channel=Gotha... is well done.
(If you do want to watch Gotham for this particular match, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoY5RSCi5pE&ab_channel=Gotha... starts the series, I think.)
Gotham's style isn't for everyone, he can get pretty annoying. One good thing to say about him is that he really gets how beginners think and he's good at highlighting the moments of "this is what a beginner would do and this is why the really good players do something else".
I think Gotham's style is very oriented towards entertainment. I don't mean this as a criticism - he has successfully entertained a lot of people. But I feel like I learn more from ChessNetwork. The absolute peak for me are the recaps Peter Svidler used to record for Chess24, such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJlVjicymKI - I haven't seen such deep and insightful analysis of games anywhere else.
This current match has the Levitov chess channel with Peter Svidler and Vladimir Kramnik analysing live. What a team! No engine in sight, instead a glass of whisky, decades of world top experience and love of the game.
You might be right in your assumption. I've watched Tata Steel 2021 live with Peter Leko (ex WC challenger btw) and Tanya Sachdev analysing the games live without computer assistance (except eval bar sometimes but no lines) and then watched Gotham's recap the next day. The difference was obvious with Levy missing the most interesting variations and positions in the game, which is funny because he probably uses engines for these analysis videos.
Gotham is focussed on entertaining the masses and aims his content for folks below 1500. If you are closer to 1800-2000, you aren't going to enjoy GothamChess content much.
and if you want to learn then you should watch Daniel Naroditsky's videos (pick the series/part that suits your level) https://www.youtube.com/c/DanielNaroditskyGM/playlists
He also comments frequently, and keeps his analysis understandable to my amateurish level while having better insight than Levy. Unfortunately his comment for the world championship is in the Russian channel (although he's from the US).
He also comments frequently, and keeps his analysis understandable to my amateurish level while having better insight than Levy. Unfortunately his comment for the world championship is in the Russian channel (although he's from the US).
You can watch the commentary by Judith Polgar. Of all the people I enjoy watching her live commentary because she has amazing insight into best moves and explains the reasoning behind it.
For few of previous matches by Magnus, she found moves that even Magnus had missed.
For few of previous matches by Magnus, she found moves that even Magnus had missed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crhU-pg7Rvw
Skip to 12:48 for the start of the commentary, 32:15 for the start of the game.
Skip to 12:48 for the start of the commentary, 32:15 for the start of the game.
Note that this is 8h47m long video!
Yeah Judit/Anish and Judit/Surya combos have been amazing for the 6 matches so far. It helps that Judit is a Catalan player and Magnus is choosing her opening.
Judit Polgár [1]
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r
This game is a counter-example of a long boring game. It was a long exciting game.
>I'm not advocating bullet but perhaps they could try 30 minute matches instead?
Other time controls is already a thing. Personally a huge rapid fan. I think Fisher was right. The problem is just prep and theory. If we still have classical time but chess960 so there isn't 20 moves of theory memorized.
Other time controls is already a thing. Personally a huge rapid fan. I think Fisher was right. The problem is just prep and theory. If we still have classical time but chess960 so there isn't 20 moves of theory memorized.
"It was the first decisive game in the classical rounds of a world championship in over five years."
I wonder if there’s some way other than time constraints to encourage higher variance moves.
I wonder if there’s some way other than time constraints to encourage higher variance moves.
The 5 year thing is misleading though.
It would have been 4 years if not for COVID.
And what it basically means is that there were decisive games 4 years ago, and then 2 years later (the World Chess Championship is played every 2 years), in the 2018 match between Caruana and Magnus there were no decisive games.
So essentially there was 1 match with all draws during the standard chess part of the tournament. And that match was between Fabi who is regarded as one of the players with some of the greatest prep and play in standard chess, and Magnus, who is really one of the greatest players, if not the greatest, of all time.
It would have been 4 years if not for COVID.
And what it basically means is that there were decisive games 4 years ago, and then 2 years later (the World Chess Championship is played every 2 years), in the 2018 match between Caruana and Magnus there were no decisive games.
So essentially there was 1 match with all draws during the standard chess part of the tournament. And that match was between Fabi who is regarded as one of the players with some of the greatest prep and play in standard chess, and Magnus, who is really one of the greatest players, if not the greatest, of all time.
But there were only two decisive games in the match against Karjakin. So 22 of the last 24 classical world championship games were draws (27 out of 30 if we count the current match). Even Magnus himself has said that he thinks it is a little dull.
Even if the game today ended up with a draw after move 60,it still would have been a banger of a game. The result doesn't matter, it's how they got there.
