World Championship – out of the box

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Frederic Friedel Editor-in-Chief emeritus of the ChessBase News page. Studied Philosophy and Linguistics at the University of Hamburg and Oxford, graduating with a thesis on speech act theory and moral language. He started a university career but switched to science journalism, producing documentaries for German TV. In 1986 he co-founded ChessBase.

Discuss

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lajosarpad 11/28/2018 01:40

@Petrarlsen

You are right about your reasoning about the usage of the word "anywhere", but I think he/she of course exagerated. I think he/she did not remember his/her own proposal and had a baseless generalization.

Petrarlsen 11/27/2018 06:06

@ lajosarpad: I have find a new element; on this page, fgkdjlkag wrote this (post "9/23/2018 02:58"):

"A lot of proposals give one side an advantage, either by having an extra white, being able to get the white pieces first, or something else. Why the need for it at all? Have a match with exactly the same conditions for both players, and let the best player win. Eg, as I proposed early in this thread, a match of unlimited classical games with first to x wins, winning by a margin of y.
The idea that we need a fixed number of games today more than in the past is silly; insurance markets are much more developed now. A long match would create tremendous excitement."

I really wonder how fgkdjlkag could reconcile this passage of this post: "(...) as I proposed early in this thread, a match of unlimited classical games with first to x wins, winning by a margin of y. The idea that we need a fixed number of games today more than in the past is silly (...)" and the passage that we already discussed: "I never suggested an unlimited competition anywhere (...)". The two seem to be completely incompatible one with the other.

Petrarlsen 11/27/2018 05:45

@ lajosarpad:

The main element will be what fgkdjlkag will answer...

But I don't think that it is really possible to consider that fgkdjlkag refered to the current debate when he said: "I never suggested an unlimited competition anywhere". If he had simply said: "I never suggested an unlimited competition", then I would quite agree, but, clearly, in my opinion, the fact that he added: "anywhere" necessarily means that it wasn't only in the context of the current debate that he - according to him - "never suggested an unlimited competition". Perhaps I am wrong, but then, in your opinion, why would he have added "anywhere", if he only meant: "in the current debate"? At least for the moment, I absolutely don't see what "anywhere" could mean, apart from something like: "not under any ChessBase article, not on any other website, etc."...

lajosarpad 11/27/2018 11:30

@Petrarlsen

That's quite the self-contradiction, but I would like to remind you that two years passed between the two comments. The quote

"I never suggested an unlimited competition anywhere, my point was in essence the opposite - that the problem with that match was not that there was an unlimited possible number of games."

probably refers to the current debate, with fgkdjlkag not remembering the other comment. I think we all change our opinion about things over time and I think such contradictions can be found for everybody. So, even though this is quite a brilliant find, I do not see a big problem with this inconsistency. The problem I see is the incorrect and dishonest behavior we've seen from @fgkdjlkag. When he falsely attributed an opinion to you I, on my part have given him/her the benefit of doubt, as I usually do, regardless of my real opinion about the reasons behind the falsification of your comment, so, even though I was very angry to see such a falsification, I moderated myself. But fgkdjlkag, instead of apologizing for it has given further strawman arguments and his/her behavior was very dishonest overall in this debate.

My approach to a debate is to formulate the facts known by me and my opinion and give strong arguments to support it, acknowledging when I am wrong. Of course I am sure we can find quotes from me where I did not live up to my own standards, but my aim is nevertheless this. Whenever someone operates with fallacies I consider it disrespectful to our intellect and dishonest. Our friend was given a chance to acknowledge that the self-contradiction attributed to you was incorrect and I would have no longer focused on that mistake. Instead, he/she has chosen to try and "win" the debate. However, even if the self-contradiction attributed to you was real - it was not - it would not make @fgkdjlkag's arguments valid or invalid. It was just a personal attack, which is unacceptable in a civilized debate.

Petrarlsen 11/27/2018 07:23

@ fgkdjlkag:

I would be very interested to know what is the coherence between these two passages, taken out of two of your posts:

* "I never suggested an unlimited competition anywhere, my point was in essence the opposite - that the problem with that match was not that there was an unlimited possible number of games. The problem that the Karpov-Kasparov match elucidated was that without draw odds and without a tiebreak, 2 top players cannot distinguish themselves sufficiently in classical chess. In order to have a winner, you MUST have either an advantage to one player (eg, draw odds) OR a non-classical tiebreak (eg, blitz, rapid, etc)." (post "11/25/2018 06:39, on the present page).

And:

* "I propose first to x wins in classical format wins. There is no advantage to either the champion or the challenger, and whoever wins would have demonstrated that they are the better player. Both sides can receive the same number of whites. There may be still a slight advantage to the player receiving white first, but if decided by a drawing of lots, both players have the same chance, and other ideas can be used to mitigate this advantage if desired. Regarding the concern of renting a venue for a match of uncertain length, insurance can be taken by the organizers and by the venue, in case the match is longer than or shorter than anticipated. A match that goes longer than anticipated would also get additional advertising revenue and selling of tickets to attend." (post "12/13/2016 01:46" on this page: https://en.chessbase.com/post/maurice-ashley-yasser-seirawan-debate-world-championship-format/1#discuss).

My clear impression is that in the first post you say quite the opposite of what you previously said in the second post, but perhaps you have a better explanation...

