Rustam Kasimdzhanov proposal

[carldaman]

And as an aside:
Still haven't figured out the excitement of poker on tv? How is it good television to watch a bunch of people wearing sun glasses pick up cards and then place them back on the table again? I think Poker has done a great job of selling it's sport. And poker IS fun to play. But to watch poker? I don't get it.

Slightly off-topic now, but poker is fun to watch because one gets to see the pros in action, and how they think and act, especially with the hole cards (normally hidden information) shown to the audience. If learning poker, this can be priceless. If already a good poker player, the entertainment value is still high as long as the players involved are world-class.

CL

[carldaman]

This is an old proposal dating back to 2011, but I think a very good one.

http://en.chessbase.com/home/TabId/211/PostId/4007387

Rustam advocates eliminating draws completely from chess by using a tie-break system similar to what is done in tennis.

I would love to see some computer chess tournaments set up using that system.

Don

I think this is a very bad idea and it is one that can be expected from someone not being a passionate chessplayer. The idea coming from Rustum therefor is bizar.

The beauty of chess is in the moves and positions, not in the results. This trend of finding a 'solution' to draws is making me sad.

Ron Langeveld

+1

[gordonr]

The beauty of chess is in the moves and positions, not in the results. This trend of finding a 'solution' to draws is making me sad.

Ron Langeveld

+1

[Albert Silver]

I think you will find very very few grandmasters who think the two time controls are comparable. The vast majority of players are outraged at the idea of the world championship being decided by blitz tiebreak games.

Well then they need to get over it.

Myeah... I find it an odd idea that the players are not supposed to have any say.

[Uri Blass]

After my speed chess experience I talked to the local master about this and it was his opinion and his experience that if you are good at one you are good at the other and vice versa and that these imagined disparities do not exist or at least they are really rare.

I agree that disparities are not common but
I believe that there are going to be big disparity for some players.

Even if this is true, so what? All we would be doing is bringing a bit more depth to the game instead of being so anal-retentive and conservative.

I see no problem with considering a players skill set to include enough versatility to play at all time controls.

I expect bigger disparity in the lower level.

There will be disparity but as I said, so what?

However I do think that among some players the disparity is psychological, not real. If you are convinced that you suck (relative to others) at 5 minute chess then you probably will. And every time you lose a game at 5 minute chess you will believe that 1 games is convincing proof of it.

I believe that people who do not know much about chess but think better may perform 400 elo better at 90+30 time control relative to blitz(meaning something like rating 1800 at long time control and rating 1400 at blitz).

I also believe that 100 or 200 elo difference may be possible also at the high level.

I don't think that is a likely difference but it's certainly possible. However I say, "so what?"

Every game that has ever had rule changes to improve the game or sport is like this, the change will benefit some players more than others. That is NOT a bad thing. Since when are you or I the one who thinks that what we do now is THE ONLY TRUE WAY? I think it's arrogant. (I'm not saying you are, just the general attitude of resistance in general.)

If this happened it would quickly become accepted after a brief period of fierce resistance and then everyone would start to believe that this new way was the ONLY TRUE WAY.

I have more respect for people who can do well at longer time control.
I dislike the fact that fide decided to change the time control to faster time control(I know that in the past people used slower time control than 90+30 and I remember tournaments with 120/40+60/20 when I was a child) and I feel that the idea to use faster games to prevent draws is another step to the wrong direction.

The time control is a purely a matter of personal preference, it's not a universal principle of right and wrong.

What is pretty clear is that we could use some serious modernizing of the tournament format and that probably involves speeding things up even more.

Here is my basic rant on time control in general, ignoring the draw issue and this is learned from computer chess testing:

To decide a world championship we general play a small handful of games. In fact a ridiculously small number of games. And we play them at a rate of speed where you cannot always even finish a game in one sitting. We PRETEND that we are after the quality of the result to see "who is really better."

But a FAR MORE effective way to do this is to increase the number of games played. We don't test Komodo at 2 hours + 5 minutes per move even though we could generate super high quality games that way. If that was the right way to do this and if that had far greater meaning we would. But it is far better to play thousands of much faster games. OF COURSE we would love to play much longer games but we know for a fact the results are far less valid.

So if you REALLY desire the highest quality (most relevant) results at high levels you should consider increasing the number of games played. It wont' be taxing or logistically difficult as long as you speed up the time control accordingly.

