If the Anand – Gelfand WC match goes the distance and the score is tied at 6-6, the players have to play rapid, blitz, and then Armageddon to decide the title. Here is the rule: http://moscow2012.fide.com/files/FWCM2012.pdf
How about using Fischer Random to decide the match? This would eliminate the influence of Houdini, Rybka, Stockfish, Fritz, etc. This would also eliminate 20-30-40 move deep home preparation.
It can be in rapid format if the score is still tied after 4 playoff games, they will go to sudden death mode. This means that which ever player scores first after 4 playoff games will win.
What do you think? What other ideas do you have? Time odd Armageddon does not seem to be appropriate to me. Let’s get some brilliant ideas going 🙂
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
I second that. Too much pre-analysis has spoiled the game.
Interesting, but is there a need for such a radical solution? What about a smaller tweak to the rules?
How about: Pawns can only move one square at a time
I’m not suggesting this is perfect, and any option would have its drawbacks, I’m just trying to get across the possibility of a less dramatic intervention.
Almost any change to the rules would radically diminish the influence of engines. I’d prefer to retain more of the flavour of the game as it is.
Some history:
The queen and bishop remained relatively weak until between 1475 AD and 1500 AD, in either Spain, Portugal, France or Italy, the queen’s and bishop’s modern moves started and spread, making chess close to its modern form. This form of chess got such names as “Queen’s Chess” or “Mad Queen Chess” (Italian alla rabiosa = “with the madwoman”). This led to much more value being attached to the previously minor tactic of pawn promotion. Checkmate became easier and games could now be won in fewer moves. These new rules quickly spread throughout Western Europe and in Spain, with the exception of the rules about stalemate, which were finalized in the early 19th century. The modern move of the Queen may have started as an extension of its older ability to once move two squares with jump, diagonally or straight.
Blitz and Armageddon are totally unsatisfactory.
Hi Susan Polgar,
Well,Susan how is new work environment? I hope you & your team enjoy and comfortably contribute the best to the chess world.
[Well,the above lines – may be inappropriate at this title – bear with me(your friend )].
By
Venky [ India – Chennai ]
Interesting, but is there a need for such a radical solution? What about a smaller tweak to the rules?
How about: Pawns can only move one square at a time
I’m not suggesting this is perfect, and any option would have its drawbacks, I’m just trying to get across the possibility of a less dramatic intervention.
Almost any change to the rules would radically diminish the influence of engines. I’d prefer to retain more of the flavour of the game as it is.
Some history:
The queen and bishop remained relatively weak until between 1475 AD and 1500 AD, in either Spain, Portugal, France or Italy, the queen’s and bishop’s modern moves started and spread, making chess close to its modern form. This form of chess got such names as “Queen’s Chess” or “Mad Queen Chess” (Italian alla rabiosa = “with the madwoman”). This led to much more value being attached to the previously minor tactic of pawn promotion. Checkmate became easier and games could now be won in fewer moves. These new rules quickly spread throughout Western Europe and in Spain, with the exception of the rules about stalemate, which were finalized in the early 19th century. The modern move of the Queen may have started as an extension of its older ability to once move two squares with jump, diagonally or straight.
Blitz and Armageddon are totally unsatisfactory.
I think using Fischer Random to decide the classical world championship is not a good idea. Fischer Random is a great game, but it is not classical chess. This would be like using table tennis to tie break at Wimbleton or using the baskeball game of horse to decide the NBA Championship.
Using blitz to decide a World Championship reduces the quality of games played and does not add as much to the great body of chess knowledge.
FIDE needs to find a consistent format for the World Championship such as a tournament for the top ten or twenty on a yearly performance list – instead of a challenge match of draws. No other sport does it this way.
How about having a proper Fide qualification cyle (System) built on determining who is the best challenger, instead of making it a loterry, speed games..pathetically short matches etc when someone lucks out and becomes challenger even though its terribly obvious that he’s not the greatest threat.. It’s fairly clear that if anyone else (IE anyone in the top 10) was the challelnger it would be quite a different match. Also a 12 game match is sadly short. Gelfand is all business here. All he needs to do is play it safe and draw and who knows? He may win in the rapids. Does not help that Anand is uninspired either. Black eye on Fide I think,
No. Horrible idea akin to deciding the NBA championship with a game of horse when the game is tied at the end of regulation. Just toss a coin.
Chess needs to have a format similar to Wimbleton. Each pairing will play two games. If the two games are draws, then BOTH players are eliminated as neither is superior to the other and a win is required to advance.