Snidery Mark 11/27/2018 02:26

Given the two extremes where Capablanca had to postal his resignation while Alekhine was down the pub or where Fisher just doesn't show up because there's bugs in the bishop, I'd really like to see a result. 12 games is too few, unless there is some pressure on the challenger to beat the incumbent, then the likelihood of draws is too great - as in this championship. It shouldn't be a knock-out like the Ladies WCC nor blitz, rapid, rock-paper-scissors, closest to the bull, closest to next week's lotto results or the arbiter asking, "How many fingers am I holding up behind my back." None of those is classical chess. I think the matter should be resolved by installing non-accruing time limits for each match. The pressure of time controls may cause serious blunders - but that's chess and that's the human aspect of chess. The blokes at the top of the tree, including Messrs Carlsen and Caruana, have been doing this long enough to know that, as Dr Tartakower (and Anand later reiterated - although he forgot who said it) states so eloquently, "(Of chess).. the winner is the one who makes the next-to-last mistake." We're all human and I'd love to see the headline, "Oh! What a blunder!" I think the silly bishop move that Fischer made only spurred him on, so if it's good enough for Bobby...

Petrarlsen 11/25/2018 05:00

@ lajosarpad: I completely agree with your last posts...

lajosarpad 11/25/2018 11:28

@fkgdjlkag

"lajosarpad 9/19/2018 10:37
It would be ridiculous to decide the Chess Blitz World Championship with classical games played at tiebreak. Yet, the invert is the standard nowadays and I think it is ridiculous as well.

Playing the rapid and blitz tiebreak as a prologue would be an improvement over the current system, but I still do not see why champion retains would be such a bad idea. The champion earned the title before and the challenger has not yet earned it. In that system somebody has a match advantage: it is either the player having more wins or the champion having draw odds, so the other player will have to try to win.

If we cannot do without a tiebreak, then classical chess 960 games seem to be a better choice than rapid and blitz to be played as a tiebreak. Yes, chess 960 is different from classical chess as well, but at least it is not a time scramble if it is played with classical time controls. "

How did I exclude time format from the discussion!? In the comment above, which was made well before your accusation of misconstructing the argument I very clearly and very directly discussed the issue of time control and made my opinion crystal clear!

Even if we ignore my comment quoted above, even if my arguments did not deal with the time format - as you falsely claim - I would not exclude time format from the discussion. Excluding time format from the discussion would consist of attempts to prevent you and others from speaking about it, not of not dealing with the time format. And of course I did deal with the time format, long before your offensive accusation!

lajosarpad 11/25/2018 11:27

@fkgdjlkag

This quote

"Nope. The system which determines who the best is is an important factor and we should be allowed to talk about it without accusations of misconstructing the argument."

was taken from me.

"I did not accuse you of ducking anything; again you take these comments out of their original context and then use it to make a moral argument."

Man, you have a strawman factory. You have accused me previously of misconstructing the argument and the context you gave was "The system"

I certainly did not exclude time control of the discussion!

lajosarpad 11/25/2018 11:20

@fkgdjlkag

You are lamenting about a problem with misquoting the comments:

"That is part of the issue I had, that there appears to be rampant misquoting in the comments."

and in the VERY SAME comment just a few lines later you quote Petrarlsen's comment as if it was mine!

"You cannot say this like this. For example, if you had a World Championship with the rule "First to win 50 games", it would take years to finish, and it would just be completely normal. This was not the case, but, in my opinion, a potentialy unlimited competition is just something you can't do, be it in chess or elsewhere, and this is the real source of this problem. "

And in your next comment you correctly attribute this quote above to Petrarlsen. I find this very strange.

"In order to have a winner, you MUST have either an advantage to one player (eg, draw odds) OR a non-classical tiebreak (eg, blitz, rapid, etc)."

You can have playoffs in classical chess as well.

lajosarpad 11/25/2018 10:49

@fgkdjlkag

"No, the quotation from me was not a strawman argument (as an aside "quote" is a verb, "quotation" a noun, although many use the words interchangeably today)."

What??? In my comment I quoted you! And I specified precisely that the quote from you is a strawman argument:

"The quote from you above is therefore a strawman argument."

I did not claim that you misquoted Petrarlsen. I called your comment below a strawman argument:

"I know that you will not agree, but, for me, the fact that the Champion would keep his title in case of a drawn match isn't "giving an advantage to one player" ; this advantage, he earned it by winning the previous match. "

My point was that you point out a self-contradiction of Petrarlsen where there is no self-contradiction because he did not say that the draw odds is not an advantage! You also claim that Petrarlsen and I have quoted you out of context. I quoted a whole comment by you, so there was no context to add there. How dare you claiming such trivially false things?!

You claim that this page

https://www.statisticshowto.datasciencecentral.com/probability-and-statistics/null-hypothesis/

is not correct about the null hypothesis. Why?

As a scientist I use the term "null hypothesis" according to its definition. Basic assumption is an assumption that is taken for granted. Null hypothesis is the hypothesis which - in the case when one has to assume something - can be used as a basic assumption. The two are different and I would like to see one (!) example where I mixed the two.

I would NEVER say that "your logic is atrocious". I do not consider anyone owning any logic.

lajosarpad 11/25/2018 10:30

@fgkdjlkag

You were perfectly right I would disagree.

I was very angry to see that you distorted Petrarlsen's argument, this is not how a debate should go, regardless whether you did this on purpose or it was an honest mistake. Let me quote your comment, which, according to your recent reply was "quoted out of context" by me:

"@Petrarlsen, you say that draw odds to the champion is not an advantage. But you later contradict yourself by saying: "this advantage, he earned it by winning the previous match." So you agree that it is an advantage. "

In the quote above you are attributing a statement to Petrarlsen which according to my current knowledge was never said by him. This is textbook strawman argument! Your argument continues by "identifying" a self-contradiction of Petrarlsen, because in the other comment he calls the draw odd an advantage. The self-contradiction "identified" by you is that - according to you - Petrarlsen once said that the draw odds is not an advantage and at another time he calls it an advantage. I cannot imagine how could we misunderstand the comment above. You are trying to discredit Petrarlsen by showing an inconsistency on his part. But you can only be right if and only if Petrarlsen said at any point that the draw odds is not an advantage. I cannot imagine that no matter how hard I try, so, unless you point out the EXACT quote where Petrarlsen stated that draw odds is not an advantage, or apologize I will have a very bad opinion about the way you debated here and not only here.