I get what you're saying, but result matters a lot still.
There are plenty of ways you could do that. But then you would be playing a completely different game, and hundreds of years of theory and strategy would be gone.
The usual suggestions are things like making a draw worth 1/3 of a win instead of 1/2, so that positions with more variance actually have higher EV for both players. Obviously this wouldn't work for a match like the current one, though: if there are only two people in the tournament, it's still zero-sum. A lot of people also don't like this sort of plan in general for other reasons.
The common counter is that there are tournaments like this already and they have the same draw average.
I'm not an expert, but, from what I can gather, every time someone suggest a solution online they're immediately countered by multiple strong and sound counter arguments.
Yes, they can change the opening position. This is done in computer vs. computer tournaments because otherwise it'd be all draws.
Perhaps the title should be edited to remove the winner's name
+1 for Agadmator
Great Youtube reviews and explanation of strategy & gameplay.
Great Youtube reviews and explanation of strategy & gameplay.
For those interested, his review is already online. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A8XpSCL2f_Y
Sorry about the spoiler :(
Rapid would be great and even blitz. Both game types offer a good intersection of being ease to follow and short enough to watch entirely for a large audience.
> Bit of a spoiler :(
I get your sentiment but this is really exciting news in the chess community. A win after so many years!!
I get your sentiment but this is really exciting news in the chess community. A win after so many years!!
"World chess championship has win outcome in longest-ever game" would be a great headline and wouldn't contain a spoiler.
Unfortunately, they're probably optimizing for views, and Magnus has a lot of name recognition.
Unfortunately, they're probably optimizing for views, and Magnus has a lot of name recognition.
Is it really a spoiler? Or is it just "news"?
Genuinely enjoyable and timely game. Out of prep early, machine evaluations useless throughout, plenty to play for and Magnus's quality and stamina showed.
I'm of the opinion that there's nothing to gain from fans having engines open during a game, despite working in sports analytics and ostensibly being on the side of the machines. Obviously engines have a lot to say about the modern game, and the match so far had clearly been dominated by excellent prep by both teams. But the excellent commentary on Levitov Chess World by the peerless Peter Svidler, Vladimir Kramnik and Evgenij Miroshnichenko was firmly of the opinion that we had a game on our hands throughout. They were correct.
I looked into some stats from the most recent TCEC superfinal just to get a feel for the error bars in engine evaluations. I think it's clear that even up to about +1.5, a draw is still on the cards between the superhuman engines, let alone humans. About a quarter of the superfinal games were decisive, despite us treating them as oracles. They're far more accurate in their draw predictions - in games that reached a 0.0 evaluation, only 3 ended with a win.
But in this game, even when we hit the tablebase results, where the result is a foregone conclusion for the machines, they still don't reflect the outcome of a human game, especially when the time controls start to get more stressful.
Anyway, what a wonderful, reassuring game. The players will be exhausted and it sets up a fascinating weekend of play. I couldn't be happier.
I'm of the opinion that there's nothing to gain from fans having engines open during a game, despite working in sports analytics and ostensibly being on the side of the machines. Obviously engines have a lot to say about the modern game, and the match so far had clearly been dominated by excellent prep by both teams. But the excellent commentary on Levitov Chess World by the peerless Peter Svidler, Vladimir Kramnik and Evgenij Miroshnichenko was firmly of the opinion that we had a game on our hands throughout. They were correct.
I looked into some stats from the most recent TCEC superfinal just to get a feel for the error bars in engine evaluations. I think it's clear that even up to about +1.5, a draw is still on the cards between the superhuman engines, let alone humans. About a quarter of the superfinal games were decisive, despite us treating them as oracles. They're far more accurate in their draw predictions - in games that reached a 0.0 evaluation, only 3 ended with a win.
But in this game, even when we hit the tablebase results, where the result is a foregone conclusion for the machines, they still don't reflect the outcome of a human game, especially when the time controls start to get more stressful.
Anyway, what a wonderful, reassuring game. The players will be exhausted and it sets up a fascinating weekend of play. I couldn't be happier.
>I'm of the opinion that there's nothing to gain from fans having engines open during a game
Isn't this game a great argument for engines. Using a threshold of 2 to be well above your 1.5 this game had a total of 4 moments where one of the players had a very good chance for a win, and one of those moments was for Nepo:
https://analysis.sesse.net/
Having the engine show you that is a great complement to hearing the commentary from top super GMs. Why would you throw away that part of the coverage?
