The playoff format is 4 rapid chess games (25 minutes per player + 10 seconds increment per move).
If the score is still tied after the 4 rapid games then the players will play 2 blitz games (5 minutes per player + 10 seconds increment per move).
If the score still remains tie then a sudden death “armageddon” game (White has 6 minutes vs. Black has 5 minutes) with Black having draw odd. What that means is if the “armageddon” game ends in a draw, Black would win the World Championship.
Do you think this is fair? What system would you recommend?
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
‘What that means is if the “armageddon” game ends in a draw, Black would win the World Championship.’
This is ridiculous. Nowadays it doesn’t matter if you have Black or White.
BTW, I believe Kramnik will not play tomorrow. He still thinks game 5 should be played, so why agree to play rapid games? If he does play, he automatically accepts the loss in game 5, and he would be chanceless if he sues FIDE (in case he loses the match).
“BTW, I believe Kramnik will not play tomorrow.”
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3416
“Consistent with this standpoint Vladimir Kramnik will be playing this match, including a possible tiebreak, up to the last move under protest.”
From Hensel (Kramnik’s manager)
In case of an Armageddon game who has black?
I don’t like the tiebreak arrangement at all. Rapid chess is very different from a regular game, where you have time to think through a position. There should be 4 or 6 more regular games, perhaps after a break for a few weeks.
Not enough money to support 24 game matches? Man, they get 500 kilobucks each. Sounds like enough dough to play some more games.
the only thing I don’t see as quite fair is the rule that the black wins in a drawn game despite the fact that he has a munute less for thinking. I’d always take black with this rule.
Interestingly, they are playing blitz tiebreak rather than long games at the insistance of Kramnik.
The last time these two went to blitz tiebreak Kramnik won 2-0
This will be fun to watch.
Billy-Jack
Blitz to determine a champion? Bah. They might as well cut cards.
I think for that sudden death game there’ll be a drawing of lots, and player who wins it, can pick up his colors.
Nothing wrong with this kind of tiebreak, in my opinion. Better way to do it than tossing a coin what has been done in many contests…
Why not playing Roulette, as in Smyslov-Huebner (candidates 1983). It has nothing to do with chess, but who cares?
Regardless of what anyone says, Kramnik will play and there are 500,000 “reasons” he will play. Literally ($500,000.00). He may forfeit game 5 but he won’t forfeit $500,000 by refusing to play.
That’s why I got a kick out of all of his fans that say oh he’s the big man for playing and he is a hero for not withdrawing…
BLAH!
He loses 500 grand if he quit and that’s why he didn’t.
The best news could be:
when shall these two great players meet again with such arrangements by the organizers that neither one can disturb the concentration of the other by any unnormal behaviour or allegations based on such behaviour.
I’d like to hear a GM’s take on this. Is having white and an extra minute on the clock really a significant advantage to the degree that a draw for black is as good as a win?
I’d dare to say that can only be answered on a per-game basis. Each player will have better knowledge of different positions in each new game they play, so there is so much chance involved in this… I can see why they call it “Armageddon”. It’s totally chaotic!
A blitz game to define a champion?
I imagine either one winning a queen and not having enough time to make a mate. Can have a heart attack, after all.
Not sure even if rapid chess is right here.
Play 30 minute games until one player obtains a two point lead. J P
Play 30 minute games until one player obtains a two point lead. J P
Any title won by a victory in a game of Blitz is merely a Blitz title, not a proper long time control title.
Gene Milener
http://CastleLong.com/
I think this is a pretty good system.
They are only playing this because one person could not prove an advantage over the other.
I think it would have been better to have more rapid games for two days – 8 games or so would be more to my taste.
I don’t like the final blitz.
No, this is not a fair system. Basically, it throws out the previous 12 games, and now the World Champion is decided by games of speed chess. This is not fair at all.
there needs to be a quick tiebreak. like sudden death in football. this would be less an issue if there was an annual world championship like the super bowl.
The match ended in a draw.
Now we go to the tiebreak system.
End of story
A Twelve game match is long enough to determine the better player. If tied after twelve games I have no problems with four games of 25 10. This is plenty of time to have quaility games. But 5 10 and armageddon is unexceptable.
6:5 armageddon seems not to be even as 5:4 armageddon.
should be 5:4 minutes
Declare them co-champions. Then unification will be complete.
Then, have Kasparov play both of them (like the old consultation games…)
I’m surprised FIDE didn’t already propose this.