fgkdjlkag 11/25/2018 06:39

@Petrarlsen, maybe I misunderstood what you meant by your statement at the bottom of my last post. Re-reading it I am still not clear what you meant. I never suggested an unlimited competition anywhere, my point was in essence the opposite - that the problem with that match was not that there was an unlimited possible number of games. The problem that the Karpov-Kasparov match elucidated was that without draw odds and without a tiebreak, 2 top players cannot distinguish themselves sufficiently in classical chess. In order to have a winner, you MUST have either an advantage to one player (eg, draw odds) OR a non-classical tiebreak (eg, blitz, rapid, etc). In other words, classical chess itself must bear some responsibility. If the match rules were the same but done in classical Go or classical shogi, it would not have lasted 5 months.

regarding
"But "the system" is a misconstruction of the argument."
Nope. The system which determines who the best is is an important factor and we should be allowed to talk about it without accusations of misconstructing the argument.

I did not accuse you of ducking anything; again you take these comments out of their original context and then use it to make a moral argument. My point (if you look at the prior posts) was that you took classical chess out of the equation and made the argument solely about format. But that is not correct -as there are many advocating blitz/rapid tiebreaks, clearly the time control being used - classical, blitz, rapid - cannot be excluded from the discussion, and make it only about number of wins, draw odds, etc. If you believe that time control should not be part of the discussion, then that's fine, but you need to justify it or at least give some arguments for it, not assume by default that it is off-topic.

fgkdjlkag 11/25/2018 06:25

But even thousands of chess960 games would be unlikely to have enough statistical significance, given that thousands of chess960 games would be akin to the initial thousands of games played in chess, which is not at all the same as taking the most recent thousands of chess games played (since it depends on players' preparation, the theory that has developed, and what players have learned in the approach to the game, which is at its infancy in chess960).

@lajosarpad, the page you linked on the null hypothesis is not correct and it would be better to post an accurate, technical link. Correct me if I am wrong, but your usage seems to treat "null hypothesis" and "base assumption" as interchangeable, and the article uses "null hypothesis" to mean "assumption that one decides to made."

Regarding the comments:
"I clearly stated that there is a problem if the classical chess world championship cannot be decided within a reasonable time frame. 50 wins does not fall into the category of reasonableness."

As you would say, I think that your logic is rather atrocious if you consider that the measure for the time frame of a World Championship match is a number of wins.

I never stated anywhere that the time frame of a world championship match should be a number of wins. That is part of the issue I had, that there appears to be rampant misquoting in the comments. Your point was made in response to my original statement:

- "There is something wrong with classical chess when a world champion cannot be decided in 5 months, no matter how you look at it."
and your response was:

"You cannot say this like this. For example, if you had a World Championship with the rule "First to win 50 games", it would take years to finish, and it would just be completely normal. This was not the case, but, in my opinion, a potentialy unlimited competition is just something you can't do, be it in chess or elsewhere, and this is the real source of this problem. "

fgkdjlkag 11/25/2018 06:08

@Petrarlsen, in your post 9/24/2018 02:50, you specifically responded to a quotation I made, and then said "I don't think that to use Chess960 as a tiebreak for the Classical World Championship would be at all a good idea..." which seemed to imply that I had claimed it.

@lajosarpad, regarding post 9/25/2018 05:24
No, the quotation from me was not a strawman argument (as an aside "quote" is a verb, "quotation" a noun, although many use the words interchangeably today). I quoted Petrarlsen exactly and you and Petrarlsen have quoted me out of context. I quote where the advantage discussion began exactly, first me and then Petrarlsen's response:

- "As above, the point is not that chess is dead, the point is that a sufficiently long classical chess match cannot determine a sole winner without introducing non-classical elements or giving an advantage to one player."

I know that you will not agree, but, for me, the fact that the Champion would keep his title in case of a drawn match isn't "giving an advantage to one player" ; this advantage, he earned it by winning the previous match.

My statement stands whether or not the advantage is earned or given. Giving an advantage does not mean it was not earned (as in the tournament organizer gives the champion draw odds that he earned by winning the previous world championship). My point has nothing to do with whether the advantage is earned or given, but Petarlsen seemed to claim that my point was wrong if the advantage was earned.

@Petrarlsen, yes 100 games is not enough to draw any conclusion (if I recall, the Champion's showdown was not classical games, so certainly those matches could not be applied to a classical chess world championship). No reasonable statistician would use such a paucity of data as arguments or evidence for any point. It would be like doing a regression analysis on 20 observations. At the least, thousands of classical chess960 games would be necessary.

Petrarlsen 9/28/2018 11:12

@ Jacob woge :

"And I did not even mention World-Wide Hide and Seek."

Quite a serious omission, without any doubt !!

Petrarlsen 9/28/2018 10:26

@ Jacob woge :

About your two last comments, I find this quite interesting, but, without been very knowledgeable about the examples that you gave, I am under the impression that even if, theoretically, they are unlimited (which is still an interesting fact), in practice, they aren't so at all. And, in particular, it would be more or less impossible for them to be unlimited in terms of DAYS - in chess the "unlimited side" of "draws non counting" matches is a matter of days (and possibly a great number of days), and not of hours...