>But in this game, even when we hit the tablebase results, where the result is a foregone conclusion for the machines, they still don't reflect the outcome of a human game, especially when the time controls start to get more stressful.
While true I think the solution is to double down and extract metrics from the engine search that reflect that. Not only the evaluation of the position but also how narrow the path is for white and black, to better understand how even if it's a draw from the machine's point of view, how hard of a draw it will be for the human to hold.
Isn't this game a great argument for engines. Using a threshold of 2 to be well above your 1.5 this game had a total of 4 moments where one of the players had a very good chance for a win, and one of those moments was for Nepo:
https://analysis.sesse.net/
Having the engine show you that is a great complement to hearing the commentary from top super GMs. Why would you throw away that part of the coverage?
>But in this game, even when we hit the tablebase results, where the result is a foregone conclusion for the machines, they still don't reflect the outcome of a human game, especially when the time controls start to get more stressful.
While true I think the solution is to double down and extract metrics from the engine search that reflect that. Not only the evaluation of the position but also how narrow the path is for white and black, to better understand how even if it's a draw from the machine's point of view, how hard of a draw it will be for the human to hold.
If I were to make a serious point it would be this: sometimes a machine learning model shouldn’t be optimised for accuracy, it should be optimised for teaching humans an effective policy. Often those are the same goal, for example in opening preparation in chess. But often they’re not, and just having 1000 fans suggesting lines from Stockfish without really thinking about a position or its human contestants isn’t particularly edifying for me. It feels like shopping for great art based on the price tag alone.
So yes, I agree with your second point, the engines/metrics/stats could be doing more here. Just relying on the evaluation at ridiculous depths isn’t very interesting, and I don’t believe those scores necessarily translate to a very good chance to win. 33 Rcc2 would have been very hard to calculate and involves a double pawn sacrifice. 36… Bxb4 probably was the move most humans would have made but I’m still not convinced Nepo always wins from there. I’m sure there were other swings I’m forgetting. But outside of “this line exists at depth 30 if you see it” there’s a lot to learn about the components of that evaluation, like mobility and king safety etc that do mirror some of the human thought process and which you can apply yourself. I’d love to see more detailed metrics like that, especially if they could capture why the humans felt it was a very good Catalan for white with lots of options, and not just zeroes. But as of today, I’d rather hear what Kramnik thinks than Stockfish. And the difficulty of holding a position is far more accurate coming from humans than the machines (game 5 for example). Even when the computer thinks there’s only one move in a position, that’s often based on the opponent playing perfectly to a great depth afterwards.
I don’t want to sound too much of a curmudgeon here, I like engines, I write my own and of course I have Sesse and my own copy of Leela open most games. But I think too often they short circuit one’s brain, and I’ve found my enjoyment increases when I follow the human thought process and not the machine one. I’d love to see a richer synthesis of the two though!
So yes, I agree with your second point, the engines/metrics/stats could be doing more here. Just relying on the evaluation at ridiculous depths isn’t very interesting, and I don’t believe those scores necessarily translate to a very good chance to win. 33 Rcc2 would have been very hard to calculate and involves a double pawn sacrifice. 36… Bxb4 probably was the move most humans would have made but I’m still not convinced Nepo always wins from there. I’m sure there were other swings I’m forgetting. But outside of “this line exists at depth 30 if you see it” there’s a lot to learn about the components of that evaluation, like mobility and king safety etc that do mirror some of the human thought process and which you can apply yourself. I’d love to see more detailed metrics like that, especially if they could capture why the humans felt it was a very good Catalan for white with lots of options, and not just zeroes. But as of today, I’d rather hear what Kramnik thinks than Stockfish. And the difficulty of holding a position is far more accurate coming from humans than the machines (game 5 for example). Even when the computer thinks there’s only one move in a position, that’s often based on the opponent playing perfectly to a great depth afterwards.
I don’t want to sound too much of a curmudgeon here, I like engines, I write my own and of course I have Sesse and my own copy of Leela open most games. But I think too often they short circuit one’s brain, and I’ve found my enjoyment increases when I follow the human thought process and not the machine one. I’d love to see a richer synthesis of the two though!
I also like Svindler's et al. commentary better because they don't resort to computer analysis. They explore ideas on the chessboard from the human point of view and that makes their analysis much better than what you see on chess.com or chess24.
Well done to Magnus. To Ian. To the commentators. This was an unbelievable 'play' in three acts. A game for the chess books. Great quality match so far and I hope Ian comes back from this blow and makes a fight of it. I believe he will.
It was an absolutely incredible match to watch live. Historical.
