World Fischer Random Championship

[lkaufman]

I wonder if Wesley So could perform like this at chess if he improved his repertoire, I doubt the positions in FRC were so alien that he couldn't put someone else in a similar situation. Otherwise, FRC could be much more different from chess than we think.

Maybe he is the best at thinking for himself in the opening, but in normal chess you can't make your opponents do that except by playing inferior moves yourself.

[zenpawn]

So Wesley So becomes the World champion by an incredible score of 13.5 to 2.5 over Magnus Carlsen..

That is incredible !

Agreed. Note: For those who don't know, the scoring was weighted such that the 45/40 + SD/15min games were worth 3 points, the 15+2 games were worth 2 points, and the blitz 3+2 (which this match didn't see) were worth 1 point each. The results were 3.5 - 0.5 in the "slow rapid" and 1.5 - 0.5 in the "fast rapid".

[Ferdy]

Congratulations Wesley

As game time control approaches armageddon, excitement is also increased.

[Ovyron]

Maybe he is the best at thinking for himself in the opening, but in normal chess you can't make your opponents do that except by playing inferior moves yourself.

I find that so weird, specially after analyzing some random FRC position and seeing some were worse than some weird opening moves.

If anything, engines have shown that it's possible to beat any human from "inferior moves" so So really has the potential to find reasonable ones and get opponents out of their preparation.

[lkaufman]

Maybe he is the best at thinking for himself in the opening, but in normal chess you can't make your opponents do that except by playing inferior moves yourself.

I find that so weird, specially after analyzing some random FRC position and seeing some were worse than some weird opening moves.

If anything, engines have shown that it's possible to beat any human from "inferior moves" so So really has the potential to find reasonable ones and get opponents out of their preparation.

It's true that engines can play almost any move other than outright blunders in the first five moves or so and still expect to beat any human, but that doesn't change the fact that between roughly equal players the one who makes the early weird move first consistently will score well under 50% against his near-equals. Sure, with enough prep one may be able to surprise another top player on move 15 with a computer novelty, but that is a skill unrelated to chess skill, and in any event the big decisions about the game have already been made by then.

[Ovyron]

between roughly equal players the one who makes the early weird move first consistently will score well under 50% against his near-equals.

The idea of weird moves is to get the opponent to think ASAP, like what happens in FRC, so in theory So should be able to have a FRC performance in chess by getting Magnus "out of book".

Unless this result was just Magnus going insane and he wouldn't go insane like this in normal chess.

[lkaufman]

between roughly equal players the one who makes the early weird move first consistently will score well under 50% against his near-equals.

The idea of weird moves is to get the opponent to think ASAP, like what happens in FRC, so in theory So should be able to have a FRC performance in chess by getting Magnus "out of book".

Unless this result was just Magnus going insane and he wouldn't go insane like this in normal chess.

The difference is that to get the opponent out of book in the first five moves or so in normal chess, you have to make a move that is something like 20 centipawns worse than the best move, which translates to quite a lot of Elo points handicap. In FRC you get that with no positional loss at all, assuming one game with each color for each position.

[Nordlandia]

I agree with Larry on the last one. To get people out of the "opening book" in classical chess, means playing inferior moves. For example such as: 1. b4 1.d3 etc

[Ovyron]

I disagree, it's very trivial to find moves that nobody has ever played before in a game and where the score isn't too far off from the most popular line.

Specially, as you analyze those moves and refute the most promising lines, the score tends to go towards 0, so if you refute the popular move enough you can make it reach a score arbitrarily close to the "weird move".

But you need to build a tree of variations and improve the score for the defending side until you have to takeback its moves and look for alternatives closer to the root, it doesn't suffice to check that the top move is 0.40 and that the weird one is 0.20, because you can refute the other until it's also 0.20, it's just that if you're planning into play the weird one, of course you want to build the tree for it instead.

I've been doing this for so many years that I have the opening position as 0.03, and 1.e4 as 0.00, but ChessDBCN got it to 0.07 in less than a month (and I've been able to refute its lines so they get closer to 0.00 at will.)

If a human can get into a novel position that isn't much worse than a popular move and it gets both of them to think, I don't see why can't they have a FRC-like performance by playing it (Leela was beating Stockfish with such moves.)

[EroSennin]

I disagree, it's very trivial to find moves that nobody has ever played before in a game and where the score isn't too far off from the most popular line.

Can you give any example lines for white and especially black?