Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

https://lichess.org/@/Lichess/blog/wcc-2024-round-14-gukesh-becomes-the-youngest-world-champion-in-history/cDggdNZw

by alexmolas • 2 years ago

1118 448 2 years ago

lichess.org

selectnull3• 2 years ago

It was painful watching Ding Liren blunder the rook and realize what he had done.

fernandotakai• 2 years ago

i felt for ding, even though i was cheering for gukesh.

i was so sure it was going to go into tiebreaks.

selectnull3• 2 years ago

I was looking forward to rapid, wanted more drama.

In the end, Ding deservedly lost. He was constantly low on time; managed to play excellent in losing positions for the whole match but it took only a single mistake to lose the crown. One can do miracles only a few times before it fails.

ceronman• 2 years ago

It was. But he had 9 minutes vs more than an hour for Gukesh. The entire match has been Ding defending miraculously, I thought it was a matter of time before he eventually failed. The fact that it happened on the last moves of the last game, it's definitely hard for Ding, but fair for Gukesh IMO.

selectnull3• 2 years ago

Agree completely.

ronald_raygun• 2 years ago

Well it sounds like an instance of "your keys are always in the last place you look, because then you stop looking"

nebulous1• 2 years ago

Overall I agree, the entire match seemed to be Ding defending. Gukesh kind of failed to capitalise the whole way through though.

wrt the time, this is kind of a bread and butter endgame. Ding shouldn't have blundered here with 10 minutes on the clock. Highly unlikely he would have blundered this two years ago.

endorphine2• 2 years ago

I don't get the "fair" argument. Would it be unfair if Ding did not blunder the rook? How so?

8note7• 2 years ago

ding was attacking though. it skuat crazy that he was looking to play for a draw with the white pieces, when he was in a great position to play for the win earlier, before he forced a trade of all the pieces.

ding may have lost for a blunder late in the game, but i think he lost the game and match early, when he traded down to try to play for a draw.

gukesh played every game for a win

chilmers• 2 years ago

Amazing to watch Gukesh as well as he realised the opportunity. At first confusion and disbelief, then excitement, joy and nervousness as he tried to calm himself down and take the win.

MrMcCall15• 2 years ago

And the graciousness to keep his joy in humble reserve, knowing how much Ding would be crushed. Truly a young man of God.

hilux14• 2 years ago

"Sitting on his hands" to double check showed great maturity!

alex1138• 2 years ago

At 18, this is no small thing. Kasparov was 22, I don't see Gukesh's record being broken for a long while

ourmandave• 2 years ago

With 12-year-old GMs running around it's hard to know how long.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_prodigy

david-gpu• 2 years ago

Those statistics blow my mind. For reference, Bobby Fischer became a GM at fifteen.

philipwhiuk• 2 years ago

There's a decent gap between GM and world champion to be honest.

frakt0x90• 2 years ago

There's also a decent amount of controversy around really young GMs. Basically that their parents game the system by choosing official tournaments with burnt out GMs with low ratings so they can get their norms easier. Mishra recently had a lot of backlash from top GMs with those types of accusations. If that's true, those players will likely never reach the top ranks, but who knows.

keybored• 2 years ago

Didn’t Kasparov say that he doesn’t consider this a World Chess Championship since the best player isn’t playing?

dyauspitr6• 2 years ago

Gukesh has beaten Magnus before. Sure Magnus is an demi god of chess but we haven’t seen him play this format against gukesh and that’s entirely his fault.

DevX101• 2 years ago

We're still relatively early in the chess engine era and there was an explosion of new young talent discovering chess in the covid years. I expect to see more young chess prodigies.

hbn• 2 years ago

For being the headline, they sure hid his age pretty well.

Not at the opening paragraph nor end of the article, nor photo captions near the top or bottom.

cmd+f "years" 0 results

cmd+f "age" 0 results

And scanning for numbers is useless since most of the article is chess moves written out.

gnaman• 2 years ago

for anyone wondering hes 18

Jorge1o1• 2 years ago

thank you!

boringg3• 2 years ago

Seems like its not that big of an accomplishment relative to the way the headline makes it (obviously a big personal accomplishment). I figure 18 year old chess should have the mental abilities and maybe experience at that point to be able to rise to the top...

wongarsu3• 2 years ago

For context, legendary Magnus Carlsen was 23 when he first became world champion. Ding Liren, the other finalist and previous winner, is 32. The title holder before Magnus was Anand who first won the title at age 31 (or arguably 38, depending on your stance about the PCA). Kramnik before him was 31. Legendary Garry Kasparov was 22.

It's normal for the champion to get his first win in his early 30s. Getting it in your early 20s is how you become famous beyond the chess world. Doing it with 18 is seriously impressive.

dhosek2• 2 years ago

So my son has 7 years to set a new record. (I’m not really expecting that, of course.)

smokel• 2 years ago

For anyone wondering about related facts: the oldest age someone had while being the chess world champion was 58 years [1].

https://www.chesspower.co.nz/chess-records.html#theoldest

yieldcrv• 2 years ago

thank you, I came looking for this as well and didn't want the predictable community drama of asking or pointing out how the article fails

pjmlp• 2 years ago

My point exactly.

bmacho2• 2 years ago

For someone who has complained a LOT about this information not being readily available, you haven't put it here for us either.

Salgat• 2 years ago

You bothered to comment but didn't bother to help either. Here, I'll do it, Gukesh is 18, Ding is 32.

neofrommatrix2• 2 years ago

18. The answer is 18.

nsmog767• 2 years ago

came to the comments to try and find the answer, still don't see it lol

nashashmi• 2 years ago

someone answered it 1 hr ago: 18.

nottorp3• 2 years ago

I suppose in the usual lichess watchers bubble, everyone knows who Gukesh is and how old/young he is :)

hilux14• 2 years ago

Why the snark? Is it so surprising that spectators following a world championship match in any sport would know something about the competitors?

lxgr4• 2 years ago

The article seems geared towards people at least already somewhat invested in either chess or the world championship, given that it's on a chess website and everything.

That said, click either name in the article and you'll land on their respective Lichess profile, which prominently features their age.

jodacola• 2 years ago

Don't disagree it was annoying.

While this is no defense, clicking Gukesh's name when it was hyperlinked from the article led here: https://lichess.org/fide/46616543/Gukesh_D

Age and other info present.

laydn• 2 years ago

Terrible time management from Ding Liren in the most critical game of the match, leading to a very simple blunder. Painful to witness.

trey-jones2• 2 years ago

Apparently poor time management throughout the match, though I didn't see every game. It sounds like he was lucky to survive 6-6.

epolanski3• 2 years ago

He wasn't, Ding has played some terrific chess during this tournament.

But honestly both players lack an end game killer instinct.

trey-jones2• 2 years ago

Spoiler alert! I was planning to watch the recap without knowing the outcome, but I'm not that invested. Congratulations to the new champion.

hilux14• 2 years ago

This video is quite fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDtECNekJ-4

gizmodo59• 2 years ago

What a match! It was sad to see the blunder by Ding. Reminded me of Nepo dropping pieces in the tie-break last time. But its a great sportmanship by Ding as he said its a fair outcome given all the games they have played.