My jaw dropped when Magnus ignored his rook being attacked at the end in favor of the potential fork with his knight. It is ultimately what led to the sure win.
My jaw dropped when Magnus ignored his rook being attacked at the end in favor of the potential fork with his knight. It is ultimately what led to the sure win.
That specific moment is actually pretty basic. You're right that it was a great match to watch though.
In hindsight, yes, it's basic for sure. But in the heat of the moment after 7 hours of thinking about nothing but chess, Ian obviously missed the potential fork and was visibly surprised that Magnus left his rook to be attacked.
He didn't miss it though - if he had, he would have taken the rook. No one at their level misses something like this in these games. This stuff is obvious to much much weaker players than Ian.
Replying to sibling:
no, he was not - it was obvious, even to a low-level recreational player (like me)
Copying what I said in another reply: I'm referring to move 133, right after Ian moved his queen from H6 to H7, attacking the rook. Magnus ignores this and moves his E5 pawn to E6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWkBeTwbfj4&t=29890s
[deleted]
If he was aware of it, he would not have allowed it occur to begin with. He was counting on Magnus to move the rook and was very visibly surprised when Magnus left the rook in place.
You mean Rf7 when he ignored the *pawn on e6 being attacked by the queen for a potential fork with the knight (Qxe6 Ng7+)?
I'm referring to move 133, right after Ian moved his queen from H6 to H7, attacking the rook. Magnus ignores this and moves his E5 pawn to E6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWkBeTwbfj4&t=29890s
The match was already lost at that point. Two moves before that, Stockfish 14 has mate in 49.
Stockfish having mate in 39 moves says nothing about a match between 2 humans, already having played for over 6 hours, under very limited time constraints.
Did Stockfish have a mate at 131. Kh4 Qe6+?
Yes. You can check it out here - http://analysis.sesse.net/ - just click on history. (Sesse is Stockfish with a lot of compute, you can also follow it live during the games). At 131 it says "White mates in 47".
I know that because Magnus won, people will be heaping praise on him. But it is incredible how well Ian kept playing engine move after engine move to defend in the end game, while trying to keep time. Unbelievable the level of chess that's being played here.
Nepo is fantastic. And of course Magnus is brilliant. The game is at an all time high imo.
Imagine lasting 136 moves against Carlsen... This is the guy who gives people eight free moves and still destroys them two minutes later.
Nepo has previously worked as part of Magnus's team (one of his "seconds"), and they have been friends who compete against each other since childhood.
It is likely that this is the most evenly matched world championship of the 21st century, as both players are extremely well-prepared to face each other at the highest level.
It is likely that this is the most evenly matched world championship of the 21st century, as both players are extremely well-prepared to face each other at the highest level.
If you’re talking under classical time formats only, I would disagree with you since Caruana and Magnus were at equal strengths coming in and the consecutive 12 draws proved that too.
The rapid tie-breaker was a different story however.
The rapid tie-breaker was a different story however.
Nepo is not exactly a slouch either. There's a reason he's the challenger for the world championship.
Vishy Sir during the end game commentary said that the engines say it’ll be a draw.
Where/which move did Ian make the mistake?
Anyways, hats off to everyone involved. Magnus, Ian, commenters, and the chess twitterati. What a game! ~8hrs!!!
Where/which move did Ian make the mistake?
Anyways, hats off to everyone involved. Magnus, Ian, commenters, and the chess twitterati. What a game! ~8hrs!!!
In the game theoretic sense, it was move 130... Qe6 which moved the endgame from drawing to losing. We knew that under perfect play the game had been drawn since 115... Qxh4, since that's the point at which the pre computed table of endgames has the position (which is also why we know the exact move where the game from drawing to winning under perfect play).
130...Qe6 was the "mistake" (if one dares call it that!) I don't think any commentators expected Nepomniachtchi to actually hold this mathematical draw; it's superhuman. (I was certainly rooting for him though!)
https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=4k3/8/8/4PR2/5P2/6NK/q7/8%20...
>"From May to August 2018 Bojun Guo generated 7-piece tables. The 7-piece tablebase contains 423,836,835,667,331 unique legal positions in about 18 Terabytes."
https://syzygy-tables.info/
https://syzygy-tables.info/?fen=4k3/8/8/4PR2/5P2/6NK/q7/8%20...
>"From May to August 2018 Bojun Guo generated 7-piece tables. The 7-piece tablebase contains 423,836,835,667,331 unique legal positions in about 18 Terabytes."
https://syzygy-tables.info/
From the post game interview
Q. What was the decisive moment?
“I don’t know,” he [Carlsen] says. “But it felt like at the end when I got [133. e6] and maybe there was still some miracle defense there, but it didn’t really feel that way. At that point I felt very, very good about my chances.”'