Jacob woge 9/27/2018 04:58

@lajosarpad

Not obvious perhaps, but i tried to comment on this statement:

"Personally, I cannot find one single example of a competitive system (in sports, etc.) that can allow a potentially unlimited competition"

I could think of a few. And I did not even mention World-Wide Hide and Seek.

lajosarpad 9/27/2018 02:46

@Petrarlsen

in fact I suggested chess960 (with classical time control) as a possible tiebreak, as a superior option in comparison to rapid and blitz. I explained that I consider chess960 with classical time control to be a better tiebreak than rapid or blitz, because in the case the tiebreak is being played with chess960 with classical time control, there is a chance of 1/960 that they will actually play chess. Nonetheless, if there is a tiebreak to be played, then in my opinion it should be played in classical chess. However, I prefer avoiding tiebreaks. In my view, ties are not representing a problem in chess, so they do not need to be broken. The match should be long-enough, maybe of 24 games, so, if the champion has draw odds, it would not have as big an effect on the result as in the case of a match which consists of 12 games.

I was happily showing your real argument, for me it is normal to answer to the real arguments of all the participants of a debate, regardless of whether I agree with them. With yours I happened to agree, but I would have made sure it is correctly presented even if I was not in agreement. It is sad that people are using logical fallacies and after a while start to be mean. I see these as signs of weakness in character and believe me, in other kinds of debates this is much more common, at least, according to my experience than here, in chess.

@Jacob Woge

What works for soccer or tennis not necessarily is working for chess. At chess the match is played between two guys who spent months preparing the same variations and the fight is mental, which highly modifies the effects of tiredness.

Petrarlsen 9/25/2018 11:49

@ lajosarpad : In fact, I haven't anything to answer about your two last posts, because, this time, I simply agree with everything in them ! But big thanks for having found the passage of one of my posts in which I supposedly said that the "draw odds to the Champion" doesn't give an advantage to him ; I really wondered how I could have said anything like this... and the (reassuring) answer was that, in fact, I DIDN'T say such a thing !

Petrarlsen 9/25/2018 10:58

@ fgkdjlkag :

I just read lajosarpad's last posts ; his very last post (for the moment) allowed me to understand what you meant in this paragraph :

"@Petrarlsen, you say that draw odds to the champion is not an advantage. But you later contradict yourself by saying: "this advantage, he earned it by winning the previous match." So you agree that it is an advantage."

So, obviously, by this comment, you alluded to this passage of one of my own previous posts :

"I know that you will not agree, but, for me, the fact that the Champion would keep his title in case of a drawn match isn't "giving an advantage to one player" ; this advantage, he earned it by winning the previous match."

Taking together these two passages, your and mine, rather seems to question your reading abilities : that you cannot understand, when reading a simple sentence, the difference between an advantage "given" to someone ("given" meaning necessarily that the source of this advantage was exterior to this person) and an advantage "earned" by this same person is more than surprising. And when you add that you didn't understand either that if someone has "earned" an advantage, it necessarily implies that this person DOES have this advantage (...if you "earn" something, you necessarily have it afterwards - unless you lose it later, obviously... -, or else you wouldn't have "earned" it...), the situation is becoming more and more surprising indeed...

Seeing your last posts, I am beginning to think that you are rather right (...probably the only point on which we would agree...) when you said : "The logic in the past few posts has been atrocious. I will respond to them, but will not continue in this discussion at this level of reasoning." And, indeed, I am rather under the impression that, if you would quit this discussion (as it is the solution you proposed to solve this grave problem), the logic in the posts on this page would probably cease to be "atrocious". But I am still wondering about a small point : as, obviously, the posts featuring an "atrocious" logic are your own posts, why haven't you answered your own posts ? Indeed, you said : "I will respond to them", but you didn't answer to those of your posts with such an "atrocious" level of logic... curious thing...

Petrarlsen 9/25/2018 10:23

@ lajosarpad : Strangely, I think that, at the moment I wrote my two last posts to fgkdjlkag, your own last posts didn't appear on this page ; I will now read them, and answer them.

Jacob woge 9/25/2018 08:52

Penalty shoot-out is potentially unlimited - but has shown to be very limited in practice. Tennis tie-break likewise - in principle every set is unlimited, advantage changing side at every turn. Badminton had the same issue, but rules have changed. Far as I know.

Petrarlsen 9/25/2018 06:49

@ fgkdjlkag (2/2) :

- "I clearly stated that there is a problem if the classical chess world championship cannot be decided within a reasonable time frame. 50 wins does not fall into the category of reasonableness."

As you would say, I think that your logic is rather atrocious if you consider that the measure for the time frame of a World Championship match is a number of wins.

And this is precisely the problem : when using a system which doesn't take into account drawn games, there isn't any time frame. A time frame must include ALL games from the match. Personally, I cannot find one single example of a competitive system (in sports, etc.) that can allow a potentially unlimited competition, and it is just simple logic : a system which doesn't decide in advance some sort of a time frame just BEGS for something in the line of the 1984 Karpov - Kasparov match...

- "@Petrarlsen, you say that draw odds to the champion is not an advantage. But you later contradict yourself by saying: "this advantage, he earned it by winning the previous match." So you agree that it is an advantage."

I don't remember where I am supposed to have said that the "draw odds to the Champion" rule isn't an advantage ; perhaps I didn't expressed well what I meant. It is obvious that the "draw odds to the Champion" rule is an advantage to the Champion, but if you mean that an advantage is always a bad thing, it is just completely surreal, in my opinion...

If one player has more match experience than the other, it is an advantage (and it doesn't necessarily is an advantage for the Champion : in their second match, Anand, as Challenger, had more match experience that Carlsen, as the Champion), if one player wins the first two games of the match, he has a clear advantage for the rest of the match, if one of the two participants had very bad results against the other in the last months preceding the match, he has (very probably...) a psychological advantage... What's wrong with having an advantage ? The question is to know if an advantage is a "good" advantage, and, one more time, I think that, lajosarpad and I, we explained sufficiently our viewpoints on the question of the "draw odds to the Champion" rule for it to be clear that we consider this as a "good advantage". With this rule, the onus is on the Challenger to demonstrate that he can beat the Champion ; if he cannot demonstrate this, then the Champion keeps his title ; quite simple ; it worked for decades and decades... I don't see any problem with this...