FactolSarin2• 2 years ago

What is the deal with Gukesh's last name? It's officially listed as just D on his FIDE profile. I asked a couple Indian coworkers who said it was probably just being abbreviated for being long, but honestly it's not that long of a name and Gukesh isn't from the same region as them. I've read elsewhere that Telugu speaking people don't really use last names.

alephnerd6• 2 years ago

What is the deal with Gukesh's last name

In Tamil Nadu, an initial is often used in the surname due to the Periyar/Dravidian movement in the 20th century. Furthermore, plenty of people in Tamil Nadu historically didn't even use surnames.

Gukesh is Telugu, but his family are Chennai natives. Chennai becoming part of TN instead of Telugu-speaking Andhra Pradesh was very politically charged in the early days of India.

FactolSarin2• 2 years ago

Ah, so it's an anti-caste thing?

xdennis• 2 years ago

Wikipedia says his full name is "Gukesh Dommaraju".

matrix2596• 2 years ago

Yes. I am Telugu and family name is usually not written or called out. So he would usually write D. Gukesh or Gukesh D. Most people also have a sort of middle name for example D. Gukesh Kumar. Middle name is spelled and used for calling together with main name.

__rito__3• 2 years ago

Gukesh's last name is Dommaraju. It's his family surname. He is a Telugu person by birth, but he grew up in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. In the state of Tamil Nadu, people often take their father's given names as their last names, and always write it in abbreviation. Indian last names often disclose caste, and due to a widely influential movement in TN (see [0]), most people of TN gave up using caste-based surnames, and switched to solely using father's names. But, the father's name is often written as the first letter of that name, and the person is called like that in official places, too. Among friends, colleagues, teachers, etc., only the given name ever is used.

As Gukesh grew up in Chennai, he used his last name like that. His parents also use one name only.

Anecdote: my distant cousin, a Bengali, also grew up in TN. His parents also Tamilized his name. His name was, say, Rama Dass, and he went by and put his name as D. Rama, or Rama D.

When their family moved back to Bengal, his name was Rama Dass again.

Srinivasa Ramanujan's given name was Ramanujan, and Srinivasa was his father's name.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periyar

meta_x_ai• 2 years ago

As a South Indian My name (in public school records) till I was age 21, was <name>. <initial>

I was forced to pick the last name for passport purposes and typically i either have the option of attaching my dad's name or my dad's town name.

My wife, didn't even do that and when she migrated to US, she was <name> LNU (short for Last Name Unknown). While applying for greencard we decided it was too much of a hassle for her and she attached her father's name

hilux14• 2 years ago

when she migrated to US, she was <name> LNU (short for Last Name Unknown).

Interesting!

The loser of the previous World Chess Championship match was Russia's Ian Nepomniachtchi. His last name means "one who doesn't remember [his last name]" -when asked by the Czar's census taker!

I guess this kind of thing happens in many countries.

svat2• 2 years ago

Naming conventions vary, and when you consider names across history/geography, it is the present-day Western convention of "GivenName FamilyName" that is unusual and needs explanation.

Generally speaking, someone is born and at some point days/months later, their parents start calling them by some name, while the rest of the world might also doing so at some point, possibly different people using different names. For purposes of interacting with administrative systems yet another name may be adopted. Only when it has been necessary to distinguish between multiple people with the same name do secondary names start getting used, either occupational descriptions (John the Baker vs John the Carpenter vs John the Smith) or places where they came from or were noted for (Jesus of Nazareth, William of Orange, Leonardo from Vinci), or disambiguating with parents' names (Mohammed bin [son of] Salman, Björk Guðmundsdóttir [daughter of Guðmund]) — these are all conventions still existing today, with occasional funny consequences when someone imagines one of these to be a "family name" that persists from father to child across generations. (See "what would Of Nazareth do" about people—even otherwise educated ones—treating “da Vinci” as such.)

Coming to India: there are different conventions. Typically just a name and an initial letter (placed either before or after the name) to distinguish between multiple people (in the same classroom say) with that name. When a boy was named "Anand" by his parents, because his father was "K. Viswanathan", he became "V. Anand" in school records, and this is the name I remember reading articles about this chess prodigy in Indian newspapers. At some point the international press started spelling out his first name and called him "Viswanathan Anand", putting his father's name first, and even started calling him "Viswanathan" or "Vishy" — he used to object and point out that they were calling him by his father's name, but eventually he just got used to it and even began to like it. In this generation, this boy was named "Gukesh" by his parents, and was "D. Gukesh" in school records and news reports, but somewhat wisely they decided for international sources to put the initial after the name, so "Gukesh D", and for those who cannot handle just an initial, spell it out to "Gukesh Dommaraju".

(You have had other replies claiming this to have something to do with Tamil Nadu anti-caste politics. While no doubt that movement discouraged the use of caste names as surnames, the initial convention pre-exists any of those political movements and exists in parallel in other states too. E.g. "S. Ramanujan" was the name on his early papers before the movement being spoken of. Some families/communities use surnames (in the sense you're thinking of) and some don't; that's all there is to it.)

thom4• 2 years ago

Well, Ding's prediction was right, it wasn't a short draw. Horrible end to a another pretty disappointing cycle. Ding's game 12 win to tie the match was a positional masterpiece but it ultimately seems fitting that his blunder decided the result. Hope he gets a long break from classical chess and finds his way back to enjoying the game.

MrMcCall15• 2 years ago

Ding has nothing to be ashamed of. He fought like a true warrior. He was a great champion, with class and brilliance. I just don't think he was physically as strong as he could be, and that affects one's ability to think as they must at that level.

All said, tho, it was definitely Gukesh's time, and being 18 has some serious benefits in terms of recovery and stamina.

thom4• 2 years ago

I don't think 26. a4 was fighting like a true warrior, it was more giving up half your kingdom in the hope that your opponent will then accept a peace treaty.

seanhunter4• 2 years ago

That was a absolutely horrible finish to a really exciting championship if you ask me.

For anyone who doesn't know, there was a lot of drama because Gukesh was playing amazingly coming into this (eg winning the gold medal on board 1 at the olympiad in crushing style) and Ding had been playing terribly. Then there were 13 games of back and forth with stalwart defending and imaginative computer preparation by both sides, playing a lot of fresh chess and both of them going for the most critical and challenging moves in each position. Ding was playing a lot better than a lot of people had expected and the previous game had been one of the best games in a world championship for a long time. Everything was tied going into the last game of the classical portion and the "bar room consensus" was that since Gukesh was so young and doesn't focus at all on the faster forms of chess (rapid and blitz) and is therefore much lower rated than Ding in those formats, that if this game was a draw then Ding would be a substantial favourite in the ensuing tiebreaks.