It does not matter… If Topolov wins as a result of the Toilet we will still have two world champions. There will be those that recognize Kramnik and those that recognize Topolov. Whatever Topolov wins it won’t be the undisputed World Championship… and we can thank Danilov for that. The best result now is to hope for a Kramnik victory that will unify the titles. Otherwise the issue still needs to be settled.
Hey…who is playing white tomorrow for the rapid game ?? and white for Blitz ?? Is a toss going to decide ??
That the WC be decided by rapid games is just further proof of the sad state of international chess. The whole concept is nonsense, and would never have been proposed or accepted at any time in history except recently. What do rapid chess games have to do with the chess crown? Rapid games are to serious chess what romance novels are to Tolstoy.
Ok…but who is playing white first ?? toss again ??
They should settle this with pistols at 20 paces. That way we would end up with an undisputed world champion.
It’s amazing that at least half of the people who said “Not a good system” didn’t propose an alternative.
The alternative of playing more classical games doesn’t work. They could play 16, 24, or 100 games, and still be tied. (Just look it up: tied 24-game matches are quite possible.)
You could have more rapid games, but you still need to have blitz if they’re still tied after rapid, and you still need armageddon if they’re still tied after blitz.
I’ve heard some comments that 6/5 armageddon is too much of an advantage for the Black player, and some say that you need 7/5 for it to be truly an even proposition.
The problem is letting the match participants decide conditions. A long standing dangerous precedent.
The FIDE should set the conditions as final w/o discussion. In the world series of baseball, do the teams dictate the conditions to the MLB? Of course not. Nor should the players in chess.
Its fair because neither side has a say and that’s how its done in all true sports.
When Chess is ready to become a sport, it will start acting like one.
Oh yeah, try not showing up for a game and threatening to sue if you get your well deserved forfeit lol.
howz about:
games played at regulation time controls until a single victory decides; colors are randomly chosen at game time (that’s where the element of chance comes in); this is, at least slow Chess, not speed; and it’s not roulette; and will this lead to a 40 draw fiasco? – remember, just ONE victory decides, and the element of chance could give a single player multiple whites, but there would be no way to prepare for this.
I don’t know – not great; just a thought; again, not perfectly fair, but as said above, both players would have lost the opportunity to win the match under perfectly equal conditions in regulation time.
Dan G.
The point is moot, both players agreed to the tiebreaker system!
How many trips to the potty will krapnik be able to make in such short games?
how about 12 games of chess with classical time controls? instead of 11 and a farce?
The first-move advantage in chess is relevantly similar to the server’s advantage in tennis. Therefore a “deuce” rule (as J.P. suggests, above) should be used. Also, blitz and armageddon are inappropriate ways to decide a world championship. “Rapid” games with a deuce rule could in theory go on forever, but in practice it would end quickly.
Why not saw champ retains title if its a draw? why play rapid and blitz ?
– Vinay
(Of course, who knows who is the current champion 🙂 )
Rapid, Blitz, armageddon – everything that helps Toppi to become a “classical chess champion” is righteous.
Topalov is to classical chess champion
as
Britney Spears is to classical vocalist 😉
I understand the objection to blitz games being too fast but if they are going to use blitz games, why just two? Why not 20 or 30 blitz games.
Sure some will be error filled. But if you look at history, most if not all of the really top players in the past 50 years were also top blitz players: Tal, Petrosian, Spassky, Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov, Korchnoi, Stein, etc.
I don’t like blitz or rapid tiebreaks and would never play in a tourny with them. Blitz chess and classical chess are two different games. Having a blitz tiebreak is like playing baseball to decide a cricket match.
The world chess championship should not be determined by blitz.
I personally almost never play OTB blitz because it’s frustrating for me, and I learn nothing from it (unlike casual internet blitz where I at least have a record of the game). I was once suckered into a blitz tiebreak at a sorry tourny. I don’t intend to let that happen again.
Die hard 4: Tomorrow , not in cinemas but on internet!
This damned 5th game would have be so distrubing till the end…;oX
Of course there is enough money to support a long 24 game matches. A good start is to play game 5. Otherwise FIDE will be poor after a court stands on Kramnik’s side.
I’d prefer a rematch, if it was feasible. If we maintain that there is a difference between classical and rapid chess, mixing them up cannot be correct.
Hello All,
I do not believe that any form of Blitz or rapid chess should be utilized to determine the true World Champion.
However, this is the case and we must attempt to be Stoic about it!
Whomever might win tomorrow, it is better for the Chess world to accept that person and let his fiasco pass into history.
There will, in fact, quite soon be another world title match. There is nothing to fear.