Q. What was the decisive moment?
“I don’t know,” he [Carlsen] says. “But it felt like at the end when I got [133. e6] and maybe there was still some miracle defense there, but it didn’t really feel that way. At that point I felt very, very good about my chances.”'
The game was drawn for about 30 moves but only Magnus had winning chances with piece overload. Ian had to play very precisely to preserve the draw, and he didn't, because Magnus is elite in exactly these situations.
This is why evaluation bars are misleading. Computer will say it's equal but for one side, every move is equal and for the other side, you have to make the only drawing move each time.
I wouldn't say that Ian made a mistake. That position was winning for white after pawn on h4 was traded. It's not Leela vs Stockfish, it's two humans playing. Defending with solo queen against RNPP w/ connected pawns is extremely hard unless perpetual check is unstoppable.
I wouldn't say that Ian made a mistake. That position was winning for white after pawn on h4 was traded. It's not Leela vs Stockfish, it's two humans playing. Defending with solo queen against RNPP w/ connected pawns is extremely hard unless perpetual check is unstoppable.
The computer also does not take time limits into consideration. If the players could take as much time as they wanted, they might have been closer to the perfect match.
Maybe that would be a fun concept. A game where the players would start with 1 year on the clock?
Maybe that would be a fun concept. A game where the players would start with 1 year on the clock?
What does "first decisive game in the classical rounds of a world championship in over five years" mean?
When Carlsen previously defended his title agains Fabiano Caruana, all the classical (slow) games were draws. The championship was decided by rapid games, where Carlsen demolished Caruana.
I love both playing and watching rapid chess, but I think it's better for the world championship to be decided using classical time limits. That way, we get more interesting games, rather than the indignity of top players blundering while under time pressure.
I love both playing and watching rapid chess, but I think it's better for the world championship to be decided using classical time limits. That way, we get more interesting games, rather than the indignity of top players blundering while under time pressure.
Thank you for the explanation.
I think I agree with you. Chess is only a thing because people have played chess for a long time. Different time limits are a different kind of game -- neither better nor worse, but different from the things that made tournament-style chess popular.
Perhaps with computers it's time to retire the existing notion of chess tournaments. But people still seem interested, much as we still watch Usain Bolt despite him being outclassed by cars and even bicycles.
I think I agree with you. Chess is only a thing because people have played chess for a long time. Different time limits are a different kind of game -- neither better nor worse, but different from the things that made tournament-style chess popular.
Perhaps with computers it's time to retire the existing notion of chess tournaments. But people still seem interested, much as we still watch Usain Bolt despite him being outclassed by cars and even bicycles.
Humans aren't computers.
A machine can throw a fastball at speeds well above what humans can do. That doesn't mean we retire pitchers completely and end the game of baseball. A car can cover 100m in a fraction of the time humans can, doesn't mean we end track and field.
Chess is a game between humans and that's what makes it exciting.
And with computers we have a whole additional layer added where we can see what an essentially perfect game would look like and compare to that (although computers can still occasionally be surprised by human moves).
A machine can throw a fastball at speeds well above what humans can do. That doesn't mean we retire pitchers completely and end the game of baseball. A car can cover 100m in a fraction of the time humans can, doesn't mean we end track and field.
Chess is a game between humans and that's what makes it exciting.
And with computers we have a whole additional layer added where we can see what an essentially perfect game would look like and compare to that (although computers can still occasionally be surprised by human moves).
We probably have the technology to have races using self driving cars without drivers (perhaps with more accidents). It may be interesting to watch, but it would be a different sport
We don't. Self-driving race cars are hilariously bad.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=9fv2HR6Sc48
https://youtube.com/watch?v=9fv2HR6Sc48
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> Perhaps with computers it's time to retire the existing notion of chess tournaments.
You clearly don't follow chess, given your question. So I have to ask: why are you so quick to take a stance on something you don't follow or understand?
You clearly don't follow chess, given your question. So I have to ask: why are you so quick to take a stance on something you don't follow or understand?
It's the first 'classical' (ie with full time limits) game that's had a win in the last 5 years of World Chess Championships - since game 10 of Carlsen vs Karjakin in 2016
The last five years were decided by shorter tie breaker games as the longer classical games were all draws
In 2016 the classical games were tied, but there were wins by both Carlson and Karjakin. Otherwise it would have been 7 years, since the previous world championship match was in 2014.
