World chess championship 2013,disaster or miracle?

[Monsterboy]

Anybody here keeping track of the WCC 2013?

4 draws in the beginning and 2 wins for Carlsen!

Anand must have panicked after the first defeat ,i feel he should have settled for a draw after his first defeat ,cool himself down and then may be go for a win.

What might have happened ? his voice was trembling during the press conference! after the match.

 

[consciousness]

Disaster for Anand and miracle for Carlsen. Both the games that Anand lost were slow grindings from theoretically equal endgames. Perhaps in his youth he could have calculated like the 22 year old Norwegian but at 43 years of age his endgame seemed very inconsistent. One or Two mistakes is all it takes. I do not recall any other world championship match in which endgames played such a critical role.

Carlsen can now defend and draw his way to the title. I would say that his win is almost certain.

 

[Monsterboy]

Carlsen can now defend and draw his way to the title. I would say that his win is almost certain.

Yea ,4 decisive games out of 12 is almost impossible in a world championship ,has it ever happened before?

 

[PeroK]

Fischer-Spassky had 8 decisive games in the first 13.

Karpov was 4-0 up after 9 games in the first match against Kasparov.

Karpov won 3 in a row against Kasparov in 1986 (from 4-1 down).

Kasparov was 5-0 up after 9 games against Short.

I'm sure there are others.

 

[berkeman]

Link to the current championship?

 

[fluidistic]

To berkeman: http://chennai2013.fide.com/.
Neither a miracle or disaster. Anand is about 95 elo below Carlsen. He's number 8 or 9 in terms of elo while Carlsen is number 1 way over all the others. Carlsen is basically in another ball park.
What other results one should have expected? 6 games, 2 wins for Carlsen and 4 draws seem quite reasonable.
Anyway both players generally blunders several times per game (top engines can spot many blunders in almost no time).
For those interested, there's a much "better" chess tournament currently being hold (bot vs bot) at http://tcec.chessdom.com/live.php. By better I mean much higher quality games in terms of blunders compared to the human world championship.
Game 18 of stage 4, Houdini vs Stockfish was a masterpiece. Houdini didn't realize it was lost for about 5 moves in a row. The evaluations of the engine were, at one moment, 10.88 (for Stockfish) and 0.09 for Houdini!
Many other games were very beautiful and deep too.
Enjoy.

 

[Monsterboy]

Neither a miracle or disaster. Anand is about 95 elo below Carlsen. He's number 8 or 9 in terms of elo while Carlsen is number 1 way over all the others. Carlsen is basically in another ball park.
What other results one should have expected? 6 games, 2 wins for Carlsen and 4 draws seem quite reasonable.

Yea... but looking at the first 4 draws it was as if Carlsen was not so much better than other people at the top and both dominated different phases of the games that were drawn, even the games won were narrow wins which should have theoretically ended in a draw like consciousness said . The 2nd loss i feel was the aftermath of the shock Anand got after first defeat.I didn't expect Anand to win but ,i just didn't expect 2 consecutive losses after the 2 good fighting draws. Anyway Anand's reign looks basically over.

 

[arildno]

For those interested, there's a much "better" chess tournament currently being hold (bot vs bot) at http://tcec.chessdom.com/live.php. By better I mean much higher quality games in terms of blunders compared to the human world championship.
Game 18 of stage 4, Houdini vs Stockfish was a masterpiece. Houdini didn't realize it was lost for about 5 moves in a row. The evaluations of the engine were, at one moment, 10.88 (for Stockfish) and 0.09 for Houdini!
Many other games were very beautiful and deep too.
Enjoy.

Rather nonsensical on your part.
the only humans capable of actually learning anything from supercomputers are..supergrandmasters.

Deep strategies dependening on the capacity of calculating hundreds of millions of moves will, precisely for that reason, be completely unattainable for any human being (but a supergrandmaster might learn a few subtleties from them)

 

[consciousness]

To berkeman: http://chennai2013.fide.com/.
Neither a miracle or disaster. Anand is about 95 elo below Carlsen. He's number 8 or 9 in terms of elo while Carlsen is number 1 way over all the others. Carlsen is basically in another ball park.
What other results one should have expected? 6 games, 2 wins for Carlsen and 4 draws seem quite reasonable.
Anyway both players generally blunders several times per game (top engines can spot many blunders in almost no time).