The final game was a complex struggle, with Ding keeping everything in lockdown with the white pieces so as not to give Gukesh a ghost of a chance. Most of the pieces had been traded and it was the most drawish of drawn endgames. Gukesh was up a pawn, but they both had a rook and bishop and all Ding had to do was hang on to his pieces and keep them well away from the enemy king. On the stream I was watching IM David Pruess had just been asked by someone in chat whether Gukesh could win and he said "1% chance".

Then all of a sudden Ding made 3 bad moves in a row. The first two were just poor endgame technique, putting his rook and bishop both on bad squares too close to the enemy king, then the real blunder. Completely inexplicably he traded off the pieces. Now he was in an endgame that was just dead lost. After 14 games of 4+ hours each It had gone from being a dead draw with him a big favourite in tie breaks to all over in a few seconds.

MrMcCall15• 2 years ago

Gukesh took him into the deep water the entire time, putting every possible strain on Ding's energy and reserves. It was the unrelenting pressure of an 18yo badass that cracked Ding, whom I truly feel sorry for. He is a great player and a very, very nice human being.

What is crazy is that Gukesh has only been playing chess for a little more than 11 years.

ETA: And Ding fought like a lion!

awongh2• 2 years ago

"only 11 years"... that seems like a lot to me, although reading further down in the thread it seems like it might take twice or three times as long to get to a very high level.

Do people in the chess community measure players by number of years playing? Are there expectations of how long it takes to get to a certain level? (besides world champion)

BurningFrog2• 2 years ago

Gukesh is born in 2006, so he started playing at 7.

fasdfdsava• 2 years ago

Wow great synopsis. Sounds like Ding just ran out of mental stamina just before buzzer.

zmgsabst• 2 years ago

I think it was thematic of the match:

The whole time, Ding had failed to seize advantages and been low on time — something criticized by GM Hikaru Nakamura. In this final game, those two things caused him to blunder in a complex endgame seeking a tie against Gukesh who had nearly an hour of advantage on the clock and been relentlessly pressing the whole match (and continued that pressure, into the endgame).

That’s a strategy, not mere misfortune. And personally, I’m glad it was decided in the match rather than tie-breaks.

cyrillite• 2 years ago

It felt much more like forced error than unforced error or, thematically, the closest thing I’ve seen to a milling strategy in chess. Just make them keep drawing until they’re out of ideas.

taneq• 2 years ago

I'm explicitly not a chess player but this reminds me of Dave Sirlin's "Play To Win" where he starts by explaining that if doing a thing makes you not lose, you do that, and then eventually by definition you win.

thom4• 2 years ago

It was a forced error in the sense that Ding forced that exact endgame for no real reason and then fluffed it with 10 minutes on his clock plus increment. What's incredibly sad is that Ding clawed his way back into the match in game 12 by doing exactly what you describe - he created a horribly cramped position, refused to release the tension, and eventually Gukesh ran out of good moves and lost without any egregious blunders.

wavemode2• 2 years ago

I disagree. There were forced errors in this match, yes. But this final game's endgame wasn't an example of that. Ding collapsed of his own accord.

the_clarence• 2 years ago

imaginative computer preparation

Are people training AIs to play in the style of the people they're going to play against so they can practice?

Fade_Dance2• 2 years ago

No, they use chess engines to find interesting lines of play that the opponent presumably is not prepared for. Say, an odd move that looks weak, but a few moves later is back at even, and the player that pushed down this line is now prepared to play on from there (with perhaps further traps laid ahead), while the opponent is somewhat in the dark and has to analyze the situation correctly.

michaelt• 2 years ago

Normal, regular chess engines are sometimes called AI. Or at least they were back in 1997. And people have certainly made themed variants of these chess engines, which purport to simulate certain famous chess players.

Right now you can visit https://www.chess.com/play/computer and play a Hikaru-themed chess engine - or a MrBeast-themed chess engine.

I don't know how deep the simulation goes, though - they might all just be the same engine with a different difficulty setting and a different icon.

TeeMassive• 2 years ago

That's the most exciting and well written description of a chess game I've ever read!

sourcepluck11• 2 years ago

You must not read very much chess writing!

mindfulmark2• 2 years ago

Disagree. Gukesh was constantly putting pressure on Ding to find defensive moves and Ding finally made a mistake. The fact that it happened when it did just makes it even more dramatic. We know from the other matches that Ding is capable of finding them, and the fact that he didn't just highlights that they're both human, both under extreme pressure and that it's not just mindless computation.

seanhunter4• 2 years ago

I'm not sure we disagree at all. Gukesh's strategy throughout the match was to constantly ask difficult questions and the surprise really was that Ding didn't fold earlier.

seanhunter4• 2 years ago

If anyone’s interested in what a GM’s thought process on the game looks like there’s a really great recap here which was produced without engines [1] https://youtu.be/97RZHG2rcbc?si=O41BRi2EC8Ryu0v2

[1] With the intention of trying to as honestly as possible replicate the situation for the players where obviously they have to think for themselves and don’t have access to an engine while playing.

8note7• 2 years ago

you can also take a look at anish giri's recaps: https://youtu.be/EQDpuPzps88?feature=shared

he streamed watching most of the openings, and kept his own eval bar on the side, occassionally checking his lines against strong engines

paulsutter2• 2 years ago

Chess really baffles me

Most of the more sophisticated people I know are completely disinterested in sports. Not that they dislike sports, it just never occupies their mind. Sports is a purposeless activity for kids

Chess is different from sports in only one way: the loss of very intelligent capable people who could be helping to create the future.

Chess is even more tragic than the olympics.

not_kurt_godel• 2 years ago

Intelligent people who create the future must choose that path for themselves. Chess isn't preventing people from making that choice. If chess didn't exist, most chess players would probably just be playing some other game instead of STEM careers or whatever your definition of creating the future is. Also plenty of very strong chess players do ultimately wind up pursuing other career paths. And then there's also the fact that a good number of the top chess players have shown themselves to be highly dysfunctional people who are unfit for the professional world such as Bobby Fischer and Vladimir Kramnik.

chongli2• 2 years ago

I'll take smart people playing chess any day over those people choosing to go into the tech industry where they spend all their time building addictive products that drive ad impressions.

I'd love it if they put their talents to work by going into medical research, chemistry / materials science, or even political science and try to take meaningful steps towards making the world a better place. That route seems to be a lot less popular these days and obviously compensation has a lot to do with it.

fooker• 2 years ago

Not everything has to have a purpose.

That most of the society thinks so is a failure of our systems.

wbl• 2 years ago

"To play chess is the mark of a gentleman. To play chess well is the mark of a wasted life"

crdrost• 2 years ago

Honestly this sounds like a knock-on effect of the US's constant erosion of the glue of community. Church attendance down, sport attendance down, theater attendance with friends down, it's all the same.

Social norms can change this -- the Netherlands has a very similar culture to the US, But one thing people asked me while I was doing my M.Sc. there was just, "what is your sport?" ... and I got asked it enough that I eventually got one, and then for a good period of time I managed to completely kick my obesity, until I moved back to the American Midwest.

The introvert/extrovert axis also plays a role in what sort of "sport" is right for you, of course, and many of your sophisticated friends still hit the gym or jog etc. -- those are just sports for introverts in my view.