Petrarlsen 9/25/2018 06:48

@ fgkdjlkag (1/2) :

- "Comparing the Champion's showdown to other blitz/rapid events cannot be done because the sample size is too small."

In the Champion's showdown, there were 100 games, with 10 different top-players. What would you want ? 1,000 games ? 10.000 games ? A sample of 100 games seems to me to be more than enough to determine that, for the moment, our working hypothesis must be that Chess960 doesn't change significantly the wins / draws ratio. It would not be sufficient to draw final conclusions, but sufficient to consider that the working hypothesis is that Chess960 isn't useful to diminish the draw rate.

- "The logic in the past few posts has been atrocious. I will respond to them, but will not continue in this discussion at this level of reasoning."

Indeed, your logic seems to be atrocious when you insist to disregard completely the statistical elements that show that Chess960 must in all probability not be useful to diminish the draw rate in chess...

- About the "draw rate to the Champion" rule, I think that lajosarpad and I already sufficiently explain our opinions on this, and that our arguments still completely hold, even in view of your last explanations, so I don't think I have to add anything to what we have already exposed here.

- "I never suggested that chess960 should be used as a tiebreak for a classical chess world championship"

Nobody said that YOU suggested this, but, nonetheless, this idea has been discussed on this page. As it is clear from my comments, I am opposed to this idea of using Chess960 as a tiebreaker for the World Championship.

lajosarpad 9/25/2018 05:24

@fgkdjlkag

"I know that you will not agree, but, for me, the fact that the Champion would keep his title in case of a drawn match isn't "giving an advantage to one player" ; this advantage, he earned it by winning the previous match. "

Petrarlsen was stating that champion having draw odds is not giving advantage for him. In fact he earned the advantage by previously proving he is the best. Not agreeing that a hard earned advantage was "given" to one is not equal to claiming that the given advantage is not an advantage. I do not think that any reasonable argument would hold that the draw odds is not an advantage. It is obviously advantage, but was not given as a present. The person earned it, so it is fair. The quote from you above is therefore a strawman argument.

lajosarpad 9/25/2018 05:23

@Petrarlsen

Globally we agree indeed, the difference in our opinions comes from the details of the question, which is not surprising at all. Celeje is a proponent of chess960, but as a different game, as he clearly explained, so I do not really have essential problems with his approach, even though I assume that I would disagree with him in many things, but that's not a problem either.

@fgkdjlkag

thank you for being concerned about the level of my arguments.

The world champion has proven he is the best, so that is the null hypothesis until someone proves that he is better. The assumption that a given person might be better is an alternative hypothesis. To let him prove that he is the best and modify the null hypothesis for the future is the challenger's task. The world champion being the best player is an established fact at the moment of winning the game and over time it transforms into a null hypothesis, so development in the world is not ignored at all.

Read more about the null hypothesis here: http://www.statisticshowto.com/probability-and-statistics/null-hypothesis/

It is a short article and is easy to understand, the mathematical symbols are kept at a very simple level, to assure the understandability to people outside the realm of scientific research as well.

Again, I am happy you are concerned about my level, but speaking of levels, I find it strange that you quote from me in your answer to Petrarlsen. I will not quit the discussion because of this mistake, accidents happen. I also found it strange that you were not aware of the number of tied matches in the history of chess, but I would not be so arrogant to start to speak about your level and to use it as an excuse to quit the discussion.

"I disproved the exact claim that you made, that a draw odds to the champion is fair."

Can you give us the quote where you have successfully disproven this? I have seen some attempts, but I probably missed the point where you have successfully disproven this. When a system to determine who the world champion is provides an infinite match, then the system has a problem. You might have a problem with chess, but I hope no one forces you to play the game. I like the game. I like draws and I like tied matches. So, for me there is no problem in chess.

I have explained to you using the null hypothesis why such a match (with a reliable qualification for the challenger) is able to guarantee that the best player is the champion. If nobody is able to beat him, then he is the best. Maybe others are as good as him, but not better. Until someone beats him.

"But "the system" is a misconstruction of the argument."

Nope. The system which determines who the best is is an important factor and we should be allowed to talk about it without accusations of misconstructing the argument.

"NEITHER PLAYER has demonstrated to be the best in the world at that time. "

The null hypothesis has to be disproved, not proved. The world champion is already the world champion, he has nothing to prove. It is the challenger who challenges the claim of the world champion of being the best.

The difference between 5% and 80% is meaningful. But do we know that such a difference exist in our case?

"you say that draw odds to the champion is not an advantage. But you later contradict yourself by saying: "this advantage, he earned it by winning the previous match." So you agree that it is an advantage."

This is the quote you are talking about:

fgkdjlkag 9/25/2018 08:19

@Petrarlsen, you say that draw odds to the champion is not an advantage. But you later contradict yourself by saying: "this advantage, he earned it by winning the previous match." So you agree that it is an advantage.

fgkdjlkag 9/25/2018 08:19

@Bruce Harper, I understood the way the system worked, but was confused by the scoring system; was thrown off by the peculiar point that points are awarded for the first drawn game, but no points are awarded for each subsequent drawn game until a decisive result occurs. Very, very interesting idea.

The logic in the past few posts has been atrocious. I will respond to them, but will not continue in this discussion at this level of reasoning.

I never suggested that chess960 should be used as a tiebreak for a classical chess world championship; it is a terrible idea. The proposal was to replace classical chess with something else, such as chess960, Bruce Harper's proposal, or one of a plethora of other systems, one of the criteria (among many others) being to dramatically lower the chance of a tied match.

@lajosarpad, that reasoning is just wrong. The world champion demonstrated being the best in the world at the time of the world championship (with a certain probability, depending upon the conditions of the match, etc). It is NOT the assumption that the world champion is the best in the world at the time of the NEXT match. Not only because of a change in strength of the world champion, but much more significant is the development of other players.