I'm not advocating speed-chess for world championship matches, but I am advocating faster time controls which will provide more relevant statistical evidence on who is best and also provide more GAMES for us to relish and more drama.

I agree that we should have more games in the championship match but the reason for the small number of games that we have today is not the time control.

In the past the time control was slower and we also had more games.

It is possible that faster time control is going to make chess more popular but I think that it is the wrong target.

Note that it is not that I support everything that was in the past and I have no objection to rules that prevent draws by some change in the rules that define draws as a win for one side based on some definition that does not encourage fast play(I am against the idea to decide that draw is a win for
the side who used less time on the clock).

Note that the player who made the last capture is not something random when both players know in the beginning that this player is winning in case of a draw and both are going to calculate plans to be the player who make the last capture.

The game is slightly different than normal chess but basically I expect the top players to be the same players and difference of more than 200 elo is clearly impossible because it is easy to see that even if a player lose all his draw games because of the new rules(that is not logical) he is not going to be more than 200 elo weaker.

[tpetzke]

I'm not a fan of changing the rules of the game. Nip it in the bud. You will end up here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsaAkNXAzak

But that is certainly fun to watch. Even my wife had fun and she considers chess rather boring.

Thomas...

[Don]

I think you will find very very few grandmasters who think the two time controls are comparable. The vast majority of players are outraged at the idea of the world championship being decided by blitz tiebreak games.

Well then they need to get over it.

Myeah... I find it an odd idea that the players are not supposed to have any say.

But players are the ones making these proposals. The more progressive ones realize that changes need to be made for the health of the chess.

[Albert Silver]

I think you will find very very few grandmasters who think the two time controls are comparable. The vast majority of players are outraged at the idea of the world championship being decided by blitz tiebreak games.

Well then they need to get over it.

Myeah... I find it an odd idea that the players are not supposed to have any say.

But players are the ones making these proposals. The more progressive ones realize that changes need to be made for the health of the chess.

You showed one player, not 'players'. CB published it back then just as it has published Ivanchuk's proposal to change chess rules and a variety of other things. That does not mean FIDE has it on the table for analysis.

Lasker and Capablanca both said chess was going to die, and were promoting a new variant with extra pieces. The revolution is taking its time so far.

[Don]

I think you will find very very few grandmasters who think the two time controls are comparable. The vast majority of players are outraged at the idea of the world championship being decided by blitz tiebreak games.

Well then they need to get over it.

Myeah... I find it an odd idea that the players are not supposed to have any say.

But players are the ones making these proposals. The more progressive ones realize that changes need to be made for the health of the chess.

You showed one player, not 'players'. CB published it back then just as it has published Ivanchuk's proposal to change chess rules and a variety of other things. That does not mean FIDE has it on the table for analysis.

Lasker and Capablanca both said chess was going to die, and were promoting a new variant with extra pieces. The revolution is taking its time so far.

Many players have made proposals and many have endorsed the ideas. Surely you don't believe that only this ONE player had an idea and every other player rejected it do you? Of course not.

I believe players should have a say, but not a controlling say. If you are a player yourself of course you probably believe that only players should have a say. But the bread and butter of professional players is funding and sponsorship, and I hope you don't believe sponsors should have absolutely no say.

It's not all about you and what you want - this is about the survival of chess. It will probably survive in some form for a very long time but will it thrive as an international game played by millions? Not if you have your way to keep it as stagnant as possible.

I'm not saying this is a the only viable proposal, playing multiple game to get one result. That's just an idea and it may not even be a good one but it should at least be seriously considered. I personally think a better proposal to make it more media friendly is simply to speed things up significantly and have a lot more games. In a swiss tournament setting a reasonable proposal is to double the time control and make each round consist of two games played with each color. You could consider 1-1 a draw for pairing purposes but perhaps you can ignore that and pair based on total points - I think that would work fine. I think double games would tend to increase fighting chess because if the first game is won, the second player is going to need a win and if the first game is a draw there is a little less risk in playing for a win (because 0.5 out of 2 is better win rate than 0 out of 1.)

[Albert Silver]

It's not all about you and what you want - this is about the survival of chess. It will probably survive in some form for a very long time but will it thrive as an international game played by millions? Not if you have your way to keep it as stagnant as possible.

Ah. Because I reject this idea, I am automatically guilty of wanting to keep chess as stagnant as possible.

That is a pretty impressive leap.