Messing about with the rules is silly.
here’s my suggestion.
get them wear a pair of boxing gloves and ask them to slug it out 🙂 in a boxing ring
What is needed is increase number of games from 12 to 24 and one day off after 4 games played.
This will make players more aggressive and sporty.
gi
Changing the way pawns move sounds like a pretty big tweak to the rules.
How about play 16 games and the champ keeps the title if it’s drawn?
Just play 20 or 30 minutes games one after another until one of them win a game .Thats not Blitz and is still real chess.
Play 20 or 30 minutes games until one of them win.The cant draw all life.
Thats not blitz and is still chess
lets face it…computers have changed the way top GMs prepare and play the game.
It’s time to change the WC format from matches to tournament with (say) 32 top GMs in the fray. That should take away at least some of the safety-first approach and opponent-targetted preparation.
The problem is Fischer Random is that it’s not really chess. Instead of producing at random a (non-chess) position of the pieces, wouldn’t be better that we have a (standard, known in advance) long numbered list of real chess positions (with no more than, say, 10 moves) and draw one of them at random?
The problem is less computer preparation than fear of losing as both players know that in a 12 game match one victory is all that is needed to win and one defeat is all that is needed to lose. The same thing happened in the candidates’ matches. Recall Grischuk’s rode to the semifinals.
As a consequence of the format, when playing with white neither Gelfand nor Anand is taking big chances.
The easy solution is to make the champion the first to win a 3 (or more) games. That way neither player can play it too safe and hope of winning the tournament with a single victory or in rapids. Also, since one loss would not equal defeat in such a match, the players will have less fear of losing and might play a bit more dangerously.
The only problem with the format that I suggest is that the match could go on for some time, which would create all sorts of organizational issues.
Hi,
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Kasparov the pioneer in computer-based analysis. How many of his world championships would that eliminate? Karpov & Anand would have more titles & would make Kasparov a good player, not the all-time great he is thought to be?!
The match is a sheer disappointment.
No Topalov,no Fun,no Thrill …
I’d rather see good chess than have the championship decided on a blunder in a blitz game or introducing some strange alteration of the rules. My preference would be that all games be played at 40 moves in 120 minutes, and if the score is tied after 12 games then they keep playing until someone leads by two points.
To answer “wjm”, FischerRandom would not be like “horse” in the NBA—it wouldn’t even be as adulterated as doing 4-on-4 in NHL regular-season overtime games. However, and this will answer Hernan as well, it would be better to do the “Fischer Non-Random” version, basically Bronstein’s chess plus the Fischer castling rule, as I’ve described on Hans Bodlaender’s site here.
This gives more control than the suite of positions Hernan suggests, avoids symmetry, and also gives Black just the little edge of committing last in the first 8 moves. It also seems not to exchange center pawns as quickly as the lines we’ve been seeing in this match. The players can set up classically if they wish to, and then the legal moves are the same. I think we will need to move to something like this anyway by 2030 or so.
I like the Fischer Random idea for tie breaks, but only if the 12 games are all draws, since the advantages of Fischer Random are its elimination of (most) computer preparation and reliance on pure chess thinking. If some decisive games are sprinkled into a 6-6 tie, then rapid games should be enough to put some distance between the otherwise even performances. The draws so far are a combination of excellent, deep preparation, and a relatively short (12-game) championship that does not invite risky play. I agree with Short, who suggested that the only thing that separates Anand from the truly great World Champions is that he has not been tested, through no fault of his own, in the titanic struggles of past championships where 24 or more games were played.
look who is complaining – kasparov who took a 13 move draw with white againt vlad. Karpov who was directly and shamelessly seeded to the finals. Topalov who disgraced chess with toiletgate and behaved rude with Anand and got smacked in his own place.. the KK’s played 48 games and the match was still undecided.. This is WC. Most of the games will be draws.. live with it.
Bilbao 3-1-0 scoring should be encouraged to play for win more often
OK, first, why are there tiebreaks? If the score is tied at the end the champion should retain his title because the challenger has not shown he is better. Second, its the selection process of challenger and possibly champion that needs tweaking. Why is the top Elo rated player not the challenger? Why does FIDE rank players and not use the results consistently? Why is the top Elo rated player not the champion? Recognizing (as they must) that a match between the champion and another top rated player would be much more meaningful than the present farce why did they ever devise this system. Its broke, fix it. Forget qualifying tournaments either, Bobby Fischer had to defeat the Russian conspiracy (in that he was not wrong) – Elo is the standard. If the only way to become the challenger or champion the most consistent players will be there – they are now.
I think the best solution and also the simplest and traditional is that in the case of draw, the champ retain his title.