Smyslov_Fan wrote on 05/28/11 at 21:08:53:
I just read Vinay Bhat's blog. Thanks, Paddy, for providing the link!
I found nothing wrong with the tie-break format. Bhat complained that having rapid and blitz chess wasn't materially better than other tie-breaks, but he's wrong. The rapid-play and blitz are chess. Awarding a winner of a drawn match based on previous performance in tournaments may seem appropriate to GM Bhat, but it tilts the playing field too far in favor of the top seeds.
I think 4 games is just too short a match. I would like to see 6, 6 and 8-10 games for the respective rounds. Also, some other GMs have argued that there was too little time between rounds, not giving the players enough time to sharpen their weapons.
There will now be almost a full year before the next WC match, there could have been time to schedule intermediary matches. The problem, as always, is finding sponsorship for such matches. For me, FIDE got this mostly right. Having slightly longer matches would increase the likelihood of matches being decided in regulation.
Whether there would still be 90% draws would be almost irrelevant. The real complaint wasn't the high number of drawn games, but the successful strategy of not trying to win as white and defending as Black. This strategy, which is still dubious even in a short match, becomes almost impossible in a longer match. And that, for me is the reason to extend matches....
Well, it's not so much that I think that quickplay time controls aren't chess, but that they're a different kind of chess than what we're trying to pick the Champion of.
I had done a very similar analysis last night to the Krantz article ChessVibes published today (
http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/skill-and-luck-in-high-level-chess-competition...), and although I used slightly different assumptions for the probability of win/draw/loss with white, the conclusions were similar - changing the length of the match from 4 to 6 or 8 games (even 10) doesn't dramatically reduce the chance the likelihood of a drawn match. It probably reduces the incentive to use the "draw quickly with White, try to hold as Black" strategy, but the 5/7 game, draw-odds matches I was proposing have the same number of black games that you have to defend in a 6/8 game match actually.
I agree that regular draw odds (especially in a short match) would be too big of an advantage, that's why I wanted to have an odd-number of games, where the lower-seeded player gets an extra white. Somebody in the comments there suggested the higher seed could choose.
I need to double-check my numbers and all, but doing similar simulations to what Krantz did, I got the result that a little over half the time, the higher seed would advance in such a format. [This was only the original idea I had, not the "choose the draw-odds or extra-white advantage" scenario.] Anyways, a little over half the time seems reasonably fair to me, given the previously better results, and it fosters more fighting classical chess.
I think you gave the reason why split up matches won't be done - to do that, you need more sponsors, and more prize money. Chess hasn't had that for a while.
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Questionnaire on structure of the WC Cycle (Read 5279 times)