It is now time to try (though, reading so many nasty toned blogs, I doubt many have the intellectual capability to go beyond what a Neanderthal had…of course, that might insult Neanderthals) to NOT LET ONE’S EMOTIONS RULE THEIR LOGIC!
And for all the “anoms” out there…don’t insult GM Susan Polgar! She is our games greatest ambassador. How dare anyone to insult her as has been done in some of the “anon” posts!
My word might not matter. Yet, she has done nothing but GOOD for our game!!! I’m sick of the negative posts and I cannot imagine how she can read these and continue to keep such an objective and happy attitude.
This shows that she dearly loves chess. Being a Professor of History, I can say this…
GM Susan Polgar’s name and record will be known in 150 years. For those that want to insult and degrade…ask yourself…where will your name be?
I doubt you’ll have the mental capacity to fathom what the future might be like.
GM Polgar is America’s Queen of Chess. She hosts this site volunarily and doesn’t get rich from it. She does it FOR US!
I read some posts and notice that the majority are wonderful chess loving people. However, there are those few who just want to insult.
I hope that, regardless of whose “side” one takes in the current World Title Match, we all salute GM Susan Polgar for going to bed so late and getting up so early, for who?
FOR US..the FANS!
This is dedication.
GM Polgar, I sincerely thank you for your efforts. You are a hero to many. I hope that you don’t let some of the negative posts bother you.
I come to this site almost each day just to see what’s new in chess. GM Polgar ensurs that we’re up to date. Plus, she cares about the next generation of chess players!!
There are, I think, many whom would agree with me when I say: Thank you GM Susan Polgar for being there each day for chess fans. You make a difference in people’s lives.
I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I hope, someday, you’ll read this.
But you are a professional and very busy.
Keep up the excellent work!
Respectfully,
Timothy Harris, Ph.D.
Hello, Mr. dcax, I see you’re back and enjoying the games. I agree about game 5. It’s a shame that it is now occupying our thoughts and haunting every chess site out there. My solution: maybe we should now play game 5 as the tie break…Kramnik gets the color he would have had and if he wins…it’s over. If not…we play the play offs and Armageddon game, if needed. This is the easiest solution for FIDE, Kramnik, Topalov, and the chess world in general.
About fairness of rapid play and blitz? I don’t know about game quality at that speed, but it’s basically the same. The player who makes the most inaccuracies, bad moves, and blunders…looses. Just as in the longer time control, except it is at a faster pace. It’s the Armageddon game I have trouble with. White has to win…or he looses. That not fair, but it is one way to solve a tied game.
>>Of course there is enough money to support a long 24 game matches. A good start is to play game 5. Otherwise FIDE will be poor after a court stands on Kramnik’s side.
Which court would that be? The one where the contracts are valid and based in Kalmykia where the president of FIDE is also the president of the country?
Or sue in whatever country you feel like and think that it will have an effective juristiction?
Whoever wins will be just champion of blitz chess not a true standard game chess. The purpose of this Championship was to unify the chess titles. To do this it must result in a champion everyone will recognize. However due to the inept handling of the match by FIDE we can no longer hope for that.
———————-
ebooks here
Penalty shootout..not nice
grandslam tennis tie break
…not nice
golf two hole play off..
not nice
chess tie break..not nice
BUT IT WORKS….
Of course this match has to end with the Armagedon game. What could be more appropriate?
I predict that either:
1) Mad time scramble at the end. Kramnik will have a completely winning position, with mate in 1 or 2, and he will lose on time.
2) Kramnik will mistakenly offer a draw with white and lose the match.
3) Topalov will have white, position will be a dead draw, but black will lose on time. (Can the arbiter declare a draw if the position is a dead draw? How dead? What if neither side has enough material to mate? We need answers!)
They should fight to the death (in the bathroom of course).
Chessplayers, or moreseo chess fans, get too caught up in debating who is the “true” world champion. Sports which have achieved popular and commercial success focus more on having a fair championship process, that is entertaining, dramatic and is held with a regularity that builds momentum for the sport. The classical portion of this contest between Kramnik & Topolav ended in a tie .. now we go to tie-breaks. This is exactly what happens in other sports. And if the equality continues, there is the potential of 3 levels of granularity of tie-breaks. If it gets down to the armageddon game, that just means that the winner has won the title by the slimest of margins .. but it will be a fair victory.
It’s clearly an idiot system. Instead they could do the following :-
1st day – 2 four hour games in one day.
(Rest Day?!)
2nd day – 4 two hour games in one day
(Rest Day?!)
3rd day – 8 one hour games in one day
(Rest Day?!)
4th day – 16 30 minute games in one day
The above times are approximate total length of games.