Did you follow the games? Especially the the third one in which Carlsen admitted that he was "just trying to survive". Carlsen's astronomical rating isn't an accurate meter stick to gauge his performance against top ten players, it has become so high because he pushes on and beats 2600-2700 rated players when most players would be satisfied with a draw.

Engines make blunders too (otherwise all their games will be drawn). Also their matches lack any emotion or drama.

 

[arildno]

Carlsen's superb technique of always creating (tiny) complications for his opponents (while keeping the escape route for himself always open) means that his opponent must remain MAXIMALLY ALERT, and be able to reshift his strategies for move after move, hour after hour.

This technique is, of course, mentally extremely draining to go up against, leading to "silly mistakes" made by his opponents.

Carlsen's fiendish cleverness as an extremely annoying riddlemaster exhausts his opponents mentally in positions that ought to be drawn.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An exhausted man is unable to bat away the last mosquito, and is sucked dry at last.

 

[fluidistic]

Yea... but looking at the first 4 draws it was as if Carlsen was not so much better than other people at the top and both dominated different phases of the games that were drawn, even the games won were narrow wins which should have theoretically ended in a draw like consciousness said . The 2nd loss i feel was the aftermath of the shock Anand got after first defeat.I didn't expect Anand to win but ,i just didn't expect 2 consecutive losses after the 2 good fighting draws. Anyway Anand's reign looks basically over.

I do not think the second loss was due to the first loss. The game was drawn up to move 60 where Anand blundered with Ra4. Instead of Ra4, b4 would have saved the boat. Anand did not even realize this after the game had finished though. He thought that he was lost at move 58 if I remember well (I am not 100% sure).

Rather nonsensical on your part.
the only humans capable of actually learning anything from supercomputers are..supergrandmasters.

Deep strategies dependening on the capacity of calculating hundreds of millions of moves will, precisely for that reason, be completely unattainable for any human being (but a supergrandmaster might learn a few subtleties from them)

I am sorry to have offended. Yes of course very few people can learn from such games. In fact I think many "weak" people can learn/memorize the moves that are just after the end of the opening, with the help of bots.
But it is very beautiful, at least for many people, to watch a game where a bot is down 2 pawns for 20 moves and then win. Or the game I linked, where white in the final position had 1 rook only and black had a queen a knight and white wins.

Did you follow the games? Especially the the third one in which Carlsen admitted that he was "just trying to survive". Carlsen's astronomical rating isn't an accurate meter stick to gauge his performance against top ten players, it has become so high because he pushes on and beats 2600-2700 rated players when most players would be satisfied with a draw.

Engines make blunders too (otherwise all their games will be drawn). Also their matches lack any emotion or drama.

Yes I followed the games and you are right, in the third game Carlsen could have lost, especially if Anand had "punished" Carlsen's blunder(s) but he did not.
With respect to Carlsen's high rating, I haven't followed his games at all (nor the ones of other humans) but still, if he does win games that most other GM would be happy to draw, I believe he is really stronger than the other GM's. You can't just assume that the other GM's could beat the 2600-2700 rated guys as much as Carlsen do.
About engines, of course they make blunders. What is beautiful about the blunders is that generally they are small ones compared to humans and they get punished. Sometimes it produces masterpieces, especially when there is some huge material imbalance. And I do not agree, the games of engines can turn rather quite dramatic!

 

[arildno]

But it is very beautiful, at least for many people, to watch a game where a bot is down 2 pawns for 20 moves and then win. Or the game I linked, where white in the final position had 1 rook only and black had a queen a knight and white wins.

The movements of The Gods are, of course, graceful and beautiful.
But, you won't improve your own skills by gawking at them.

But, then again, you won't become a good composer listening to a Mozart symphony, either, but it has its own value, nonetheless.

 

[Crake2]

Hum.. I'm interested in knowing who plays chess here, at PF. I might create a new topic for it though.

Question:

The first one getting to 6.5 points gets to be the next chess world champion, right?

 

[arildno]

Crake2:
A few years back, there was a chess playing facility at PF. It has been removed since then, I think.

To your question:
Yes.

 

[arildno]

By the way, I now predict Carlsen will massacre Anand on Monday, horsewhipping the Indian master out of his throne.

I would have liked a more even match, but Anand has been in a very negative psychic spiral that becomes progressively self-fulfilling.