@Petrarlsen, regarding your comment of "first to 50 wins", I clearly stated that there is a problem if the classical chess world championship cannot be decided within a reasonable time frame. 50 wins does not fall into the category of reasonableness.

"In the Kasparov-Karpov 1984 match the games were very interesting in my opinion, so I do not see a problem with the game there. The fact that the match was not decided in five months means there is a problem indeed, but it is a problem with the system."

There is nothing wrong with interesting games and I never suggested it. But "the system" is a misconstruction of the argument. The point is that "classical chess" has to be included as part of "the system". Incorporating blitz/rapid events changes "the system" to use your parlance, so classical vs. blitz/rapid must be part of the discussion, to distinguish the system including only number of wins, draw odds, etc.

Comparing the Champion's showdown to other blitz/rapid events cannot be done because the sample size is too small.

@Petrarlsen, you have not understood my Botvinnik/Alekhine example. Please review it again. It has nothing to do with a world champion's strength changing over time. It was a mathematical argument that I had hoped an example would elucidate. I disproved the exact claim that you made, that a draw odds to the champion is fair. To explain it in a different way: if there is a decisive outcome in a world championship match without draw odds rule or any other favorable treatment to one side (extra white, first to a win, etc), then one player has proven to be the best in the world. Take another world championship match (obviously done at a different time, otherwise it would be the same match. the players may be the same or different) in which the conditions are the same and the outcome is a tie. NEITHER PLAYER has demonstrated to be the best in the world at that time.

""Yes, chess960 would be expected to reduce the frequency of draws, which would make it more likely to have an undisputed world champion after a match (instead of it being drawn)."

So you acknowledge there is no guarantee. "

Of course there is no guarantee, it goes without saying in any system. Look at @Bruce Harper's comment below. If one system has a 5% probability of a drawn match and another has a 80% probability of a drawn match, isn't that meaningful? Whether one chooses to implement a system with a 80%, 5%, or 0% probability is a decision for someone/ a committee to make, but it is obvious that there are substantive differences.

Petrarlsen 9/25/2018 02:20

@ dumkof :

- "A scoring system in a match has no effect, since there are only 2 players (...)".

It cannot have an effect on the Wins / Draws ratio, but, in the form of the system explained by lajosarpad, that I developed in later posts under this same article (even if, by the way, neither lajosarpad nor I are particularly favorable to this system), a greater number of points for a win combined with a given score in number of points for the gain of the Title can be some sort of a "mitigated version" of the "draws non counting" system "à la Karpov - Kasparov 1984" (for example) - the number of games would be greater if many draws are played, and lower if wins are numerous, but this system would avoid the risk of an unlimited match.

But I rather suppose that you didn't include this very specific system, when you said : "A scoring system in a match has no effect".

dumkof 9/25/2018 12:34

A scoring system in a match has no effect, since there are only 2 players, whose draws are always the same. The only distinguishing thing is the number of wins, and it doesn't matter which numeric value a win has. Those who suggest a 3-1-0 system (or other arbitrary moronic systems) in a match, should be thrown out of this forum and imprisoned, for the sake of this match and the future of chess.

Bruce Harper 9/25/2018 12:18

fgkdjlkag wrote:

"I am not sure I understand @Bruce Harper's suggestion regarding 1/3, 2/3 points - it sounds to me that players are playing for the first decisive result, and the score for that day will be 1-0 or 0-1, no limit on the number of games? So the 1/3, 2/3 points is not relevant? Very interesting suggestion, would love to see a tournament with that format. It would have the effect of fundamentally change the nature of chess by making time management become much more important."

I am sure that fgkdjlkag *didn't* understand what I proposed, even though it is simple enough.

1. A normal classic game is played. If one player wins, that players gets 1 point and the loser gets 0 points.

2. If the classic (first) game is drawn, each player gets 1/3 of a point. That leaves the remaining 1/3 of a point up for grabs.

3. The two players then switch colors and play a second game. Each player gets whatever time they didn't use in the first game. If that game is decisive, the winner gets the remaining 1/3 of a point.

4. If the second game is also drawn, the players switch colors again and play a third game, using whatever time they have left. The winner gets the remaining 1/3 of a point.

5. This continues until there is a decisive result in one of the tie break games.

This is why there are only four possible results: 1-0, 2/3-1/3, 1/3-2/3 and 0-1. The current 1/2-1/2 result could not occur, because eventually one of the (faster and faster) tie breaks games would be decisive.

Would this prevent a tie in a World Championship match after 24 games? No - it would just make it very unlikely. Would it prevent a tie if a 25th game was played? Yes.

Petrarlsen 9/24/2018 04:26

@ jsaldea12 : As I completely agree with lajosarpad's last post to you, I will simply join his question to you : "I would like to know the exact way you would like such a match to be played and a detailed explanation of how the 3-1-0 scoring system would be an improvement in the system you propose."

This is mathematical, and not at all something linked with impressions when playing a game with one system or another !

Petrarlsen 9/24/2018 04:25

@ lajosarpad :

- About the system I proposed for the World Championship, our positions are not very different, in my opinion. I find this system acceptable, as I would find the immediate use of the "draw odds to the Champion" rule acceptable, and certainly a good number of other possible systems ; you seem also to find the two acceptable, but you prefer quite clearly the direct use of the "draw odds to the Champion" rule. I don't think this is a very important difference... For me, if a system is globally logical and coherent, and if it only uses classical time controls, it is sufficient ! But I can quite well understand that you would have higher expectations !

- "I would add that it was a problem with the system, not with the game itself, but I totally agree." (about the Karpov - Kasparov 1984 match)

In fact, I already said something to this effect !