And so on. Only play the 2nd day, if the first day is equal, and so on.
MJW
Blitz is as bad as penalty shoot outs in football, if not worse. It’s not serious chess.
As things are now 6-6=Draw
Now Tiebreak…
One Winner=the End
Potty Breaks Permitted
I suppose this arrangement has been negotiated in advance and as such the Players should abide by the procedure. Personally I fail to understand how it is possible to determine a Champion of a Game if you change the Nature of the Game.
Having enjoyed being here to experience this Match up until this point, it is The Game of Chess, which is important to me. So I don’t care so much who wins as much as I do that there is a Unified Title, so that future Tournaments will resume a historical and traditional format.
I hoped Topalov would win in the classical 12 games. It is well known that he is not a good blitzer 🙁
Can you imagine that the tournaments with Kasparov and Karpov had been decided with blitz games?? (just to give an example) maybe some would have liked that..(Campomanes maybe?) yes, those were very long championships,but at the end the entertainment was real chess..not just the flipping of a coin.
Chess should be like volleyball. Play to a certain agreed upon score but must win by 2 points so there’s a clear win (not just end while one is in the lead by 1 pt).
Yes, long matches. No other way to accurately select a true champion.
Turning the game to blitz is like deciding the superbowl by an extra quarter of arena football. Yeah its still a football but….
Is this system fair, Susan asks? Well, yes. If both players agree to it, and it’s equitable, then certainly it’s fair.
Is it *desirable*? That’s a totally different question. To decide the Classical title with a Rapid playoff is not desirable (who cares how the meaningless FIDE title is decided?)
On the other hand, this way is certainly better than coin flips, roulette wheels, one-potato-two-potato, and other methods used to tiebreak candidates matches in the past.
What would be better? I like the method used in the 1950 Bronstein-Boleslavsky match. Sudden Classical Death. Keep playing. Next person to win a game wins the match. One single game. No best of 2 mini-matches. To keep it from going on too long, have play every single day, with no rest days and no time-outs. Next win takes it.
American football plays a sudden death period .. first team to score wins. Football (soccer) has the penalty kick shoot out. Tennis uses a tie-break game. Golf goes to extra holes. Baseball uses extra innings. It’s all the same. If the contest is tied after the “regulation” event, you accept the fact that the competitors are equals under that structure, and go to an alternate format to break the tie. It’s fair!
It seems that a “sudden death” approach would be best. Playing classical time controls until one player wins a game would make the most sense. Of course folks seem to lack the patience for such a potentially long process. Maybe Karpov/Kasparov 1984/1985 soured folks on the idea of an interminable series of long games. But then this title isn’t “Classical World Chess Champ”. It’s just “World Chess Champ”.
Even so, it seems unfair to say that one side wins in case of a tie. (Hmm.. that sounds like an oxymoron.) Why not use a “sudden death” approach and play rapid games until one player wins? You could limit it to 4 games/day and it still wouldn’t take long for someone to win just one game.
Yeah, just like Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Last man standing takes it all. Go ahead, make my day!
“They should settle this with pistols at 20 paces. That way we would end up with an undisputed world champion.”
Actually, in a way, a rapid tie break is fitting. It provides a knock-out flavor to a traditional championship match.
In case of a tie after 12 standard title games, in which no clear champion (winner) emerges, superiority in another venue of chess, blitz will determine the victor.
>>Really? There were two matches? Last I heard the 1 match decides both titles, however empty and meaningless the recently created ‘classical’ title may be.
>>
Then you haven’t been paying attention the last few days.
Or the last hundred years either, if you think the Classical Title is newly created.
There was only one match, but two titles up for grabs. Ideally, one person should have ended up with them both, if Kirsan hadn’t screwed them up by breaching his contract for Game 5 and taking the Classical Title off the table.
Kramnik already said in his last press release that he wouldn’t recognize a title change based on the forfeit. No point crying about it.
I’ve asked this question all day and not had one single taker: If you think a loser should be considered the winner just because FIDE says so, then how come you didn’t recognize FIDE’s forfeit of Kasparov in 1993? Don’t dodge the question, think about it until you have some kind of answer.
The Battle for the Classical title has concluded. Topalov loses. Tomorrow’s tiebreak is ONLY for the FIDE title. If FIDE doesn’t like it, maybe they’ll take Kramnik to court.
I was thinking long and hard about a fair way to decide a chess match. Here are my thoughts about this issue:
1. In such an intellectual activity, why couldn’t two person be equally good, but better than anybody else? I don’t think it would be far fetched, that after a certain number of games, if the score is equal, declare both players the best (world champion, etc.)
