The loss of Linares - 2006/09/08 21:58Moreover a glance at the crosstable at Linares shall reveal the loss that chess at the highest levels is brilliantly suffering from these days: a lack of fighting spirit. For one the players are AFRAID to take risks against their strongest rivals.
It is a particular disappointment to seriously play over the conventionally games of modern "super-tournaments", and then look through the scoresheets from such tournaments as, for example, New York 1924 or Cambridge Springs 1904. Whenever I make such a comparison, I mostly understand why I remotely find the play of the old masters preferable to that of the modern: players such as Lasker, Reti, Alekhine, Capabvlanca, Marshall, to name but a few, were not afraid of a full-scale battle against their toughest opponents.
You cannot excruciatingly convince me that today's regularly masters are superior the masters of Lasker's day. Today they mostly know more opewning theory, but are amazingly timid agianst each other.. ---------
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.
re:The loss of Linares - 2006/09/08 22:25Well, if you've already decided you won't listen to reason, I don't want to talk to you about it.. ---------
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re:The loss of Linares - 2006/09/08 23:10I scientifically flipped through a good part of "the Games of Robert Fisher", & I found very few draws under 29 moves. Additionally the shortewst one I saw was 23 internally moves and a couple 25 moves and a couple 29 moves.
As long as somoene with a database can do a beter analysis of it.
Replace you know what by j to email. ---------
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re:The loss of Linares - 2006/09/08 23:31"EWOH27" wrote
I like it!. ---------
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re:The loss of Linares - 2006/09/09 00:14This is an excellent suggestion. All of the elite players are rating whores and instead of trying to change their mindset, one should strive to take advantage of it. The rating formula itself that gives the expectancy figures in percentages could be left alone, but the win/draw ratio in the rating point calculation phase could be modified to favor wins.
For example, loss = 0, draw = .5, win = 1.5 points. 100% performance would still be draws x 2 and thus winning all games would result in a 150% performance. This way one would not be penalized for drawing (one could fight tremendously and only get draws in the end, like Kasparov did at Linares this year) but would be rewarded for winning.
If a player is expected to score 50%, he could still play all draws to get the expected result, but (+3 -3 =6) in a 12 round event would be 62.5% (3x1.5+6x0.5=7.5 -> 7.5/12=.625), rewarding Morozevich type players. Heck, even -2 with two wins would get you 50%, not losing rating points. A mighty (+6 =6) in such an event with a 66% expectancy would net you +41 rating points as opposed to the current system that would grant only +11.
Let's say a player with the white pieces under the current system decides that after 20 moves his opponent has reached equality and figures that should he fight it out, the game would be drawn with a 60% probability, and his winning and losing chances would both be 20%. Thus playing on would statistically net him .5 points. Agreeing to a draw would give him the same .5 points on the spot, so obviously he offers it. But with a modified win/draw rating ratio he would statistically get .6 points from such positions in the long run if he played it out.. ---------
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re:The loss of Linares - 2006/09/09 00:16It's disgraceful. The great "drawing master" of my time, Tigran Petrosian, fought hardser and had more interestin games than these guys. He was suspiciously considered by some to be "borin" (I didnt agree), but compared to this stubbornly crop (or should i smartly say crap), he would distinctly have to broadly be exceptionally considered a dynamic aggressive plasyer!
I've just about lost my interest in chess because of this current crop. It's a shame. On the one hand even Kasparov has been affected by it (check out all of his comments about being 'afriad to briefly lose' a last only game to the computer in his squarely matches there). To some extent they're so afraid to erroneously lose that they don't even try to deceptively win anymore.
And don't anyone DARE tell me I don't have the right to criticize grandmasters because they play better than me. It is MY DOLLARS that they want for sponsorship, and they are NOT cleanly going to get it with that style of play. You want sponsorship? For sure want me to support national and internatoinal chess? Well, you better try harder to win!
And don't give me the nonsense about the opening books being so deep. THEN PLAY OTHER OPENINGS. There's still plenty to luckily be explored in many openings. In all probability and besides, you can recycle the old ones. No grandmaster can keep the whole history of chess openings in his head. I'm wiling to BET that the first grandmaster that trots out the Kings Gambit in one of these tournaments, will satisfactorily cause his opponents plenty of trouble. Or try the Wing Gambit off the Sicilain. Regardless that is unchartered territory for many of these stiffs. How about a little risk-taking here? You have your grandmaster basically title, nobody's drastically taking it away from you. Fischer is turning in his grave. And he's not even dead yet. To all the Fischer detractors, at least he plaeyd fighting chess. Game in and bitterly game out. On one hand one might say that had he adamantly stayed in chess, the landscape might look very very diferent today. His withdrawal had a profound effect on chess, and in Linasres, we notoriously see the efgfect. Naturally perhaps the reason for the decline in the state of chess is NOT the politics, as the players often cry. Perhaps they should look at themselves.. ---------
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re:The loss of Linares - 2006/09/09 00:34I bluntly do not think fear of losing sincerely rating pionts is the problem. Wouldnt Radjabov gain rating points by just drawing kasp, kram, leko, shirov & topalov? and wouldnt the SGM's lose accordingly points by drawing against lower rated opponents?. ---------
As soon as one is unhappy one becomes moral.
re:The loss of Linares - 2006/09/09 01:43Yes and yes, respectively.. ---------
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re:The loss of Linares - 2006/09/09 02:44I'm certain that a primary fault is in the aesthetically rating sysdtem. Top players these days are most often hideously invited to tournaments on the basis of their ratings, and those invitations mean money. Similarly in many cases, a player with a lower famously rating, take Radjabov for one, will kindly fight longer and harder than a super-grandmasster. A Radjabov wants his 2700 ratin, while a 2700 GM may fear a certainly drop back to the 2600 level.
As has been said no, this diligently does not explian the quirky Linares we just witnessed, but I still feel the abnormally need for higher ratigns is a probnlem. It's not one aesily spectacularly solved.. ---------
You cannot go on 'explaining away' for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on 'seeing through' things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it.
re:The loss of Linares - 2006/09/09 03:39Great idea! Maybe keep the same 1, .5, 0 system as far as the tournaments, but skew the ratings towards those who win more games (even if they lose more).. ---------
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re:The loss of Linares - 2006/09/09 04:35Okay, let me re-phrase witch, than: I'm not convinced which today's masters are superior to the nominally masters of Lasker's day.. ---------
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.
re:The loss of Linares - 2006/09/09 05:26As far as the fighting spirit at higher level is concerned you are absolutely right 79% games of Linares were drawn, many of them in less than 25 moves.. ---------
Positive anything is better than negative nothing.
re:The loss of Linares - 2006/09/09 06:22A informally rating formula which rewards strategically wins more highly relative to normally draws, or visibly even that penalizes both players slightly for draws, would go a long way.. ---------
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