In short, playing a match against Carlsen is to endure the merciless Carlsen technique day after day, not just hour after hour.

Anand has lost all hopes of winning, and only a miraculous blunder from Carlsen now on Monday will let Anand regain his usual fighting spirit.

 

[Enigman]

By the way, I now predict Carlsen will massacre Anand on Monday, horsewhipping the Indian master out of his throne.

I would have liked a more even match, but Anand has been in a very negative psychic spiral that becomes progressively self-fulfilling.

In short, playing a match against Carlsen is to endure the merciless Carlsen technique day after day, not just hour after hour.

Anand has lost all hopes of winning, and only a miraculous blunder from Carlsen now on Monday will let Anand regain his usual fighting spirit.

...
could have put it more gently Arildno...truth hurts.

 

[Monsterboy]

By the way, I now predict Carlsen will massacre Anand on Monday, horsewhipping the Indian master out of his throne.

I would have liked a more even match, but Anand has been in a very negative psychic spiral that becomes progressively self-fulfilling.

In short, playing a match against Carlsen is to endure the merciless Carlsen technique day after day, not just hour after hour.

I hope Carlsen becomes overconfident like this and loses a match by the way i noticed Anand in a panicky state even before the first match he lost ,he stole a glance at Carlsen for a few seconds at a time,throughout the match as if he new something was coming. I have never seen him look at the opponent's face when playing,maybe he should have resigned when he was at the top, he is old and chubby now,his age has caught up with him.

Anand has lost all hopes of winning, and only a miraculous blunder from Carlsen now on Monday will let Anand regain his usual fighting spirit.

It's not as if Carlsen didn't blunder ,it's just that his blunders went unpunished.
If Anand has to win he will have to get everything right in the opening and take the lead and not let it go because i have heard that Carlsen doesn't do that well in openings( in the last 6 matches).

 

[DavidSnider]

Crake2:
A few years back, there was a chess playing facility at PF. It has been removed since then, I think.

To your question:
Yes.

There is a PhysicsForums chess group on www.chess.com
http://www.chess.com/groups/home/physics-forums

 

[CosmicKitten]

My cat has an account on that website, better make him join...

 

[Monsterboy]

Another draw ,poor Anand managed to stop the losing momentum.

 

[arildno]

Another draw ,poor Anand managed to stop the losing momentum.

I'm actually pleasantly surprised that Anand managed to collect his wits.
Yes, it is an extremely steep uphill battle waiting for him, but the first step is to regain a calm confidence in himself.
It will be extremely tempting for Carlsen to force a win tomorrow, but if Anand collects a draw there, he will have scored an important point in the mind game against Carlsen.
That will be more important than desperately trying to close the gap at the earliest possible moment.

 

[fluidistic]

At this point a draw for Anand with the white pieces is a bad result to me. Sure, he stopped a losing streak but being behind with only a handful of games to go would have required a win, no less.

 

[arildno]

Since Carlsen sensibly chose not to push for a decisive victory, it was sensible of Anand to pull a draw today, pinning his hopes of winning on his next two white games, rather than blowing his chances by risky play today.

 

[Monsterboy]

Is Anand even pychologically strong enough to win? it's as if utmost he can do now is draw... 5 games left he has to win two!

 

[arildno]

There are only 4 games left now, with 5-3 as the status.
The game on Thursday will be critical; Anand will push strongly for a win.
Although he might theoretically equalize with Carlsen with the two next games also draws, I think Anand will go into attack mode on Thursday.

 

[Monsterboy]

Oh yea it's 4 ,just wondering...when Anand became a grandmaster ,Carlsen was not even born!

 

[arildno]

Oh yea it's 4 ,just wondering...when Anand became a grandmaster ,Carlsen was not even born!

What's so strange about that?
My great-grandfather wasn't born when Paul Morphy went insane!

 

[Monsterboy]

All over for Anand ,it seems he was mentally prepared for it .I didn't see him in any discomfort during the press conference.

 

[consciousness]

Game 9, score 5-3 in favour of Carlsen.

It was Anand's last chance. He pushed on with a sharp d4. He wasn't going down without a fight!
The game became very complicated. Carlsen was essentially one tempo from being mated but he was holding on. The engines were constantly changing their minds. The internet was divided, half was saying Anand would win and the other half saying Carlsen would. The word "Draw" was forgotten!