Sport time is not, time that could have been better spent elsewhere. It's like how cleaning the sink isn't time that could have been better spent elsewhere -- if you don't have a clean sink, you'll pay the interest in terms of "ugh what's that smell [...] oh it was the standing water in this bowl" and "crap I don't have a clean glass, hm, I wonder if I can just buy compostable cups on Amazon so that I don't have that problem..." etc. So as an extrovert, I can go once a week to play soccer with friends in a small league, or, just hear me out, I can get lonely and then do what I do when I get lonely, which is pop on Physics Stack Exchange and answer physics questions so that I can feel Of Use. You pay the interest either way.

Chess-time also is no great loss for the world. The top-level world chess community is something we have numbers for -- 17k titled players, 2k grandmasters, 4k international masters beneath that. They are pursuing something that exactly fits the nerdy way that their brain works -- memorize openings out to 20 moves deep, obsessively study and re-study their failed games to understand why the computer thinks they lost and how they might make better mistakes in the future, and for them it HAS to be competitive and they HAVE to have that immediate feedback of trying a new idea in the same narrow niche of ideas that they became a super-expert-in, against another top player who can punish their new mistakes.

It's just not a set of transferable world-changing skills. It's like, my brother became single-mindedly obsessed with pool in High School. This persists even though he now runs a small company operating a strip mall. This was just his thing, he loves that there is no upper bound to how much control he can have over the cue and the balls, using the spins of each to control the layout, and precisely planning a course through a 9-ball break and setting himself up for a clean sweep through the game. There was no world in which some "world-changing create-the-future" lifestyle, would have felt as much of a glove fitting his hand to him, as this did. And it is no great loss for the world that he found the glove that fits his hand. It's not like the strip mall would have become an American retail empire rivaling Amazon, if only he had spent his nighttime hours working on the mall instead of on his life passion.

For comparison, probably most of the people in the bottom 10% performance bracket at Google are being told and pressured "you need to do more, more, more, you're gonna get fired if you keep those low numbers up" and at 180k employees, that amounts to 18k people that, unlike top chess players, probably _could_ flourish and do better in some smaller scrappier company, but because America doesn't have a social safety net to speak of, they feel like "well I got the dream 6-figure job, I better hold onto that until my knuckles are white because if I got fired, Bay Area rent and cost-of-living could bankrupt me in 3 months." And that's literally just one megatech company, not even talking about the world of people Graeber argues are doing "bullshit jobs" etc. etc.

vunderba2• 2 years ago

Yawn. This banal criticism has been leveled against chess and really the pursuit of any game since the dawn of recreational activities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Morphy

screye• 2 years ago

Disagree, but I have a funny anecdote in your favor.

My university's top Dota player was a 2.x GPA slacker who did nothing but play games all day. Guy was going to continue wasting-away by going to a mediocre foreign grad school, but he got his admit revoked because of stupid visa reasons.

Life hits him in the face and for 1 year, he quits dota and studies. Goes in, bags 99.99 percentile score in exam with 300k applicants and ends up at my country's HBS. That's the power level dota was holding back.

To be fair, a team of chess grand-masters tried to form a dota team once, and got destroyed. So maybe dota is harder. Speaking from personal experience, I haven't done anything in life that's as all consuming, rewarding or as destructive as dota.

Don't do Dota kids. Try drugs.

kllrnohj2• 2 years ago

Chess is different from sports in only one way: the loss of very intelligent capable people who could be helping to create the future.

Being good at chess does not mean you're "very intelligent". Most of the top players are good at chess because they are very good at memorization & pattern recognition, those are the actual abilities of a high level chess player. Does that translate into other intellectual pursuits like theoretical physics or math? Not really.

Grandmasters aren't going to be dumb by any stretch of the imagination, but they aren't super-intelligent geniuses, either.

monooso8• 2 years ago

There's no reason to imagine that a talent for chess equates with a talent for "creating the future."

It's also worth noting that very few people make a living from playing chess, so they're probably still available for your future plans.

smolder• 2 years ago

Okay, let's say we built the future to your satisfaction, and then what? We would probably play games. How much future do you need to build before it's okay to enjoy your time alive immersed in trivialities?

ANewFormation5• 2 years ago

This really misses the key drama of what happened in the last game.

Ding had a perfectly safe position where he could try to squeeze Gukesh pretty much endlessly with basically 0 risk. He then, completely inexplicably, went down a forced line which led to the final phase of the game.

In this phase the position was drawn with perfect play, but that is completely irrelevant because it is really tough to play. And more importantly in this phase, Gukesh was the side pressing to win with all sorts of interesting ideas. Ding, by contrast, left himself in a position where he's now going to be tortured for hours, has 0 chance of winning, and a single lapse of concentration means you lose. And that's exactly what happened.

Engine evals are really misleading in these sort of positions because it says it's completely equal, which it objectively is, but white/Ding will lose that position with some degree of regularity, while black/Gukesh had 0 losing chances. So in practical terms equality is not really correct.

tomatovole• 2 years ago

Is there a metric I can look at in engine evaluations to determine when a situation is "risky" for white or black (e.g., the situation above) even if it looks equal with perfect play?

I've always been interested in understanding situations where this is the case (and the opposite, where the engine favours one side but it seems to require a long, hard-to-find sequence of moves.

Playing out the top lines helps if equality requires perfect play from one side.

systemvoltage• 2 years ago

Chess engines should come with another metric bar: "The twitchy-ness" of the position aka the gradient of primary eval metric as you pareto the possible moves from best to worst. The stronger this gradient, the more risky it is to play, and more changes to make a mistake.

xmprt• 2 years ago

Not the mention the time trouble that Ding left himself in once again. This time Gukesh ended with almost a full hour over Ding. When you put yourself in a tough position, no matter how drawish it is in theory, you need to have enough time to figure out the ideas of the position and with only 10 minutes left and 30 seconds per move, you might slip up and make a quick move when you really needed to think harder.

jeremyjh3• 2 years ago

Yes and I think losing in this way is the most fair result. Ding has gone for a draw in every game where the score was tied, even with white (the first game, which he won as black was just a gift from Gukesh). Today, once again with white he could have pressed the position and played for more. Instead he sacrificed a pawn to play for a draw, and had the more difficult game to play even if it was always 0s. If he'd tried to play for a win today, almost certainly it would have been a draw anyway.

While I was really happy to see Ding's fighting spirit in this match, and to have recovered much of his former strength, I've been rooting for Gukesh since around the half-way point just because Ding has not been playing superior positions for a win. I just don't think thats how a champion plays, even if its a sound strategy to try to win in tie-breaks.

hmm372• 2 years ago

It's strange/crazy because Ding even purposefully even gave up his B pawn, just so he could exchange queens and be in a 3 and 2 pawn game with a bishop and rook still in the game. Gukesh just tried playing out the game to the last second making easy moves while Ding suffered.

moi2388• 2 years ago

But in the last game it wasn’t about engine evaluation. It was a move that within 2 moves led to a known lost endgame..

hilux14• 2 years ago

I disagree completely. In the eyes of some modern fans, the popularity of engines and eval bars has reduced chess to an intellectual and computational exercise. It's too easy to say "bad moves" and "blunder" when Stockfish is giving you all the answers!