But titling "unlike the last time (and only the last time) there has been a win and it's also the longest game ever" would have been less clickbaity.
But titling "unlike the last time (and only the last time) there has been a win and it's also the longest game ever" would have been less clickbaity.
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It means the first non-draw. Almost all classical chess games at the highest levels end in draws which has completely trashed the game as a spectator sport.
It's a bit of an exaggeration to say "almost all" games at the highest level end in draws. I wouldn't have said that from my personal experience following top-level chess, and the data indeed indicates it's under 75% [0]—which is a large proportion, but not "almost all".
[0]: https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-draw-rule-is-classica...
[0]: https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-draw-rule-is-classica...
At the very highest level, the draw percentage is much higher. In the last World Chess Championship in 2018, all twelve classical games went to draws! It's complete garbage from a spectator point of view.
It's not the level, but the WCC format, which makes current players not want to take risks at all. Today's game is a great example of why they are conservative: Taking any risks with black, like Nepo did when he avoided an early queen trade, is just too dangerous. A single loss means your opponent can aim for a draw in every single further game. If a super GM wants a draw out of the game from the very opening, choosing the most boring variations they can think of, someone is going to have to take crazy risks to stop it. Remember Kramnik's approach with the Berlin, turning the Ruy Lopez opening, known for its sharpness for centuries, into a recipe for draws.
Look instead at the next highest level tournament, the WCC candidates. There's money on the line, but really, the chance for the title is so much more important, winning the tournament is all that matters, and you aren't getting there with just draws, or even just a couple of wins. The very top players in the world, other than the current WCC are the only ones that participate, and yet the draw rate is lower than that average 75% too: In the last tournament, Nepo lost 1 and won 5 out of 14 games. Same with Caruana in the 2018 candidates.
That said, we'd see fewer draws too with shorter time controls, but then the top players also change. In 2018, if the championship was an infinite classic series until someone has 3 wins, Caruana was probably the favorite, given how he had Carlsen against the ropes over and over again, just a bit shy of victory. But in Rapid or Blitz, He's nowhere near as good.
Look instead at the next highest level tournament, the WCC candidates. There's money on the line, but really, the chance for the title is so much more important, winning the tournament is all that matters, and you aren't getting there with just draws, or even just a couple of wins. The very top players in the world, other than the current WCC are the only ones that participate, and yet the draw rate is lower than that average 75% too: In the last tournament, Nepo lost 1 and won 5 out of 14 games. Same with Caruana in the 2018 candidates.
That said, we'd see fewer draws too with shorter time controls, but then the top players also change. In 2018, if the championship was an infinite classic series until someone has 3 wins, Caruana was probably the favorite, given how he had Carlsen against the ropes over and over again, just a bit shy of victory. But in Rapid or Blitz, He's nowhere near as good.
Interesting, thanks for the clarification.
Sure, but that's mainly because the WCC is such a high-stakes match. Their overall record is not so draw-dominated. According to [0],
[0]: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?page=1&player=carls....
Classical games: Ian Nepomniachtchi beat Magnus Carlsen 4 to 2, with 14 draws.
[0]: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?page=1&player=carls....
lots of games at this level result in draws, this was a win.
That was the one thing I found distractingly wrong in Queen's Gambit. It completely glossed over the sheer number of draws. I'm a dilettante at chess, and even I know that.
(I gather that the number of draws may have been lower at the time, but they showed few or none.)
(I gather that the number of draws may have been lower at the time, but they showed few or none.)
It's perhaps a shortcoming of the medium – lack of time – and to keep the script short & engaging for the viewers. In a similar vein, computer nerds are shown to write code or hack systems in no time, when in reality a lot of high-concentration hours are burned, but from the outside watching someone stare at a screen doing not much other than think just isn't that exciting, and in the same way chess games ending in draws again and again aren't that exciting to watch for lay viewers. Also, films like that tend to ignore the "team" element (whether it's in sports or computing) and tend to over-emphasize the single protagonist "genius", also unrealistic.
I wonder if this is a limitation on how humans conceptualize Chess. Do games played with computers either vs human or another computer frequently end in draws?
If not, maybe there is some insight to be gained to raise high level play even more.
If not, maybe there is some insight to be gained to raise high level play even more.