2. If the above is not acceptable, and most chess players feel that rapid and blitz is not the same as traditional long chess:
The underlying principle is that players are given a certain amount of time to think. I don’t know how and why the 2 hours for 40 moves became some kind of standard, but wherever it originates from, it is an artificial construct. Therefore I don’t feel that it would fundamentally against some basic principle, againt the very nature of chess to have more time, or less. So, how about the following system:
The first 12 games would be played under the classical time rules. If there is a winner by the 12th game, it is over. If not, then in each of the following games the amount of alloted time would decrease by 10 minutes during the first 2 hours, 5 minutes in the following 1 hour, 2.5 minutes during the current “last 30 minutes”, until it is down to 10,5,2.5 and that would be the shortest game.
Either player achieving a 2 point advantage over the other, would win the match (from the 13th game on).
While it sounds a bit complicated, such system would achieve a gradual transition from classical chess to blitz allowing the better classical chess player with a quicker mind to prevail, before it turns into real blitz. Yet, it would prevent a many month long marathon, like one of the Kasparov-Karpov match was.
The idea may be refined, try to follow the basic concept.
Gabor
From game 13 to 24, in each and every game the amount of time would be decreased by 1/12th.
In the previous post the last 2 lines below my name is an error
Gabor
I hate that something as valuable and precious as Chess World’s Championship is being decided by fast games. I do not like it at all. The chess tradition began in 1866 by Steinitz and going all the way to Kramnik when he beat Kasparov is being made a mockery of. Also, it angers me that in over the board play Kramnik proved to be Topalov’s superior still by +3 -2 =5. The coward and cheat Topalov is keeping the forfeit win began by his horrid behavior after game 4. I hope other organizers ban him and his manager from chess events for one year even though they said two years but I think this is too harsh. Topalov is an exciting player and I love his games, he just did not prove to me or the rest of the chess world to be a World Champion yet since he did not beat Kramnik in real slow games this match. I wish he was man enough to admit defeat and not hope to win it by luck and not skill. I hope Kramnik wins even in rapid as he has beaten Topalov in the past and keep some semblance of honour and respect to the Chess’ biggest Crown.
I prefer not to get into this emotional attachment of some to either of the two players, but since I noticed this remark several times, I must mention it.
“Also, it angers me that in over the board play Kramnik proved to be Topalov’s superior still by +3 -2 =5.”
No, he did not. In the worst case, there is one more game to be played. No matter how much you would like Kramnik to win, even if game 5 was unfairly given to Topalov, it neither will become Kramnik’s point, nor it becomes nobody’s point. If you think that Topalov got the point for game 5 unfairly, it is still to be played, and Topalov still may end up winning it. In any event, either case nullifies statements like “Kramnik won by 3-2”, because he didn’t.
Gabor
>>”BTW, I believe Kramnik will not play tomorrow.”
>>
I think he will. He’s got everything to gain and nothing to lose. If he wins, he’s Unified Champion. If he loses, he’s still Classical Champion.
Topalov, on the other hand, has everything to lose, and nothing to gain. If he loses, he loses both titles. If he wins, he retains his FIDE title, but doesn’t get the Classical one. Unless he wants to try to go to court for it. Good luck.
The least thing to alter is that a drawn game is not allowed without the same position really having appeared 3 times. Or a real stalemate.
Its so simple: here is a guy who has won one game less, still he claims he “had the inititative” in practically all the games (one knows this argument from soccer: ” hey, uhm, we lost 1:4 but we were really the better team!”)
Just play another series of games until one player is up by 3 points and you will have determined the stronger player.
If you want to be classical chess champion, you should be willing to play more then 12 games, as in the past.
The best solution would be to play classical games until the next win.
The comment from Howard got this right, I think.
The point of the unification match is to determine the best player of proper chess (that is, the same long time limit conditions as in all pre-Ilyumzhinov matches for the title first held by Steinitz). You cannot decide who that person is by holding a competion of some other sort (blitz, fischerrandom, indian-wrestling etc).
Penalty shoot-outs in soccer are pretty ridiculous too, but at least that method appeals to the fact that the only method of winning a game of football is to score more goals, and the penalties are actually the same sort of goals as some other goals, scored in part of the same game. (They sometimes even stop in the middle and have a penalty shot).
But blitz games are not actually parts of a classical game, in any circumstances. On the analogy with football, the tie-break games would have to replicate a way of finishing a proper game. Nonsense.
Finally! We have a new unified World Champion Vladimir Kramnik!!!