In reality, chess is a fighting contest between two flesh-and-blood humans. And that's what we see throughout this exciting match, and in this final game.

Gukesh won because of his greater fighting spirit throughout the match, which is as it should be. (Similar to how Ding played the daring move ...Rg6 in the final game of his match against Nepo.)

benatkin6• 2 years ago

That isn't how most appreciate sports. People are hoping for the contenders to be at the top of their game towards the end of the championships. Nobody says "Hey, at least this has a human touch! I'm sick of basketball video games." if the NBA finals are relatively boring one year.

I think maybe "that was a absolutely horrible finish" got interpreted as saying that the win wasn't well earned. That's not how I saw it at all.

manojlds• 2 years ago

imaginative computer preparation by both sides

There was almost no preparation from Ding side. It was very weak.

nanoxide• 2 years ago

I have little interest in chess and no real knowledge in its current events beyond mainstream media coverage, but always enjoy lively writeups of the matches like this one.

itsoktocry• 2 years ago

I don't know much about chess, but this sounds like a downright unpredictable, exciting finish.

fullwaza• 2 years ago

What a great breakdown, nicely done. You should be a chess commentator if you aren't already!

JshWright• 2 years ago

After 14 games of 4+ hours each It had gone from being a dead draw with him a big favourite in tie breaks to all over in a few seconds.

_Very_ casual chess follower here. Why was Ding a big favorite in the tie breaks? My takeaway from the match was that Ding seemed to always be worse on time, so wouldn't a shorter time control favor Gukesh?

joshuamorton• 2 years ago

Ding is rated over 100 points higher in rapid than Gukesh. The choice to spend time early was a choice by Ding and Ding's team. Ding is better at faster time controls than Gukesh, Gukesh was better prepared.

Miraste• 2 years ago

The World Chess Championship uses rapid and blitz matches (much shorter time controls) for tie breaks. Gukesh is 46th in the world in rapid, and 82nd in blitz. Ding is 2nd and 6th.

binarymax• 2 years ago

My best guess is he started feeling some time pressure and really wanted to trade for a clear draw, but crucially miscalculated the tempo and position of the K vs KP ending.

I'm not a grandmaster though, so I can only vaguely speculate since that's how I would have lost :)

kopirgan2• 2 years ago

All of sudden = time pressure brought on by opponent.

bothandeach• 2 years ago

Put yourself in Ding's place. OMG

ErigmolCt5• 2 years ago

That said, Gukesh deserves credit for keeping the pressure on in a seemingly drawn position

MrMcCall15• 2 years ago

Wow. What a match. Been watching with my son, a chess lover since we started watching the Magnus-Fabi match. Now, my son loves his chess club and has retired me from playing :-)

Two thoughts:

1) Gukesh took Ding into the deep water the entire time. Few people realize how draining chess is, especially at that level for this time control. It's beyond gruelling. Only programming is more difficult ;-)

2) Gukesh had an extraordinary advantage. His mental health and resilience over the course of the match were a testament to it. And, then, his graciousness, thankfulness, and humble joy demonstrated the Way. It was That which Gukesh first thanked in his post-match interview with GM Mo. It was how he first began each game.

And That was the difference. That said, being 18 didn't hurt either :-)

chairmansteve• 2 years ago

"Only programming is more difficult....". Programming is definitely easier for me. In chess, my ego gets in the way. I hate to lose.

BurningFrog2• 2 years ago

Programming is easy. There is no opponent!

linguistbreaker• 2 years ago

Writing good prose can be similarly taxing.

MrMcCall15• 2 years ago

It all depends upon the problems you are solving, and they are only bounded by your own creativity.

ErigmolCt5• 2 years ago

That sense of gratitude and respect for the game and his opponent

nomilk2• 2 years ago

I was struck by Ding's thoughtfulness, objectivity and humility when asked how he felt after the match (while clearly utterly dejected):

How do you feel?
I think I played my best tournament of the year. I think it was a fair tournament in the end. I have no regrets.
Any message for fans?
Thank you, I will continue to play, I hope I can show strength like this time.

Gukesh was equally as objective, humble, and gentlemanly in victory.

These attributes are what makes chess and its superstars so appealing.

MrMcCall15• 2 years ago

Absolutely.

Nepo and Magnus seem to be cut from a different cloth, although Magnus has never had a moment where he could demonstrate whether or not he can be humble, because he has always just crushed.

Anish Giri kind of took a shot at Magnus (with respect to his retiring from classical chess) in his early commentary with Petr Leko a few days ago. People are funny, and one doesn't usually get to be where Ding and Gukesh are without having a bit of an edge to their personality. That's what makes Ding and Gukesh so special to me.

ignoramous• 2 years ago

You are quite the Chess enthusiast; I enjoy reading your comments!

robertlagrant2• 2 years ago

Everyone looks humble compared to Hans, though.

ummonk• 2 years ago

Magnus doesn't usually direct his frustration at others (except in the infamous Hans Niemann game) but he has been known to storm out of interviews after some of his bad losses.

darepublic2• 2 years ago

Magnus described Ding's abilities as a 4/10 in the lead up to the match. In match commentary he regularly called the games "baffling" (as in baffingly bad) and regularly said they weren't strong grandmaster calibre. He is definitely very conceited and resents not being the world champion, even if it's only because of his absence.

ErigmolCt5• 2 years ago

It’s a testament to their character

rob74• 2 years ago

These attributes are what makes chess and its superstars so appealing.

I would say that what you just described is usually called "sportsmanship" and is pretty common in most sports (with exceptions of course, but at least most would agree that it's an ideal worth aspiring to)

cenamus2• 2 years ago

A lot of exceptions sadly. But with the amount of neuroticism you see with top athletes that's to be expected I suppose

dudeinjapan• 2 years ago

Gukesh then added: “You can’t hook the rook, you can’t fight the knight, black or white, I am the GREATEST OF ALL TIME! Which one of you punks is NEXT?”

tugu772• 2 years ago

Not when Hans or Hikaru are playing.

darepublic2• 2 years ago

Chess and its superstars are often anything but humble and modest. Magnus Carlsen's commetary for this match was riddled with derogatory statements. since he wanted to sit out this championship he should be gracious and respectful toward the players who fought for the title in his stead but he has been anything but that.

nomilk2• 2 years ago

The interview (quotes at 2m10s; watching from 0m33s captures more emotion/context):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmYAvrJjWsY&t=33s

animal531• 2 years ago

I'm not a constant follower of chess and only see events now and then, but its great to see some new faces on the block.

