Thank God!! Finally, an educator that educates!
"ses" wrote in message
...
topov is right. i dont even rate a patzer standing, but i have followed
chess off and on for many years and encourage my students to play during
"downtime" in class. since i dont follow the game all the time, the
changes
that occur every few years seem very prominent to me. the amount of draws
today seem out of whack. i thought when Kasparov first took the world
title, there were too many draws then. as far as computers, i do not
allow
my students to play chess against the computer, only games among
themselves.
guess for the same reason i dont let my algebra students use calculators.
just an out of touch old fart.....
"Gregory Topov" wrote in message
. ..
In checking some of the Linares games this week I did notice that lots
of
kibitzers called Kramnik boring. Here's a link to an interesting
interview
with Kramnik:
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1322

An important quote from it:
"The more we analyse with computers, the more we believe in defence. I
was
the first to display this clearly, particularly in my games against
Kasparov. You can't play the same way today as people did ten years ago.
I
admire Kasparov's imaginative attacking victories from the '80s and
'90s,
but when you check them with a computer, in every other game the machine
accepts the sacrifice, defends, and wins. This kind of attack on the
edge
of
a bluff just doesn't work anymore. We are under the influence of
computers
and we are defending much more precisely. Kasparov himself has adapted
his
style. He even admits that he now plays like I do."

I don't even have half the rating of a GM, so my comments probably don't
mean much grin, but I do question whether Kramnik is entirely correct
here. Could he be jealous, thinking that Kasparov has an attacking
imagination that he lacks? My thoughts:

1. Kasparov's attacking style is effective.
Kramnik may say that Kasparov admits he plays like Kramnik, but at
Linares
it seems widely agreed that although Kramnik won, it was Kasparov who
played
the best and most attacking chess (and not in Kramnik style either!).
In
at
least three games Kaspy failed to convert a won position, partly coz of
time
pressure. I followed a few snippets from his last two games, and
Kasparov
certainly was playing attacking chess, and absolutely not the cautious
defensive (boring?) style that Kramnik speaks about! In his second last
game (vs Topalov), Kasparov launched a beautiful attack with some
brilliant
sacrifices, but then had to make something like 10 moves in 10 minutes
to
time control, and twice missed a winning move, and so ended up with a
draw.
In his last game against Vallejo he also played some brilliant attacks,
but
it wasn't enough to win. This happened more than once in the tournament
(in
at least two other games he should have won with his attack, but missed
a
winning move and had to settle for a draw). Think of Kasparov's famous
1999
Wijk Aan Zee game against Topalov, with a double rook sacrifice. That
double rook sacrifice would not have been played by a computer, nor
would
it
have been accepted by a computer. Yet it was sound. So I doubt that
it's
true that Kasparov now plays like Kramnik, nor is it true that this
playing
style is ineffective!

2. Kasparov's attacking style is beautiful.
Even if one concedes to Kramnik that cold and calculated defense is more
sound, this doesn't mean that chess has improved. Take the 1999
Kasparov-Topalov game for instance - with a cold defensive Kramnik
computer-like style, that double rook sacrifice wouldn't have been
played
nor would it have been accepted, and the world would have been deprived
of
something beautiful. Cold defensive play may win, but it lacks beauty
and
imagination. So while Kramnik's defensive style may give him an overall
win
(it did in this tournament anyway), but I'd choose the "imaginative
attacking victories" of Kasparov any day! They may not always be
entirely
100% sound (debatable perhaps), but isn't this what the art and beauty
of
chess is all about? As soon as chess degenerates entirely to such cold
calculation, and humans play more like computers, then chess will lose
much
of its beauty, art, passion and fire.

That is already happening it seems. "79% of the games were drawn in
Linares
this year, many of them in under 25 moves, including seven by the
tournament
winner Kramnik." Kramnik may not lose much with his cold computer-like
defensive style, but he sure isn't very popular. If all chess players
adopt
this defensive style, it won't be long before chess itself won't be
popular.
In fact, the chess-players hostile reaction to Kramnik and to the
multitude
of draws at Linares suggests that maybe this is already the case? One
of
the few who gave the tournament life and excitement was Kasparov - it
was
unfortunate that he seemed a bit rusty and unable to make his brilliance
endure to the end to get the wins he deserved.

In one respect Kramnik may be right. As computers continue to improve,
they
will eventually supercede humans, because of their ability to calculate
futher. If computers improve their speeds at the same rate, someone
calculated that by the year 2168, computers will be able to *solve*
chess.
I can see a time coming where computers will be able to play better than
humans through sheer brute calculation. But who is going to pay to see
a
match between Super-Deep Fritz 99 vs Super-Deep Junior 99 in the year
2100?
Nobody, because it will be a boring defensive dead draw. We'd rather
watch
two humans go at it with imagination, art and beauty, and the occasional
slight mistake. Kramnik's style may lead to better chess results (ie a
record with less losses) because of deeper and calculated cold defense
and
an improved win/loss record, but the beauty of chess will not improve.
Instead of art, chess will turn into pure math. And isn't that the very
attraction of human chess - the beauty, the art and the imagination?
Chess
will lose something when it becomes pure mathematical calculation.
Similarly chess will lose something if it is embodied in Kramnik instead
of
Kasparov. There's good reason why attacking players like Morphy,
Capablanca, Tal, Fischer and Kasparov are much loved.

This leads me to a related question: Has the percentage of drawn games
increased over the years? 80% is rather inordinate it seems! (this was
the
percentage of draws at Linares) Some draws are fair enough - like
Kasparov
vs Vallejo in their last game - an exciting attacking game that lasted 5
hours, but after the dust settled from the furious play, it was a draw.
Others like Kramnik's last game (lasting only 20 or 25 moves) are a
travesty
to chess. Imagine agreeing to draw a soccer game at half time just
because
the scores are tied! Ridiculous! Play it out, and if it's a draw at
the
end, fine! But who knows, maybe one player will blunder, or be able to
press home a tiny advantage. That's what chess is all about. Don't
quit
when the middle game is only beginning.

One player who seems to have a different out look is young Radjabov. He
had
the most decisive results at Linares: won two games and lost two. Why?
He
seems willing to play out games, and not just agree to a premature draw.
Too many super GM games are merely being "half-played". Proof: Each of
Radjabov's decisive games could also have been declared an agreed draw
after
20 moves, because it was generally only later in the game that the
winner
emerged. Similarly I'm sure if many of the quick draws had been played
out,
there may have been a winner (even as the result of small errors from
their
opponent, or through their own brilliance - but that's chess!) I find
this
incredibly frustrating! They don't stop a boxing match after the first
round unless there's a clear winner, and the same principle applies to
chess: if there's no clear winner after round 1, play round 2, then
round
3.
Chess involves an opening, a middle game, and an end game, and only if
the
players are equal in each of these three "rounds" should the final
result
be
a draw. To agree to a draw before the middle game has been played out
is
premature, just like calling a boxing match a draw after the first or
second
round is premature. Has the amount of draws increased over time?
Surely
the 80% of draws isn't because players are more equal nowadays, but
because
they're just taking an easy draw when the game is not a whole lot beyond
the
opening!

Of course, I'm just a patzer, but if chess champs lose their appeal for
patzers, then what future does chess itself have? Even patzers can see
that
chess is changing - the Linares "draw" record speaks volumes - but is
this
really a change for the better?

--
Gregory Topov
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"I don't necessarily agree with everything I say." - Marshall McLuhan