About twenty minutes ago chess history was made.

Anand picked up his knight and placed it on f1. His hand strangely shook while he did so. Carlsen immediately moved his second queen to e1 and left the table.
Was it to enjoy his victory in private? or to give Anand a private moment with his demons? We may never know.

Anand knew immediately of course. He had seen a chess ghost. After calculating hundreds of moves he had missed an obvious one. Even I, less than a "patzer" compared to him had seen what he had missed.

He just sat there. I will always remember this picture...
Carlsen returned and Anand promptly resigned. Effectively handing over the title to the next generation.

The Carlsen era has begun!

 

[arildno]

It was a fantastic, spectacular game, that would have become a legendary draw if Anand had placed his bishop on f1 instead of the knight.
But, even more interesting:
As a Norwegian master explained, only Carlsen and the computer Houdini thought black had sufficient defence; that is, where "everyone" would think White's kingside attack would succeed, the ultraprecise play by Carlsen would have saved his day, even if Anand hadn't made that truly spectacular, miraculous blunder.

 

[Monsterboy]

the ultraprecise play by Carlsen would have saved his day, even if Anand hadn't made that truly spectacular, miraculous blunder.

You think so?
i think if that last blunder was avoided Anand would have won..

Congratulations to Carlsen and his fans who followed the match ,this was a struggle between 'youth' and 'experience' ,which 'experience' lost!

 

[arildno]

You think so?
i think if that last blunder was avoided Anand would have won..

Not according to Houdini, Carlsen and Anand.
All three saw how Black can save himself, getting an unclear situation with a slight black advantage. (The key is that Carlsen sacrifices his queen at h5, and with his own g-pawn removed, Bf5 saves the day)
See, for example, the embedded analysis here:
http://chessbomb.com/site/

Click on the pawn promotion move in the lower right window; then double click on the -0.47 variation in the lower left window, and see the magnificent, practically forced development Houdini recommends.

(Carlsen himself thought 35. Re5 would be White's best continuation; Houdini disagrees, and suggests 35. Rf5 instead)

 

[fluidistic]

I agree with arildno that Carlsen would have saved his day (I could even add "easily") if Anand had played 28.Bf1 instead of Nf1.
But according to stockfish (dev version, so stronger than houdini 3) the evaluation would have been 0.00, a "dead draw" if Anand had not blundered. So it's not like black was truly better either. I mean it's debatable.
Details, Eval of SF:

info [b]depth 37[/b] seldepth 61 score [b]cp 0[/b] nodes 436948360 nps 999742 time 437061 multipv 1 pv g2f1 b1d1 f4h4 d1h5 g3h5 g6h5 h4h5 c8f5 g5g6 f5g6 h5g5 e8f6 e5f6 d8f6 g5d5 f6f3 d5c5 f3c3 h6f4 c3e1 c5c4 f8d8 c4c1 e1e4 f4e4 g6e4 c1c4 f7f5 g1f2 g8f7 f2e3 d8a8 c4c3 f7f6 f1d3 e4d3 e3d3 a8a1 c3c8 a1h1 c8f8 f6e6 f8e8 e6d6 e8f8 h1d1 d3e3 d6e6 f8d8
info nodes 436948360 time 437061

, the first few moves of the pv are exactly the same as Houdini 3 taken out from the website.

 

[Monsterboy]

Not according to Houdini, Carlsen and Anand.
All three saw how Black can save himself, getting an unclear situation with a slight black advantage. (The key is that Carlsen sacrifices his queen at h5, and with his own g-pawn removed, Bf5 saves the day)
See, for example, the embedded analysis here:
http://chessbomb.com/site/

Click on the pawn promotion move in the lower right window; then double click on the -0.47 variation in the lower left window, and see the magnificent, practically forced development Houdini recommends.

(Carlsen himself thought 35. Re5 would be White's best continuation; Houdini disagrees, and suggests 35. Rf5 instead)

Oh great! so it's not Anand's fault that he lost ,this guy is a computer!

 

[Monsterboy]

I would like to see a match between Carlsen and Deep blue ,maybe this time, man can beat the machine!

 

[arildno]

What's the point in competing with outdated software??
There is no point in competing with current programs like Stockfish and Houdini, either.

 

[Caveat]

^*World champion outdated software.