Engine games (you can watch them at tcec-chess.com and some are terrific) with the standard starting position are almost always drawn. Engine tournaments are usually played instead with human selected, unbalanced openings designed to produce an exciting game with lower likelihood of a draw. The unbalanced opening intentionally gives one side (black or white) an advantage, so each opening is used twice, with each engine playing one game as black and one as white, to balance things out. The games are usually drawn anyway, with some occasional exciting wins. The top human players now study engine games closely, and play more like engines themselves. Very few mistakes => more draws.
It's unknown what would happen if a top human with serious preparation played against a modern engine. They'd have basically no chance of winning and a fairly low chance of a draw, with the unknown being "how low is fairly low". My wild-ass guess is maybe 1 game in 10 when the human has the white pieces and much lower with the black pieces. There is not much chess theory about what happens when a human plays a game from the beginning aiming for a draw, even though they do that all the time in real chess. It is something of a gap in the "literature".
It's unknown what would happen if a top human with serious preparation played against a modern engine. They'd have basically no chance of winning and a fairly low chance of a draw, with the unknown being "how low is fairly low". My wild-ass guess is maybe 1 game in 10 when the human has the white pieces and much lower with the black pieces. There is not much chess theory about what happens when a human plays a game from the beginning aiming for a draw, even though they do that all the time in real chess. It is something of a gap in the "literature".
High level computers draw each other almost 100% of the time and beat humans 100% of the time.
In general as skill increases (assuming the competitors are evenly matched), so does draw rate. Human grandmasters draw much more often than human beginners, and engines draw even more than human GMs.
This is one of the intuitive reasons for hypothesizing that chess is drawn with perfect play, even though we can’t prove it.
This is one of the intuitive reasons for hypothesizing that chess is drawn with perfect play, even though we can’t prove it.
Yes, there is a limitation. People have to learn high-level ideas and develop their intuition. Computers can have millions of training games (to teach the NN and to do regression tests), terabytes of tablebase positions and an ability to calculate thousands of lines in real-time.
Utterly insane. Not only required a bunch of stamina but careful work to not trigger a draw.
I liked this bit.
> Known for always being quite fit, the Norwegian GM admitted this was a tiring affair: "Sure, but I think that's the way it is. As I said, it shouldn't be easy in a world championship match. You have to try for every chance no matter how small it is. Part of it was by design at some point that I thought I should make the game as long as possible so that we would both be as tired as possible when the critical moment came. That turned out to be a good strategy."
Turned the game into a sport. Which ended up paying off better than the counter-strategy of playing quick moves to apply extra time pressure. From the description it seemed like it could easily have gone either way, so clearly a win and yet by very narrow margins where replaying, if possible to go back in time, would likely yield different results.
> Known for always being quite fit, the Norwegian GM admitted this was a tiring affair: "Sure, but I think that's the way it is. As I said, it shouldn't be easy in a world championship match. You have to try for every chance no matter how small it is. Part of it was by design at some point that I thought I should make the game as long as possible so that we would both be as tired as possible when the critical moment came. That turned out to be a good strategy."
Turned the game into a sport. Which ended up paying off better than the counter-strategy of playing quick moves to apply extra time pressure. From the description it seemed like it could easily have gone either way, so clearly a win and yet by very narrow margins where replaying, if possible to go back in time, would likely yield different results.
So now Carlsen is heavily encouraged to play for a draw in the next 8 games?
Yes, but also keep in mind Ian has a lot of agency. Throughout the first 6 games, he has had moments to make the games more chaotic, increasing the chances of one side having an advantage, and thus far he has almost always played calmer, less chaotic moves.
Now he will likely have to change tactics and enter into more aggressive and risky ideas. It should increase the odds of a decisive result one way or the other going forward, regardless of whether Magnus is "playing for a draw" or not.
Now he will likely have to change tactics and enter into more aggressive and risky ideas. It should increase the odds of a decisive result one way or the other going forward, regardless of whether Magnus is "playing for a draw" or not.
More or less yes, except it's 9 more games. The match ends if someone reaches 7.5 points, and Magnus now has 3, so with 9 more draws he wins the match by 7.5 to 6.5. Going into the last game the score is 7-6 so if Nepo wins then the match is tied and goes into tiebreaks.
CORRECTION (see below): this was game 6, not game 5 (I had lost count), so current score is 3.5 to 2.5, and there are potentially 8 classical games left.
CORRECTION (see below): this was game 6, not game 5 (I had lost count), so current score is 3.5 to 2.5, and there are potentially 8 classical games left.
This was Game 6. Magnus leads 3.5 to 2.5. There are only 8 more classical games remaining.
Oops, sorry, I just came back to fix that but you caught it first. I had somehow thought it was game 5.