ErigmolCt5• 2 years ago

I think this mutual respect between players is what elevates chess beyond just a game

register4• 2 years ago

Ding's was not objective neither thoughful, Ding was completely melted down after the interview and the interview was a reflection of that. Chess is a drawn game and the gist of playing chess is to be more resilient, blunder less and exploit as many of the chances you got in your game. Matches and games are won exactly because the opponent doesn't make the best of his chances. This is the cruel nature of the game. A player like Carlsen, Karpov , Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand, Topalov or any other world champion would have felt entitled to win the last game playing White after Gukesh missed a crucial chance to close the match the game before. But no, Ding played to draw and swap pieces even when he had the initiative in the 14th game. And he lost the game with a club player blunder because he still insisted on exchanging pieces when down a pawn. It's basic knowledge that pawn endgames are decisive and you have always to calculate them exactly when entering one, that when one is down material he has to exchange pawns but not pieces, and that in general rook endgames are slighly easier to play than pawn endgames. Any master would have insisted on shuffling the rook and would have never thinked of exchanging pieces in that situation. The fact that he exchanged the rook is a reflection of Ding's terrible form.

saagarjha• 2 years ago

TIL there are armchair quarterbacks for chess

ludston3• 2 years ago

I reckon Ding would probably beat you in chess, even if you had 2 hours and he only had 10 minutes.

hu3• 2 years ago

Did Magnus not compete?

N-Krause• 2 years ago

No, he did not compete in the last one either.

I suspect, the results would have been different if he had.

CSMastermind• 2 years ago

No, he retired from the championship circuit last year which is why Ding was champion in the first place.

He had concerns over the format and FIDE was unwilling to make changes.

We're in a bit of a weird spot in chess right now because Magnus is still the consensus best player even though he's not the official champion.

dentemple• 2 years ago

To add a little more color... Magnus, in recent years, has been expressing his dislike for chess under classical time controls, seeing it as a battle of prep vs prep at the SuperGM level rather than skill vs skill. He doesn't seem to be enthusiastic about doing that prep anymore, and that seems to have been a factor in his decision to no longer fight for the WC title.

elevatedastalt• 2 years ago

No, he has been expressing his dislike for the format of the WCC. He has no major issues with Classical time controls.

mythz• 2 years ago

I enjoyed the entire match and was surprised to see Ding putting up such a good fight given his poor form going into the match and Gukesh's great form after leading India to gold at the Olympiads.

Ding was inconsistent at times but had moments of brilliance where he played like an engine, unfortunately he also exhibited poor time management throughout the match and failed to capitalize on his chances where he instead seemed content to play for draws whereas Gukesh would take every opportunity to play on, even when it would require taking a slight disadvantage.

Unfortunately the last game was lost more than it was won, as Ding was looking for every chance to draw where he gave up a pawn in order to trade queens and a pair of rooks to go into an equal pawn down end game, which he eventually blundered under time pressure. It's a common sentiment in chess that to get a draw you have to play for a win, ultimately Gukesh's tenacity to keep games going and applying constant pressure eventually rewarded him as history's youngest Chess World Champion.

tech_ken• 2 years ago

Why would you spoil match 14 for me like this T_T

coldpie• 2 years ago

You're not the first to say this here, and I've been trying to think if there's a good solution to the problem. The headline could be something like, "Chess world championship winner declared." But I'll be honest, I probably wouldn't have clicked on it without the "youngest" hook, which is exactly the problem you're talking about. I don't know. Tough problem :)

SubiculumCode2• 2 years ago

The solution is to stay off the computer, or at least news websites. Sports scores always get pushed into your face from unexpected locations

wavemode2• 2 years ago

I empathize. The first thing I did when I opened my eyes this morning was watch a recap of the game, since I knew something somewhere (social media, reddit, youtube, etc) would probably have a headline that would spoil it.

SubiculumCode2• 2 years ago

So does Magnus unretire?

papercrane• 2 years ago

I don't think so. He's still active, he just wants to play tournaments and not championships.

krishnasangeeth• 2 years ago

IMHO Gukesh is a great role model for everyone. Determination and humility shining right through. Though I really like Ding, it just felt that Gukesh was pushing more for a win in all the games and probably deserve this slightly more.

Now hope that Magnus comes back into Candidates and we we have a Gukesh vs Magnus match in 2026.

vlovich1233• 2 years ago

The way that the game has been played and FIDE ignoring his feedback about format makes me think that’s unlikely. Magnus has been fairly critical about the quality of play in many games and that the play has been boring. He’s also talked about the importance of making space for the next generation of talent to have something to strive for because of how dominant he still is.

univalent• 2 years ago

Two of the most humble, kind, professional players. And a great match.

epolanski3• 2 years ago

It's quite surprising what the brain can do to people under stress.

Everybody, even chess amateurs knew that the rook trade was a blunder instantly, yet pressure can play such terrible jokes.

amrrs• 2 years ago

It was quite sad to see Ding lose at the end. But it's been a very tough year and half or so. Precisely since he won the championship.

I was quite sad at the way some very top players spoke of him.

But the way he came back and almost took the game to tie breaks was unbelievable as a Ding fan.

At the end of the day, it's generational shift that chess is witnessing.

Almost written in destiny that it all started with candidates about how Alireza played against Gukesh and where it is now!

offbymuch• 2 years ago

Remarkable to watch the reactions in real-time, of both players and fans from India at the moment the decisive move is played. https://www.youtube.com/live/5-uuDuGQLQA?t=14497s.

Only started following chess due to the covid shutdowns, much for fun from a fans point of view than I had imagined it would be. Having the computer evaluation at the side really helps novices like me to know what's going on, interestingly a case of superior computer players helping as mere mortals to appreciate the game.

silveira• 2 years ago

Wow. Thanks for this links. This is amazing.

gwd• 2 years ago

Wow, that's a really fun video -- thanks!

roughly2• 2 years ago

That’s a fantastic video - to see both of them see it in real time is incredible. The visible emotion from both is really something.

zeven7• 2 years ago

I used to watch a lot of Go. I watched live as Lee Sedol beat AlphaGo in one single game in the last match a human could feasibly compete against AI. Against all odds, and knowing AI had overtaken us, Lee Sedol found a move to get one last victory. [1]

But I never saw anything like the crowd hype from the clip you posted, lol. This was next level in terms of the energy in the room. Very fun, thanks for sharing!

[1] https://youtu.be/mzZWPcgcRD0

le-mark• 2 years ago

The winning move is at 4:01:45 for anyone looking (like I was).

svat2• 2 years ago

Just curious: The comment you're replying to had the link with timestamp 4:01:38 which is basically just before the move happens; is that not enough as it is?

dyauspitr6• 2 years ago

The reactions were my favorite part because I can barely follow the actual chess.

ErigmolCt5• 2 years ago

Watching the live reactions from both players and fans is always such a powerful part of these events

deadbabe• 2 years ago

Must be amazing getting started off in life with such an amazing title out of the gate

fernandopj3• 2 years ago

He didn't become a Master yesterday to say "out of the gate", in his eyes he's been playing chess seriously for "all" of this life, and professionally for half of it.

