What is the classical time control for a world championship game ?

Fischer vs Spasky for example , did they play 40 moves in 2 I/2 hours
? Then after the 40 moves they get 5 min a move ?



Are the rules the same for the next world championship game ?

why not play Rybka at world championship time controls ? Would
Rybka kill humans because it could think of so many moves in that time
limit. ?

How about Rybka vs Deep Fritz at world championship time control ,
who would win that?

On Mar 8, 5:10 pm, (SAT W-7) wrote:

What is the classical time control for a world championship game ?

In the old days, there could be as many as
three minutes per move. When you factor in
the fact that it is typical for the first ten or so
moves to be played rapidly by rote, that can
make for high-quality chess.


Fischer vs Spasky for example , did they play 40 moves in 2 I/2 hours
? Then after the 40 moves they get 5 min a move ?

In some games, these two were "in book"
for fifteen or more moves, so it doesn't much
matter.


Are the rules the same for the next world championship game ?

I don't know.


why not play Rybka at world championship time controls ? Would
Rybka kill humans because it could think of so many moves in that time
limit. ?

I think the oldsters who have been playing
these odds matches want "less work" and
"more money". It reminds me of some of
the claptrap which has been published in
Chess Lies magazine-- trash, churned out
such as to make a mockery of the attempt
to "support" our professional players.


How about Rybka vs Deep Fritz at world championship time control ,
who would win that?

Every year, a world championship event is
played, with varying results. My comments
that Rybka is the strongest have more to do
with the extensive testing which has been
conducted than with these hit-or-miss affairs.

For Rybka to really show off its abilities,
you would need to give it gobs of time; these
programs do not tire easily, although their
chips may ultimately get a bit hot under the
collar if pressed too hard, for too long... . ;D


-- help bot

Chess Lies magazine-- trash, churned out

I was looking at the latest issue at breakfast and a tiny bit of
grease from my bagel fell on the page. I tried to wipe it off, and
the ink immediately ran and smeared becoming instantly illegible.

Not only poor writing, poor articles, but poor production.... and yet
we can't opt out in our membership, we have to pay for the thing
whether we want it or not.

It's barely changed since I first read it in the 1960s --- bad then,
bad now. It even just about looks the same.

On Mar 9, 9:31 pm, " wrote:
Chess Lies magazine-- trash, churned out

I was looking at the latest issue at breakfast and a tiny bit of
grease from my bagel fell on the page. I tried to wipe it off, and
the ink immediately ran and smeared becoming instantly illegible.

Not only poor writing, poor articles, but poor production.... and yet
we can't opt out in our membership, we have to pay for the thing
whether we want it or not.

It's barely changed since I first read it in the 1960s --- bad then,
bad now. It even just about looks the same.

I have noticed a few changes:

1) The old Cold War garbage is gone. At one
time, the editorial slant was so severe, it is a
wonder that the type itself did not slide off the
pages.

2) Now, there is a lot of computer-assisted
analysis. Trouble is, when the annotators
decide the computer knows more than they
do, there is a strong temptation to stop
thinking and just let the machine do every-
thing; time being limited, the result can be
a shallow anno-Fritzation, easily refuted by
a somewhat deeper analysis, or even a
Fritz-look at positions the annotator may
have just skipped over to save time.

One example was an article on GM Boris
Gulko, where the writers chose a theme of
"watch his perfect technique", so to speak.
Problem was that later in the game GM
Gulko essentially threw away two-thirds of
his accumulated advantage by a careless
blunder; this was "handled" by pretending
it never happened, which is why I am not
impressed with the quality of these puff-
pieces.