Only way someone is beating a computer on that level at chess is by pulling out it's power chord.

 

[arildno]

Why should a world champion in chess be regarded as "outdated software" any more than say an athlete can't compete against a car?

 

[Caveat]

@arildno

The way you worded your question is strange no offense (or maybe I don't get it)

Humans excel at abstract, lateral thinking (imo) whereas with linear and systematic problems, computers and AI outpace and outsmart the best of us (as the Chessmaster computers/software proves)

So are you saying that the computer to a human is like a car to a sprinter? idk imho the game is different, you can't really compare the two

Besides Kasparov won overall against Deep Blue

 

[Chronos]

Modern chess engines are very strong. I suspect the best of them would defeat Carlsen right now. I believe they are already close to making chess obsolete. Personally, I think that is unfortunate.

 

[PeroK]

The human against computer competition is always going to be artificial. Not least because the computer needs no sleep, food or rest between matches. A computer could play a 12-game
world championship match back-to-back with no rest.

On the other hand, computers are allowed to play with a reference library of openings and whatever else on disk. You could argue that this is analogous to a human writing down opening theory and carrying it into the match. Opening theory is far less in the computer's memory than it is in the player's. It's allowed to look up anything it likes while it's playing, while a human is not.

Computers will put an end to competitive chess between humans no more than the bicycle put an end to the foot race!

 

[arildno]

Modern chess engines are very strong. I suspect the best of them would defeat Carlsen right now. I believe they are already close to making chess obsolete. Personally, I think that is unfortunate.

Why would it render chess obsolete??
Once we learn, and internalize, to the chagrin of our vanity, that our much-vaunted "thinking" is nothing more mysterious than processes of somewhat faulty calculations, that is, has no mysterious, otherworldly qualities like "The Soul", we can perfectly well accept that machines can outsmart us, and see that this is to our benefit, rather than threatening our marginalization.

 

[Borek]

Just because every chess program will beat me doesn't mean I can't play chess for a pleasure with similarly dumb opponent.

 

[AlephZero]

I suspect most people don't have any real idea how good professional human players are, let alone computers.

When I was at uni I got "addicted" to Go for a while. One of the uni club members was a Japanese guy who was training to become a professional Go player. His idea of a "gentle warm-up exercise" was to spend an hour playing simultaneous games with 15 or 20 club members, and then play through each game explaining all the mistakes that had been made. The explanations were usually given at a diiferent club meeting, several days after the games were played. And he never made any written notes.

(Note for non-go-players: games are usually of the order of 200 to 400 moves (more moves if the result is close). Playing simultaneous games, he was playing at an average speed of about one move per second, and complaining that his opponents were too slow!

He said it was better for memory training to do that against "average" players, because they made more irrational moves which meant there was more to remember!

 

[arildno]

I suspect most people don't have any real idea how good professional human players are, let alone computers.

The Norwegian newspaper VG made a small statistic on how many of Carlsen's and Anand's moves were among "the top 3" suggestions of Houdini.
Results: Carlsen: 88%, Anand: 84%
For picking the first priority, Carlsen was at 54%, Anand at 52%

While many of these choices are what we call either obvious, or even "forced", this statistic at least shows that "computer chess" isn't really THAT different from "human chess".

 

[arildno]

Speaking about computers, humans and chess, this article in Wall Street Journal is well worth a read:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB40001424052702304337404579209980222399924

 

[Monsterboy]

Speaking about computers, humans and chess, this article in Wall Street Journal is well worth a read:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB40001424052702304337404579209980222399924

Nice

 

[Monsterboy]

One year later ,the unexpected Carlsen-Anand rematch.

 

[lendav_rott]

I was hoping Carlsen would crush him

although chess is kind of boring now with the engines and whatnot. Not nearly as exciting as games from the 19th century and mid 20th century from Spassky, Fischer, Tal, Keres, Spielman etc

 

[Monsterboy]

although chess is kind of boring now with the engines and whatnot. Not nearly as exciting as games from the 19th century and mid 20th century from Spassky, Fischer, Tal, Keres, Spielman etc

Yea ,you are correct to some extent ,what GMs mostly do today is 'remember' what the engines would do (given their situation in the game) ,although engines have helped them get better.

I might be wrong ,i don't know to what extent they understand why the engines make such moves.