It's a weird thing to say to someone who overcame so much while still young. He wasn't given anything "out of the gate".

neofrommatrix2• 2 years ago

You should read about the amount of sacrifices he and his parents did. Chess is very expensive if you want to be a professional and progress to the GM title.

qq666• 2 years ago

He's not "getting started," it's just that he's finished his first marathon while most 18-year-olds are just tying their shoes for their first jog

justhw• 2 years ago

Here's a really good explainer video of the blunder at the end. https://youtu.be/FJU4BXsZCvg?si=qC961oYH3wkB6Vyk&t=925

rybosworld• 2 years ago

This was a great match overall, with a very dramatic/surprising end.

But I disagree with other comments that are describing the overall championship in a favorable light.

To me, this was some of the most boring chess I've watched. Ding was certainly trying to force draws in every game, which makes for some very unexciting lines. It's been suggested that Ding felt he had better chances in rapid formats, so forcing draws makes sense in that light. But it led to some extremely uncreative chess imo.

Reminds me of many of the Magnus vs Fabi games in 2018.

stormfather4• 2 years ago

I agree! It's a shame you're being downvoted just for expressing your opinion. Come on HN, downvoting is not for expressing disagreement...

And yeah. People saying this was exciting chess are lemmings. It was absolutely not. It was yet another boring draw-fest. The format incentivizes prep and penalizes creativity and risk-taking. If my child got very good at that it would be hard to be proud. What a waste of human spirit! Why would I want to watch two extremely smart young men waste months of their lives on this for the sake of boring us? It's perverse. Let's move on to Chess960 already. THAT would be exciting.

8note7• 2 years ago

draws are plenty exciting. prep is not

sourcepluck11• 2 years ago

Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

8note7• 2 years ago

in his defending games, ding got outprepped, but then consistently outplayed gukesh while being 30min to an hour lower on time.

ding played a fanstastic prep game in one round, but it was very creative prep overall, that ding played very creative defenses for to hold to a draw

sumodm• 2 years ago

FYI: Gukesh is 18 yrs old and the youngest World Champion. He is also the 18th champion, in its 138 years history.

ken47• 2 years ago

It seems like Team Ding's strategy was to survive until tie breaks, where he would have been the favorite. Given Ding's form, they probably didn't believe he could reliably win games in classical versus an in-form Gukesh.

As such, Ding went for draws in multiple games with clearly superior positions that someone like e.g. Magnus Carlsen would have played out and won. I'm sure they regret that strategy now.

ainiriand• 2 years ago

At least they could mention the age...

veidelis• 2 years ago

First of all, I have the greatest respect for the two individuals who played their hearts out in this event.

Personally, I'm on the side which thinks that this format is a total stagnation. Maybe the new no-increment under 40 moves is an improvement, but overall it does not count. I agree with Carlsen that the format has to be drastically changed to determine who is the better player. Much more games, shorter games. Fischer said a long time ago that chess is dead. Considering how deep some of the variations go into theoretical territory, I can surely relate. Magnus has also expressed that it's very hard to find novelties. I'm also totally on the side that Fischer Random (chess 960) has to be included in this tournament. I believe that ultimately it will happen - sooner or later. Magnus also said that he thinks that his match with Caruana was of extremely high quality - those 14 games were all draws. I totally understand why Magnus didn't want to defend his title. On the other hand I can't comprehend how FIDE let this happen because a lot of people don't think of current tournament as high as they maybe should be, just because Magnus is not participating. That's a shame. Not on Carlsen, not on chess. On FIDE.

Halian• 2 years ago

I think something like game/30 would be better, but I’m not terribly edumacated on the intricacies of classical chess time controls.

MP_17292• 2 years ago

Really funny people complaining about classical chess, I don't know which games they have been watching.

Nepo Magnus game 6, Nepo Ding many many games, Nepo Caruana draw on round 14 of candidates. ALL OF THEM WERE TERRIFIC GAMES.

I don't understand what people mean by stagnation

MrMcCall15• 2 years ago

I agree, watching the World Rapid and Blitz Championships is more intense and interesting (IMO), for sure. That said, it's much more difficult for a non like me to follow those games; I can't even imagine how tiring it is for the commenters in those shorter time formats. Commenting those games is its own very specialized skillset.

stormfather4• 2 years ago

Absolutely. It would be AMAZING if no prep was possible. Memorizing engine lines 20 deep is nothing to be proud of.

monooso8• 2 years ago

That's the appeal of Chess960 / Fischer Random / Freestyle Chess / whatever they're calling it this week.

DEADMEAT• 2 years ago

I find it funny when people say it's not on Carlsen when it was entirely his decision to not compete. We already have rapid and blitz world championships that are separate. This is the classical world championship and I think the format is both exciting to watch and decently fair.

8note7• 2 years ago

of this tournament, i think magnus would have loved to play against ding, and not at all gukesh.

prep memorization remains a bit of a cheat where its your memorization and prep picking thats playing the game, rather than actually playing the game.

i think a randomly chosen "start from x position, with y time, and z increment after move c" for some 30 games over two weeks would do pretty well. Steal the formats from engine chess.

zelphirkalt• 2 years ago

I think after the performances seen in the match, it is fair to say, that Carlsen would probably have won against both of them, at some point taking the lead and they might have never evened the score after that.

stouset2• 2 years ago

Personally, I'm on the side which thinks that this format is a total stagnation.

I was with you until this WCC.

In almost every game, Gukesh took Ding out of prep extremely early. It wasn't always a success for him either! Leaving the opening book typically means you accept an objectively-worse position, but one that your opponent has to spend a significant amount of time finding the right ideas in. Even in the cases where Ding found the right idea, Gukesh put him in serous time-trouble as a result.

Yes, many of the games resulted in draws. But they were extremely sharp and imbalanced, and in virtually every game one side of the board (typically Gukesh) had a serious advantage and very strong attacking opportunities. The resulting draws were due to not finding the right ideas in time (and very likely both players psyching themselves out of the "obvious" correct move) rather than inherently boring and drawn positions.

Overall it seemed to be an extremely effective strategy for Gukesh. But it was also actually exciting to watch unlike some previous WCCs where almost every game was likely in prep through the first 20+ moves and where the resulting positions had ample drawing chances for both sides.

auc• 2 years ago

This lacks some context. Gukesh took Ding out of prep bc Gukesh prepped for 7 months, while Ding prepped for 3 weeks and basically wanted to retire from chess. Ding would be out of prep by move 8 as white and be an hour down on time very consistently.

dyauspitr6• 2 years ago

I don’t know what you’re talking about. Maybe for someone that watched every chess game all year that might be the case but I watched all 14 of these games and thought they were fantastic.

sourcecodeplz• 2 years ago

Congratulations Gukesh! Amazing run, truly living a dream.

excalibur• 2 years ago

Why would you loudly proclaim "youngest world champion in history" in the headline and then never mention his age at any point? I clicked the article specifically looking for the answer to "how old is he" and was thoroughly disappointed. Author is fired from journalism permanently.

nilslindemann3• 2 years ago

I am not happy with this result (quite the blunder deciding this match) and in general who played for the crown here. Ding is not in the top for a while now and Gukesh has rarely played in Top GM tourns. The silent champ (Magnus) is still around, winning tournaments.