It reminded me of another, very similar
puff-piece from the old days in which GM
Pal Benko, who wrote about the endgame,
penned a piece about "why all Rook and
pawn endings are drawn". His choice of
game could not have been worse, for as
he was expounding on how simple it was
for an endgame genius like him to draw
the position, I did a little research. It so
happened that I found the exact same
position in an endgame reference by two
Russian GMs: Smyslov and Levenfish,
and it was a "book win"! And a very
instructive one at that. You know the
worst part of this example? The fact
that I "knew" to look it up, whereas GM
Benko thought he knew everything, that
he understood such endings perfectly.
You see, after playing over "Alekhine's
Best Games of Chess", I could just
/feel/ that there was a possibility of
more than a draw; that a /real/ chess
player could not so easily be held to
a draw.

Now, it's Rybka; the blasted program
basically /cheats/ in the endgame, often
winning positions that nobody ought to
have any right to win. It does so invisibly,
imperceptibly, almost magically. I want
to point a finger at the other programs'
contempt factors, as there must be
/some reason/ they play so stupidly!


-- help bot

there is a strong temptation to stop
thinking and just let the machine do every-
thing; time being limited, the result can be
a shallow anno-Fritzation

You raise a point that others have raised and it is a good one. I
have read also in a number of places that now the trend is toward
concrete analysis rather than understanding the position, with
computers having pushed us to this. But in addition to what you
mention --- the trend to just let the computer do it all and then to
blindly believe it, this trend accelerated and supported by the
amazing things engines like Rybka can do --- we tend to forget that
chess for fun (even very serious fun) is played by people, over the
board, and the kind of concrete analysis featured in Chess Lice and
many new books is all but impossible for even the world's top
players. When real people play real chess, positional understanding
and general principles still play a large role, as they must.

A good case in point: this past weekend I was playing over a game from
the marvelous book of the renowned Zurich 1953 tournament. A position
was reached (I think in the third game in the book; I don't have it in
front of me) in which the annotator (Bronstein) though Black had a bit
of an advantage, and mentioned a move for White (one that I would have
likely played) as being unappealing. I didn't see quite why so I set
up the position with Rybka and poked around for 20 minutes or so.
Interestingly, though Bronstein thought Black had an edge, Rybka gave
White anything from a 10 to 25 centipawn edge depending on the
continuation, this based on deep and complex analysis with some very
unobvious moves in the projected lines of play (the move I liked and
Bronstein did not like was indeed inferior for White, but only in that
White would have less of an advantage).

But in a practical sense what does this really mean? A 10 centipawn
edge is dubious at best for a human player. 25 centipawns is better
but still it's something that a computer understands and a human would
have a much harder time converting into something tangible. And, go a
few plies deeper and we swing another 10 cp in either direction. We
are fooling ourselves if we think this is any sort of practical guide
in real-life play.

In fact, as the position stood, and as it would be played by humans,
even top grandmasters, Black did have an edge simply in the fact that
there were positional considerations that humans could understand and
deal with. Those considerations would have been overturned by
extremely deep and complex concrete analysis of which only a computer
is capable. The computer would have perhaps won with White (certainly
not have lost), but in the real game, Black pushed his "real life"
advantage and made a win out of it.

To take this exposition to an unexpected conclusion, this all explains
why I like Sanny and I like GitClub. They make very human errors, the
kind of errors and blunders that I make. I can relate to them. I
cannot relate to Rybka on any level.

On Mar 10, 9:00 am, " wrote:

But in a practical sense what does this really mean? A 10 centipawn
edge is dubious at best for a human player. 25 centipawns is better
but still it's something that a computer understands and a human would
have a much harder time converting into something tangible. And, go a
few plies deeper and we swing another 10 cp in either direction. We
are fooling ourselves if we think this is any sort of practical guide
in real-life play.

In fact, as the position stood, and as it would be played by humans,
even top grandmasters, Black did have an edge simply in the fact that
there were positional considerations that humans could understand and
deal with. Those considerations would have been overturned by
extremely deep and complex concrete analysis of which only a computer
is capable. The computer would have perhaps won with White (certainly
not have lost), but in the real game, Black pushed his "real life"
advantage and made a win out of it.