I'm only aware of this through this post, but the website says Carlsen now has 3.5 points. So 8 draws.
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Magnus, the GOAT! What else is there to say? He’s an endgame god. Incredible win. After the 2018 championship match, I was pretty much expecting no decisive games here.
Tough luck for Ian though. It’ll be hard not to tilt after this but he’s a champion.
Tough luck for Ian though. It’ll be hard not to tilt after this but he’s a champion.
Yet another example of the Carlsen special - drag a game to a long not-obviously-drawn endgame, and grind a win from that. Carlsen seems to have this match well in hand.
I'm not a chess expert, so feel like I must be missing something. In the last move Black's king isn't in check? Was the loss due to time?
The player with the black pieces, Ian Nepomniachtchi, resigned because he saw his position was lost
Ah! Thanks a bunch for clearing that up.
In slow games (classical, rapid) it's considered disrespectful to keep playing if your position is clearly hopeless, as is perceived as wasting your opponent's time or insulting their ability to play out the winning moves.
In fast games (bullet, blitz), anything goes and it's much more common to see games end in a checkmate - or very close to one - as players will often play to the bitter end to maximize the chance of their opponent making a mistake under time pressure, or running out of time completely.
In fast games (bullet, blitz), anything goes and it's much more common to see games end in a checkmate - or very close to one - as players will often play to the bitter end to maximize the chance of their opponent making a mistake under time pressure, or running out of time completely.
The pawn wil advance twice and promote to a queen, after which the win is trivial (both squares the pawn moves to are protected, by the rook and the Knight).
In reply black can only try to give endless checks with his queen, but the white king can hide behind the Knight and they will end.
In reply black can only try to give endless checks with his queen, but the white king can hide behind the Knight and they will end.
Great, thanks for pointing that out.
1. Didn't realize chess content was popular on HN.
2. Don't understand why people upvote a spoiler.
3. Was watching the stream, and couldn't stop watching, was too nervous for Ian.
I don't know much about chess but Magnus throwing away his queen like that (traded his queen + rook for two rooks), was that a common thing to do? Looked outrageous to me but what do I know.
A queen for two rooks is not too crazy, whether it's worth it depends a lot on the position. The naive piece worth suggests that two rooks (5 each) is worth more than a single queen (9), but in practice it's more complicated. I would say though, as someone who's not amazing at chess that was definitely one of the most significant moments in the game for me - Not that Magnus was making a mistake, but that he was creating a very big imbalance in the pieces which was going to make the game get a lot more interesting.
There are values associated with pieces. Without considering the position, a pawn would = 1, Knight = 3, Bishop = 3.5, Rook = 5, and Queen = 9. I've not seen the game yet, but if he traded a Queen for 2 rooks that isn't such a bad deal.
Modern engines value the pieces more, like knight/bishop ar 4.1, rook closer to 6 and queen at 11.
Not uncommon, but doesn't happen in most games.
Please... please don't use titles like this and spoil it for everyone.
Can we edit the title to say "Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomnitchi play the longest world chess championship game"?
Can we edit the title to say "Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomnitchi play the longest world chess championship game"?
You have a good point, however HN etiquette is to be as close to the original headline as possible. Perhaps there should have an exception for sports.
I can understand "spoil" for films, book, games but this is just sport news.
Chess is different from other sports in that watching it "live" isn't really the best way to experience it. Half the time you'd be looking at a chess board with no one around it, and you don't get to spend time thinking where you want to think, you have to spend it where the players decided to. Lots of people are going to instead watch the game later, at their own pace, watching someone analysis of the game, or doing their own. It's not entirely unreasonable to not want that spoiled.
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Carlsen's grind game is peerless.
Wow spoiler in the title? Wtf
Was rooting for Nepo!
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Change the title, wtf man?
Typical of Norwegians to win.
I feel like the 30 second increment is a bit cheesy given the time constraints of classical chess. Magnus was down to less than a minute but can just make some quick moves to add several minutes back to his clock. If you have an increment it should only be 1-2 seconds regardless of time format.
That would be a different game mode, then.
This is the game mode that has been decided and agreed upon by all parties.
This is the game mode that has been decided and agreed upon by all parties.
I prefer to watch analysis of games from YouTubers like Agadmator or Jerry from Chessnetwork and discover who the winner was by watching the game.
I wonder if these long games are not particularly helpful. Most chess final games end in draws as players are reluctant to create an imbalance and instead play it safe. There tends to be more exciting games played in games with a shorter time limit.
I'm not advocating bullet but perhaps they could try 30 minute matches instead?