"World champion" currently means "some lucky Top GM" and not "the undisputed number one".

nilslindemann3• 2 years ago

Ok, admittedly, in blitz and rapid Ding is quite close to the top.

hilux14• 2 years ago

If I follow your logic, why have a world championship cycle in any sport - chess, tennis, soccer, whatever?

We could just use the rating or ranking list.

teleforce• 2 years ago

Moral of the game, don't ever put white bishop in the white coner, or black bishop vice versa in the end game because it can be forced to sacrifice.

thom4• 2 years ago

For anyone that wants to test their mettle, the FEN of the key position in this game was:

B7/8/4b3/4kp2/5Rp1/6P1/1r6/6K1 w - - 16 55

Give yourself 10 minutes and 30 seconds increment as White and see if you can hold against Stockfish on maximum difficulty.

jedberg3• 2 years ago

Since there seem to be a lot of chess nerds in here, I have a question.

Why didn't Fischer chess ever take off? A lot of comments in here amount to "he went slightly off book and it was amazing!".

Wouldn't Fischer chess take the game to a whole new level, making it so that all the opening books are useless and the midgame requires much more improv?

MP_17292• 2 years ago

Because tradition is incredibly important.

hilux14• 2 years ago

It still might - that is an ongoing debate at the top of the chess world.

For instance, Magnus Carlsen, the world number one by rating, is a fan of Fischer chess aka Chess960.

judofyr• 2 years ago

Many different reasons:

1. The biggest one is probably that there is already so much interest and depth in regular chess. "Everyone" focuses on it, so that's what your friends know and where you can find competitions and community. This leads to a chicken-egg problem where it hard to kick it off. It's basically like another board game.

2. Some opening positions in Fischer chess are quite awkward: The pieces are on squares where it takes a while for them to come into proper play. This can make the opening phase quite unsatisfying to play. You need to make a lot of extra moves before you actually get into the interesting parts. It's not necessarily more "fun" to play this way than regular chess. There's also some positions which are much better for white (although it's on average more balanced I believe)

3. IMO, regular chess is easier for lower-rated players. The choice of openings don't matter so much (either way the game is decided by someone hanging a piece), and it's a lot easier to follow existing games. In Fischer chess it can be even harder to know "okay, what do I do?", while in regular chess there's both general principles and systems to follow. This means that most newer players keep being exposed to regular chess instead of Fischer chess.

Wouldn't Fischer chess take the game to a whole new level, making it so that all the opening books are useless and the midgame requires much more improv?

Magnus Carlsen is promoting and advocating for Freestyle Chess (same game as Fischer chess, but with different name): https://www.freestyle-chess.com/. Maybe it'll take off.

jedberg3• 2 years ago

Interesting, I read that link. It looks like they specifically call out Fischer chess: "all matches are played under Fischer-Random (Chess960) rules,"

So he really is just trying to build a tournament format around Fischer chess. That's pretty cool. I hope it takes off.

xpe2• 2 years ago

From the Wikipedia page on Chess960:

Hence, on average, a Chess960 starting position is actually 18.2% more balanced than the standard starting position.

I'm also interested in the underlying distribution (not just the average). For each of the 960 starting positions, what is known about the first-player advantage? (I'm pretty sure these would just be estimates because a full solution is still infeasible.)

kelipso11• 2 years ago

On average. Some starting positions are much less balanced than regular chess.

kelipso11• 2 years ago

I don’t like it because you can get some starting position that’s not balanced, or that one of the players has memorized the openings for. So it feels much more luck based than regular chess, whereas luck is pretty much the antithesis of what chess is all about.

bbconn• 2 years ago

Introducing: Balanced Fischer chess. Just randomly sample from the starting positions that are more balanced than regular chess.

jedberg3• 2 years ago

Luck is what makes it interesting for spectators though. :). Just like with other sports -- a lot of it is skill but there is always some luck involved.

dyauspitr6• 2 years ago

Doesn’t seem fair to have unequal starting points.

benatkin6• 2 years ago

surprised guke.sh isn't taken

Andrew_nenakhov2• 2 years ago

Just the World Champion. Youngest FIDE World Champion (the title Gukesh just won) was Ruslan Ponomaryov, at 6681 days old. Gukesh is currently 6772 days old.

(And no, we shouldn't go arguing that Ponomaryov wasn't a real champion because the indisputably best player chose not to play sometimes earlier and created all that mess, because currently we're in exactly same situation.)

kelipso11• 2 years ago

Undisputed world champion and disputed world champion are different things than someone choosing not to compete. If you can’t compete, doesn’t matter the reason or excuses you can come up with, you are just not the world champion.

Andrew_nenakhov2• 2 years ago

So if Carlsen now would start his own chess association for whatever reasons, Gukesh's title would instantly diminish? No. FIDE champion is FIDE champion, case closed.

Reason077• 2 years ago

How come Gukesh got to sit in a really tall gaming-style chair which towers above Ding’s ordinary looking chair?

To me that looks like a power move designed to intimidate the opposition. Is there a story behind it or do they just get to choose their own chairs?

sebzim4500• 2 years ago

They can pick their own chairs.

brcmthrowaway• 2 years ago

Congrats to Gukesh

Let's convert that chess knowledge to deep learning for more $

gojomo• 2 years ago

He's 18.

xiaodai• 2 years ago

Also as a great symbolism of our times: An Indian beat a Chinese. India is rising while China is already in decline.

queuebert• 2 years ago

India did invent the game (probably).

dougSF70• 2 years ago

He is considering https://chessladders.com/ sponsorship deal.

register4• 2 years ago

Worst WCC in the history of chess. I would have been able to draw the endgame in the final game myself ( 1800 FIDE ) just by shuffling the rook around. Apart from game one, Ding was a shade of his former self, and played most of the time to swap pieces even when he had the initiative.

rapfaria• 2 years ago

Yes you would, after 2 weeks of playing 4+ hour matches, knowing Gukesh was playing not to draw all along since Liren is the better player on rapid/blitz (played in case of a draw), and having 10 minutes on the clock against your opponent's 1 hour.

pedroigor91• 2 years ago

One of the worst-played matches in the history of the world championships. Both players made huge mistakes, decisive mistakes in previous matches, and a decisive mistake in this last one. What happened to Ding? Ten years ago he was playing great chess, which was a pleasure to watch. Gukesh was playing a nervous game, making mistakes by players much lower than his rating. At times it seemed like two Fide Masters playing. Terrible. Carlsen did well to give up the title, because any of the challengers for the title today would be no match for him.

dapaintrain• 2 years ago

well yeah, but only because of Magnus.

lisper• 2 years ago

Just in case anyone besides me was wondering, he's 18 (the article didn't say).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gukesh_Dommaraju

OceanBreeze77• 2 years ago

Not an expert in chess, but I heard that the uniqueness in openings were an interesting characteristic of the match. Can someone explain this to me?

barfingclouds• 2 years ago

So that’s it for Magnus Carlson’s perfect streak?

Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

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