Let us suppose that what is exciting is a fluctuation in which one player looks like he stands to win the match, after which the other catches up or even himself looks more likely to win the match, and so on down to the wire. Was that then missing here? No: in a 12-game match between opponents of equal strength, a one-game advantage is so great that this happened, only within games rather than between them.
Though Judith Polgar, for example, disagrees with me, I think that for many of those who understand chess the fighting draws were not a problem. Nevertheless, I predict that this match will, like Karpov-Kasparov 1984, induce a change in the format of the classical world championship. Sponsors want not just to maintain the audience of capable chess players that existed in the past, but to draw in a more ignorant audience as well; and they also want low overhead costs. They are, in other words, naturally greedy, and to get what they want they have already cheapened the championship by shortening the matches . They will probably view this match as a fiasco despite widespread interest and apparent good revenues, if only because they could have made even more money if there had not been 12 classical draws. Thus I think some change is afoot.
Whatever Magnus may want, for myself I only hope that the change is to a longer classical match format, for example as proposed by Seirawan, rather than to something approaching the abolition of the classical chess championship altogether and the extinction of the Steinitz line.
Meanwhile, congratulations to the great Magnus!
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