This is what I said (to fgkdjlkag) : "(...) if you had a World Championship with the rule "First to win 50 games", it would take years to finish, and it would just be completely normal. This was not the case, but, in my opinion, a potentialy unlimited competition is just something you can't do, be it in chess or elsewhere, and this is the real source of this problem."

- "I think nobody would disagree to have some chess960 tournaments, but I do not understand why some people want to kill chess."

I quite agree. By the way, I remember that celeje also quite agree with our opinion on this point - he is clearly a strong proponent of Chess960, but not to replace traditional chess : alongside it.

lajosarpad 9/24/2018 03:38

@jsaldea12

If we introduce the 3-1-0 scoring system in a match between two players and the match is played between A and B, then, if A beats B, he gets 3 points. If B beats A, he gets 3 points as well. That would be a score of 3-3. If they draw all their games, they will have the exact same point, so the 3-1-0 scoring system by itself would not provide extra motivation to take risks. If you have a fixed score to achieve, then it would make a difference in the number of games, but not in the incentive to fight. So, I would like to know the exact way you would like such a match to be played and a detailed explanation of how the 3-1-0 scoring system would be an improvement in the system you propose. Thanks.

lajosarpad 9/24/2018 03:33

@fgkdjlkag

Even tied soccer matches could be decided by rapid or blitz chess tiebreaks if FIFA would maje such a decision. Would that mean there is a problem with soccer? No. So this is not a valid argument. If we need rapid or blitz to decide who the best chess player is, then there is a problem with chess indeed, but there is no proof we need rapid or blitz tiebreaks. Champion retains title was a commonly accepted standard before rapid and blitz tiebreaks were introduced. It was a political decision, not a scientific consequence of the game to introduce rapid and blitz tiebreaks. Giving draw odds to one of the players does not prevent draws at all. It just handles the ties gracefully if the situation arises, while a win achieved due to the tiredness of the opponent in a very long match or a blunder in a blitz tiebreak is not convincing at all.

"It was not an isolated problem, it was mentioned here that it has occurred 3 times already. "

It happened in:

Lasker-Schlechter (1910)
Botvinnik-Bronstein (1951)
Botvinnik-Smyslov (1954)
Kasparov-Karpov (1987)
Kasimdzhanov-Adams (2004)
Kramnik-Lékó (2004)
Kramnik-Topalov (2006)
Anand-Gelfand (2012)
Carlsen-Karjakin (2016)

It happened 9 times. Is this a problem? I disagree. The matches were interesting.

"Yes, chess960 would be expected to reduce the frequency of draws, which would make it more likely to have an undisputed world champion after a match (instead of it being drawn)."

So you acknowledge there is no guarantee. Anyway, the way people would prepare would be changed, evolved into something different, possibly more efficient. I can certainly imagine some optimizations in the preparation.

@Petrarlsen

You have a good point when you say that Kasparov-Karpov 1984 was an isolated problem. I would add that it was a problem with the system, not with the game itself, but I totally agree.

Also, I would like to point out that the cause of the debate, in my opinion is that the idea presented by some people is to replace chess with chess960. I think nobody would disagree to have some chess960 tournaments, but I do not understand why some people want to kill chess. Chess960 could thrive as a separate sport if it was popular. I have no problem with chess960 thriving, if it is not at the expense of chess.

jsaldea12 9/24/2018 03:27

Response to Petralsen statement: "You are certainly not overtiring yourself by answering to objections ; everyone says to you that what you say is absurd (in particular, mathematically absurd...), and you simply continue to repeat over and over the exact same nonsense ! You could at least TRY to refute the objections, but no ! You prefer to continue to state that 2 + 2 = 5 and that the white cat is in fact a black dog !... (Or perhaps a pink elephant ?!? Who knows ?...)". You have not understood. THE BEST ARGUMENT IS ACTUAL PLAY WITH THE PROPOSED RATIO 3 POINTS FOR WIN AND 1 POINT FOR DRAW AND TELL ME.

lajosarpad 9/24/2018 03:09

@Petrarlsen

I have taken into account the possibility (or even the probability) that the players would play differently. In the quote you have given, I even added that

"[...] assuming your proposed system would have been introduced before the match"

with which I intended to let you know that I am aware that assuming they were playing in a different situation, the example I am giving would not necessarily came to existence. I deliberately ignored this for the sake of simplicity and avoidance of baseless speculations from my part. The importance of the example is that we cannot exclude the possibility that the first win is achieved by using the blunder of the opponent and in the case of Anand-Gelfand the legitimacy of the title given to Gelfand would not have been very high looking at the match. He was a very good challenger, of course, but he did not manage to convince me he was better than Anand in that match. This problem could arise in your system even if they play differently. They might be very eager to be first to win, but they might bury themselves behind the Berlin wall as well, depending on their match strategy. I agree with you that they would play differently, but I think none of us can determine how they would play, due to the volatility of the situation and the personality of the players.

@fgkdjlkag

No offence, but I think your reasoning is flawed, if we take a look at the example you have given. In the example Botvinnik has already proven he is the best in the world and it is safe to assume that he is the best unless someone proves that this is no longer the case. In science the null hypothesis is the hypothesis which is scientifically correct if one has to assume something. When a match is tied, we have to assume something. We can assume that the champion is better. Or we can assume that the challenger is better. Or we can assume that a tiebreak would determine who is better. Since the world championt has already proven he or she is the best, the null hypothesis is that he or she is the best and the challenger has to prove he or she is better than the champion, hence the reason of the draw odds. One may want to have a tiebreak, but if the tiebreak is not classical chess, or not even chess, then I consider it less than satisfactory. If it is rapid or blitz, then we are deciding who is the best by making the players rush their decisions. This is not significantly better than a coin toss. If it is chess960, then 959 of the positions is not even chess. I see logic in having classical chess games as tiebreak, but if we want to break the tie, we will run either into the problem of infinity, if the match is undecided, see Kasparov-Karpov 1984, or into random draw odds, as in sudden death. Yes, it is more convincing for a champion to actually win the match than if he or she tied it, but the null hypothesis is not the champion's side. It is the challenger, who challenges the champion and the champion, who is challenged by the challenger, not vice versa.

