World Chess Championship heads to tiebreakers
The World Chess Championship is still left unfinished after 12 games between reigning champion Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin. The contest moves into the tiebreakers segment which starts on Wednesday.
Neither reigning champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway nor Russian grandmaster Sergei Karyakin has claimed the world chess crown after 12 matches, throwing the tournament to four tie-break games scheduled for Wednesday.
Almost three weeks after the chess World Championship began, the last scheduled game ended Monday in a draw – just like nine of the previous 11 games – with spectators left hungry for decisive action in the forthcoming tiebreaker. “I’m not proud of the game today, but I think there’s a tradeoff [for the spectators],” said Carlsen, alluding to the extra chess to be played.
Regulations stipulate that the two players will now participate in four rapid games, which the World Chess Federation says will be played “at the rate of 25 minutes per player per game, with 10 seconds added after each move.”
All previous games allowed for more than three hours of play.
In the event of a draw at the end of those four games, the players will participate in two blitz games, a fast format played at the rate of five minutes per player at the start, with three seconds added after each move. Should there still be a tie at this point, they will play up to four more sets of blitz games.
“If there is still no winner, Carlsen and Karyakin will play an Armageddon game in which white has five minutes and black has four, but black only has to draw to win the match,” the World Chess Federation said.
‘Extra time, not penalty shootout’
The eventual accelerated games leave plenty of opportunity for harried mistakes.
But in the meantime, Carlsen said, “25 minutes and 10 seconds per move is a lot of time so we’re still playing normal chess.”
“We’re not at the penalty stage yet. We’re at extra time,” he said, making a soccer analogy. “I understand if sometimes both teams are not trying to score in the last minute of regulation that can be frustrating but also having extra time is exciting.”
More here.
I’m sure it won’t happen but I would love to see an Armageddon game!
Of course, rapid games should favor players who have deeper book knowledge of unusual opening gambits. Curious what surprise moves we may see early on, just to rattle each other.
When I was young, the Candidates Tournament was a quadruple round robin, a grueling 28 rounds. It is now 14, with no playoff in the event of a tie. The world championship match was 24 games; it is now 12 at a faster time limit (and no adjournments).
I can understand these changes. However, I do not see how this tie-breaker has any validity (aside from the fact FIDE says it does). It is not “classic” chess, and the games are not rated as the preceding twelve were. Moreover, as Mike notes above, the (remote) possibility of an Armageddon game exists. Since when do we determine a “world champion” on the basis of a single blitz game at odds? On the women’s side, we saw Yifan Hu, who stands head and shoulders above her peers, “lose” her title in a pair of rapid games in 2012. Wasn’t that bad enough?
It would seem far more reasonable to have a pair of two-game matches (classic time controls) at this point, stretching the “real” chess to a potential total of fourteen or (if still tied) sixteen games. If the score remained even at that point, Carlsen should of course retain the title.
Then again, if FIDE seeks something even more asinine, it might perhaps suggest a game of Kriegspiel to decide the championship. Who knows?