The championship format should be a champion vs challenger match, but 12 games is just too short.

Well there you go, taking the draw in move 12 was more than correct. What a slaughter.

ErictheRed wrote on 11/27/18 at 16:13:23:

On reddit, someone suggested the draw offer to be some elaborate mind trick -
If they keep playing for 5 hours and end up drawing anyway (draw was still a favourite in the position they had), then Fabiano would get another boost of confidence, having held a difficult endgame, while Magnus would be even more frustrated.
Now instead, Carlsen can be happy with his game, and Caruana is left with disgust at his prep and a lingering feeling that he only made it out because of the mercy of his opponent, rather than his own ability.
This way, the draw offer would make a good bit of sense, 'manipulating momentum', and ending up advantageous for the tiebreaks tomorrow.
A similar story was told by Svidler about the Kasparov-Kramnik match, where Kramnik deliberately took a draw in 11 moves to unsettle Garry, as his mindset would've been a much better one had they played 4 more hours.
Still, it does feel rather constructed..

P. S. Regarding the 'objective' worth of the position, chesscom is playing a round robin event with all of its engines from the ComputerChessCh from the final position of G12.
Last I checked, the top engine matches (between Leela, Stockfish, Komodo, Houdini) have all been draws, and while the lower boards do have some decisive results, there are also several wins by White amongst those.
E: Alright, some Wins are creeping in for Black.. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/375393578391961600/517272621096763413/unk...
Unclear of course how good Engines are at defending a somewhat blocked position, but curious nevertheless.

P.S.: Anyone who wants a Norwegian perspective on the match and top chess in general, but in English, should check out anything written by GM Jonathan Tisdall (originally American, but lives in and plays for Norway) or Tarjei Svensen. Both are very active on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GMjtis and https://twitter.com/TarjeiJS . For instance:


Svensen on the very candid Magnus interview in the podcast Sjakksnakk, Ep. 1:

https://twitter.com/TarjeiJS/status/1054774095777329152

https://en.chessbase.com/post/carlsen-insights-from-norwegian-podcast

Svensen on a VG interview with Magnus before the match:

https://twitter.com/TarjeiJS/status/1060179653304958976

https://en.chessbase.com/post/carlsen-insights-from-norwegian-vg-interview

Tisdall on the match:

https://www.chess.com/article/view/13-things-to-know-about-the-carlsen-vs-caruan...

https://www.chess.com/article/view/2018-world-chess-championship-halftime

Stigma wrote on 11/27/18 at 17:13:22:


Can you link to the Norsk media ¿ Just curious to read what been said on newspaper or tv, I speak Norsk

One major point missing from the discussion here: How important remaining world no. 1 on the rating list was to Carlsen.

Both Carlsen himself and others who know him have been quite open, at least in Norwegian media, about what a blow it would be for him now to lose either the title, the number one spot on the rating list or both. There have even been speculations from close family and friends that he just might retire if he loses the match!

If that's the kind of pressure he has put on himself in this match, when he finally faces an opponent that's almost his equal at classical time controls, the gravity of the situation in game 12 and the draw offer become a lot more understandable. Don't forget that with this draw Carlsen saved his no. 1 spot (in classical) at least for the time being, and some believe that's even more important to him than the title. He has after all suggested changing the World championship to a cup format before, which would increase the randomness and noticeably reduce his own chances of holding on to the title. In the three matches with Anand and Karjakin, on the other hand, there was no chance they would catch up with Carlsen on the rating list even if they had won the match in the classical games.

(Not that it matters nearly as much, but in rapid Magnus' no. 1 spot is quite secure, while in blitz Vachier-Lagrave in 2nd place is just two points behind him at the moment. [Source: https://2700chess.com/ ])

Of course, from a pure chess and spectator point of view I'm as disappointed as everyone else that he didn't play on with a great position both on the board and the clock. But it may be as much the current match system's fault as Carlsen's.

IsaVulpes wrote on 11/26/18 at 23:25:37:

Well, let's be charitable for once; then the answer is quite simple. He's a honest guy and refused and forbade his team to look at the leaked information.

ReneDescartes wrote on 11/27/18 at 04:49:18:

Yep. Carlsen is human too.

Leon_Trotsky wrote on 11/27/18 at 01:48:29:

Sadly, the opposite is the case.

The thing here is more that Caruana is content with "killing off the game" as Black in the Petroff/QGD, mixed with a certain amount of outpreparing that makes Carlsen take safe paths (like eg the ..Rd8 in the QGD), so Magnus doesn't get anywhere with White; while Carlsen's Black games in the Sveshnikov produce actual fights, where Carlsen is then able to outplay Caruana.
If Fabiano had a more "fighting" repertoire as Black, I figure we would see a lot more of White pressing (as we saw in G3 before Bd2?!, G8, G9 somewhat).

As I detailed in the Reddit thread on the previous page, the White advantage is actually a lot more substantial than those 53-55% percent for individual games you see in Databases of good openings.
I went through 29 elite events (basically every round robin I could find with 2600+ players of the last 3 years); counted the winners (40 total due to several shared first places), and looked at how many of those 40 were ones with an extra White, and how many had an extra Black.
The end result was 29:11 in favour of the extra White, or 72.5% of elite tournament winners having the luck of the draw.

To me, that is a much bigger issue than the count of draws..