"There is something wrong with classical chess when a world champion cannot be decided in 5 months, no matter how you look at it."

In the Kasparov-Karpov 1984 match the games were very interesting in my opinion, so I do not see a problem with the game there. The fact that the match was not decided in five months means there is a problem indeed, but it is a problem with the system. If you introduce the very same system with chess960 you cannot exclude reaching the same situation. Excluding the theoretical possibility of an infinite match is a very important responsivity of the system and it was ommitted in 1984. Again, I have absolutely no problem with tied matches. They are unacceptable for you, as it seems, so we will not reach an agreement about this.

Petrarlsen 9/24/2018 02:50

@ fgkdjlkag (2/2) :

- "You do not seem to know much about chess960" ; "(...) you grossly overestimate the players ability to reach a drawn position."

As you obviously very strongly disagree with my opinion, and as, quite obviously too, you were not convinced at all by my arguments, I wondered if it would be possible to make a comparison between Chess960 and traditional chess, as for the draw rates, to have more "solid" arguments (in one way or the other).

My answer to this is to take, on the one side, the draw percentage of the Champions Showdown and, on the other side, the respective draw percentages in the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz tournament in Rapid and in Blitz. The two competitions were played in the same period ; the player weren't the same, but their levels were rather similar, and the number of games quite important in one and the other event.

In the Champions Showdown, the draw percentage was 42 % (cf. https://en.chessbase.com/post/champions-showdown-improving-the-format).

In the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz tournament, in Blitz, the draw percentage was 41 % (https://en.chessbase.com/post/saint-louis-rapid-and-blitz-day-5-2018) ; in Rapid, it was 53 % (https://en.chessbase.com/post/saint-louis-rapid-blitz-day-3). Calculating with the Blitz / Rapid ratio of the Champions Showdown (70 blitz games and 30 rapid games), this would give a 45 % draw percentage.

So, on the one hand, we have a draw rate of 42 % at the Champions Showdown ; on the other hand, calculated with the percentages of the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz tournament, a similar competition to the Champions Showdown but in traditional chess would give a 45 % draw rate.

In my opinion, a difference of 3 % between the draw rate in Chess960 and traditional chess is more or less negligible, so I think that our working hypothesis seems in fact to be that to use Chess960 in lieu of traditional chess more or less doesn't change anything in terms of draw rate. My impression is that you didn't fully take into account the difference in defensive level between an amateur (even a very good amateur - for example a 2200 player) and a 2700+ GM : these players really KNOW how to force a draw, and, even in Chess960, they don't lose much more frequently than in traditional chess...

- "I never compared chess960 stakes to classical chess, I was responding to your statement that there has been "nothing at stake" in chess960."

I didn't say that there was "nothing at stake", but "nothing significant at stake". It was certainly slightly exaggerated, but I think that my own point stand, which was to say that, as, on the one hand, there are nearly no data about Chess960 at top-level with classical time controls, and, on the other hand, the stakes in a Classical World Championship tiebreak are incommensurably higher than in any previous Chess960 competition, it is very difficult to have a real idea of what could be a World Championship tiebreak played with Chess960 games, and with a classical time control, as the players would certainly play very differently from what we have seen in other Chess960 competitions. As, furthermore, the draw rate difference between Chess960 and traditional chess doesn't seem to be really significant, I don't think that to use Chess960 as a tiebreak for the Classical World Championship would be at all a good idea...

Petrarlsen 9/24/2018 02:50

@ fgkdjlkag (1/2) :

- About your (fictious) example with Botvinnik and Alekhine, I think it isn't quite relevant, because, at this time, there was no World Championship cycle, this having for a consequence that there could be a quite long period between two consecutive matches, with the Champion losing much of his initial level between the two matches. Nowodays, with the present system's very short cycles, the level of the Champion shouldn't change much between one match and the following one (or else, we could question everything, including the potential change in level for the Challenger between the Candidates and the following match). But if you change your example, and assume that Botvinnik would have beaten a World Champion who would have become World Champion 2 or 3 years before, I would find this completely satisfying : in the Botvinnik - Bronstein match, they were equal, but Botvinnik would have proved more by beating the previous Champion, so I would find completely logical for him to win the Title in such a way.

- "(...) that was a mistype, it was supposed to be not "as much of an accomplishment as" (...)"

I didn't succeed in finding your original sentence ; could you point it to me ?

- "There is something wrong with classical chess when a world champion cannot be decided in 5 months, no matter how you look at it."

You cannot say this like this. For example, if you had a World Championship with the rule "First to win 50 games", it would take years to finish, and it would just be completely normal. This was not the case, but, in my opinion, a potentialy unlimited competition is just something you can't do, be it in chess or elsewhere, and this is the real source of this problem.

- "As above, the point is not that chess is dead, the point is that a sufficiently long classical chess match cannot determine a sole winner without introducing non-classical elements or giving an advantage to one player."

I know that you will not agree, but, for me, the fact that the Champion would keep his title in case of a drawn match isn't "giving an advantage to one player" ; this advantage, he earned it by winning the previous match.

- "It was not an isolated problem" (about the 1984 match).

For you, it isn't an isolated problem, because you don't accept the "draw odds to the Champion" rule ; for me (and for most commentators - as you certainly have seen by yourself, the "draw odds to the Champion" rule is very popular between the ChessBase commentators), as I consider the "draw odds to the Champion" rule to be quite satisfying, I DO consider that this was an isolated problem ; no other match was left unfinished like the 1984 match...