Leko won the 8th game of his match against Kramnik. So far, I have
found the match to be boring and disappointing (but to be honest,
probably just as boring as Kramnik-Kasparov and Anand-Kasparov).

The 8th game was very exciting. A Marshall Attack in the Ruy Lopez,
with lots of tactical complications. I haven't looked at it closely,
but I'm surprised that Kramnik even allowed the Marshall. Kasparov
normally chooses the anti-Marshalls, and I figured Kramnik might
follow suit, since he seems to be more conservative in his opening
choices.

However, other than this game, half the other games have been dull,
short draws. Even the other decisive games were more technical in
nature than anything else.

I guess it all goes with the territory.

I don't know if Leko will hold on to his lead and win the match, but
if he does, I wonder what it'll do to the marketability of the unified
world chess championship. Even if Kasparov wins against Kasimdzhanov
(which is not a given, though he would be the heavy favorite), what if
we have another match with lack of commercial sponsorship, ala
Kasparov-Shirov, which never happened?

And the match Kasparov-Kasimdzhanov has no details either. I wonder if
the unification will ever happen.

In article ,
B. G. wrote:
However, other than this game, half the other games have been dull,
short draws. Even the other decisive games were more technical in
nature than anything else.

Does a game have to have flashy tactics to be interesting? I found Leko's
other win to be exciting. Does nobody else find subtle endgames fascinating?
--
Tim Chow tchow-at-alum-dot-mit-dot-edu
The range of our projectiles---even ... the artillery---however great, will
never exceed four of those miles of which as many thousand separate us from
the center of the earth. ---Galileo, Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences

On 07 Oct 2004 18:21:48 GMT, wrote:

Does a game have to have flashy tactics to be interesting? I found Leko's
other win to be exciting. Does nobody else find subtle endgames fascinating?

ME!!!

---
Replace you know what by j to email

On 7 Oct 2004 10:45:47 -0700, (B. G.) wrote:

I don't know if Leko will hold on to his lead and win the match, but
if he does, I wonder what it'll do to the marketability of the unified
world chess championship. Even if Kasparov wins against Kasimdzhanov
(which is not a given, though he would be the heavy favorite), what if
we have another match with lack of commercial sponsorship, ala
Kasparov-Shirov, which never happened?

And the match Kasparov-Kasimdzhanov has no details either. I wonder if
the unification will ever happen.

I completely forgot about the match this evening... damn and blast.

If some characters re-appear in the chess world the advertising will
return. IBM did a lot of damage to the commercial reputation of chess
when they beat Kasparov with "Deeper Blue"; which was partially the
GM's fault for always claiming that computers would never beat the
"super GMs".

Ideally, chess needs a media savvy prodigy, and it needs him or her
yesterday...



Jonathan Beckett
http://www.pluggedout.com/blog

It almost looks like Leko is becoming more mature a player as the
match goes on. He is getting stronger with each game. If Leko wins
this match he will be one of the top 3 players in the world and if
Kasparov, Anand or Shirov play him they won't be so solid as favorites
as one might think.

EZoto

wrote in message
...
In article ,
B. G. wrote:
However, other than this game, half the other games have been dull,
short draws. Even the other decisive games were more technical in
nature than anything else.

Does a game have to have flashy tactics to be interesting? I found Leko's
other win to be exciting. Does nobody else find subtle endgames
fascinating?
--

Absolutely not. Tactics actually never impresses anyone these days, because
the spectators with the computers have already seen them before they are
played.

No, I don't think the game has to necessarily have flashy tactics to
be interesting. However, after game 9, we had another short draw (16
moves).
However, short draws are almost completely uninteresting. I was
reading Malcolm Pein's comments on the match: this is a match to be
lost, not won:

"As Leko said in his press conference after game seven, he lost the
first game in a ridiculous way. Kramnik lost a drawn endgame in game
six and now he has lost a drawn opening, the Marshall Attack, in game
eight."

If we take a look at the number of moves per game, this is what we
come up with:

Game 1: 65 moves, decisive
Game 2: 18 moves, draw
Game 3: 23 moves, draw
Game 4: 43 moves, draw
Game 5: 69 moves, decisive
Game 6: 20 moves, draw
Game 7: 21 moves, draw
Game 8: 32 moves, decisive
Game 9: 16 moves, draw

So, 5 out of 9 games have been short draws for a 19.6 move average for
those games. The other 4 games have had an average of 52.3 moves per
game.
Fischer had the right idea when he said that if the players have a
short draw, they'd have to play another game the same day. That ought
to be a good incentive not to have short draws. But I don't think that
would be incorporated in these matches.

wrote in message ...
In article ,
B. G. wrote:
However, other than this game, half the other games have been dull,
short draws. Even the other decisive games were more technical in
nature than anything else.

Does a game have to have flashy tactics to be interesting? I found Leko's
other win to be exciting. Does nobody else find subtle endgames fascinating?

"B. G." wrote in message
m...

However, short draws are almost completely
uninteresting. I was reading Malcolm Pein's
comments on the match: this is a match to be
lost, not won:

Isn't that true of all grandmaster chess matches? Two people making perfect
move after perfect move until one of them screws up? Playing chess is like
being a soccer goalkeeper - no matter how many goals you save, you will only
be remembered for the one you let in.

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
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That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes