LeeRoth wrote on 11/28/16 at 22:34:53:
barnaby wrote on 11/27/16 at 18:36:00:
Bad scheduling to have this last game fall on a Monday.
Another in a series of poor marketing choices made by the group running this clown show.
So true, but, as chess fans, I think we need to be rooting for Agon to succeed. If Agon drops out because it can't make a profit off the world championship, where are we going to find an organizer/sponsor for the next one?
Not only did I root for their success I also paid the fee to watch the games even though I ended up watching Svidler on Chess24 instead.
I have done what I could to support chess for 40+ years including enticing all of my kids to play at high levels.
Sadly, there is not much to support anymore.
The entire format of the championship is flawed. By setting it up to have the shorter games it means there really is no reason to have the longer games anymore. They have become fully moot. No new ideas shown, no novelties.
The players (like Gelfand-Anand) wait until the short time controls to try to exploit any information gap and why not? Doing otherwise is strategically unsound.
So, for me its no longer chess so much as who gets the other player in one short time control game into one unknown position and exploits the fact that they have not yet found this line on their own engine. Greg Shahade should feel very happy at this! (and maybe he is right).
It's more like a detective competition at this point than a chess match and as such no Chess site should be foolish enough to put any money into this.
" I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark." ~ Alvy Singer