Sorry, I have a bad habit of answering all direct questions. I will stop after this.
in the Carlsen-Caruana match, the 12 draws weren't there because "chess is a draw", but because quite early in the match, both decided they couldn't afford any single loss. They were like 2 football teams playing Catenaccio. The match could have lasted 4 games more or 4 less with the same result. Imho this is what needs to be fixed for the next WC match.

Hello.

I reckon world championship format has been discussed before quite a bit over the years. With a match coming up and Carlsen not to keen on these matches anymore why not though? I would personally like to see a mini-tournament to decide the title. In format of round robin with 4 players and 12 rounds. Direct qualification for champion. Qualification for remaining three through one big candidates tournament or some kind of smaller but multiple candidates tournaments with one qualification spot from each tournament.

Some advantages:
- One more game to follow and crucially the probability for at least one of the games to be interesting goes up quite a bit
- The preparation becomes more difficult
- Games are going to be more varied
- Getting to be the candidate in the current system is very difficult. When it happens obviously supporters of that person are very happy. With multiple challengers at once the combined overall number of direct supporters of the various players is very likely be higher than with only two players. That could drive interest for the tournament somewhat. Against this is that you lose the appealing, to some, narrative of having a single challenger.

Disadvantages:
- More expensive due to more players involved wanting expenses paid and prize money
- If someone falls out of reach of winning a tournament they can always start playing poorly. That never looks good and more so given they would be in a tournament to decide wch. Some kind of incentive to keep players at their best would probably be needed. Maybe financial or simply that second and third place give some some future benefit so it's worth playing for those places as well.
- Multiple people ending up on the same points can always become a bit annoying

Have a nice day.

cathexis wrote on 12/06/22 at 23:46:30:

Hi! For a quick answer:
- Draw rates in chess and WC formulas are often linked but they are different problems. In your example, not allowing repetitions until move 40 redefines opening theory and leads to another game. Also, regional preference play a role (e.g. USA want winners and add extra time or playoffs whenever necessary). As for chess, the problem of having a fair and decisive result in a bound set of games remains mostly unsolved.
- Football (soccer) shares a common point with chess: "chess is a draw", and "football is a draw". Not in any proven sense (we're not there yet), but if a draw is the likely outcome of a chess game between strong players, so is it for a football game. Yet nobody complains that "football is a draw". The idea that chess may be solved as a draw catches us like rabbits into headlights, but it's not relevant today.
- There's no doubt that Morocco played the best game in their history today. That is, until the next one against Portugal

Imho this thread should stick to its title and include e.g. ideas for improving WC format, without the usual "chess is a draw" or "ban GM draws" which have their own but different merit.

I don't know about the money prize, maybe the part not distributed to players can be given to UN or climate fund or whatever. I might be naive but hopefully, for such players the title is more important than the prize(*). I just want to break the loop of freezing games by fear of losing. Carlsen and Caruana have the greatest ethics, but when none of them wants to risk losing, a long string of draws is a likely outcome. 

(*) As you said, for opens up to the greatest tournaments, it's common practice to fix scores and share prizes. Nothing to be proud about, really.

When Caruana and Carlsen drew their 12 classical games, why should any of them be entitled to World Champion?
a modest proposal for matches including rapid and blitz playoffs:
- Classical games winner earns the Chess WC title and 100% money prize is distributed, or else
- Rapid games winner earns the Rapid WC title with 25% money prize distributed, or else
- Blitz games winner earns the Blitz WC title with 10% money prize distributed

One problem with short matches (such as 12 games) is that the cost of losing increasingly outweighs the benefit of winning, leading to no-risk and neutralization game as was abundantly shown in latest iterations. I agree on playing playoffs first, and I'm sad that WC title could be decided on blitz.