To take this exposition to an unexpected conclusion, this all explains
why I like Sanny and I like GitClub. They make very human errors, the
kind of errors and blunders that I make. I can relate to them. I
cannot relate to Rybka on any level.


Well, some of the computer vs. computer games
I replayed had Rybka winning endgames which
most humans would give up as impossible to make
headway in. In these games, I could not pinpoint
the specific errors which led to the opponents'
downfall, and no information was provided as to
how those programs evaluated the positions as
they crumbled.

But there are plenty of cases where strong
programs will improve on "theory", and all that is
needed is to see the improvement and its
immediate follow-up in order for us to understand
perfectly, so to speak. Often as not, it is just a
clever tactic, or a material sacrifice which we
reject out-of-hand but which the program takes
the time to evaluate objectively.

I read quite a few "raving reviews" regarding
the GM Bronstein book you mentioned, and
with great expectations I began to peruse a
copy. I was greatly disappointed in that the
opening moves were just glossed over, when
in fact the positions were very complex and
anything but obvious. I vaguely recall that the
author might jump clear to move fifteen before
offering any insight as to what was happening,
and heck, by then I would have already lost a
piece or something. Those guys were
playing openings and lines I knew little or
nothing about, so you could say that the book
was "over my head" and dismiss my criticism;
but then, you would have to do the same
thing for many, many others-- just let them
drown, the patzers; this book was intended
for Russian GMs, not you!

My favorite in that vein is where each of
*several* different grandmasters independently
annotate the same games, but it is never done
fairly, equitably. In reality, one GM will go to
print first, then later another will add his own
commentary, correcting a few errors of the
first guy along the way. Then comes GM
number three, and so forth down the line. The
first guy never has a chance to correct anyone
but the two players themselves... .


-- help bot

On Mar 10, 2:08 pm, help bot wrote:
On Mar 10, 9:00 am, " wrote:



But in a practical sense what does this really mean? A 10 centipawn
edge is dubious at best for a human player. 25 centipawns is better
but still it's something that a computer understands and a human would
have a much harder time converting into something tangible. And, go a
few plies deeper and we swing another 10 cp in either direction. We
are fooling ourselves if we think this is any sort of practical guide
in real-life play.

In fact, as the position stood, and as it would be played by humans,
even top grandmasters, Black did have an edge simply in the fact that
there were positional considerations that humans could understand and
deal with. Those considerations would have been overturned by
extremely deep and complex concrete analysis of which only a computer
is capable. The computer would have perhaps won with White (certainly
not have lost), but in the real game, Black pushed his "real life"
advantage and made a win out of it.

To take this exposition to an unexpected conclusion, this all explains
why I like Sanny and I like GitClub. They make very human errors, the
kind of errors and blunders that I make. I can relate to them. I
cannot relate to Rybka on any level.

Well, some of the computer vs. computer games
I replayed had Rybka winning endgames which
most humans would give up as impossible to make
headway in. In these games, I could not pinpoint
the specific errors which led to the opponents'
downfall, and no information was provided as to
how those programs evaluated the positions as
they crumbled.

But there are plenty of cases where strong
programs will improve on "theory", and all that is
needed is to see the improvement and its
immediate follow-up in order for us to understand
perfectly, so to speak. Often as not, it is just a
clever tactic, or a material sacrifice which we
reject out-of-hand but which the program takes
the time to evaluate objectively.

I read quite a few "raving reviews" regarding
the GM Bronstein book you mentioned, and
with great expectations I began to peruse a
copy. I was greatly disappointed in that the
opening moves were just glossed over, when
in fact the positions were very complex and
anything but obvious. I vaguely recall that the
author might jump clear to move fifteen before
offering any insight as to what was happening,
[...]

You were (greatly :-) disappointed because you didn't
peruse the introduction to the book. I have the 2nd
russian edition of the book. It iincludes two intros,
both to the first and to the second edition. Bronstein
wrote in both introductions that his monography
is devoted to the middle game.

Regards,

Wlod

On Mar 12, 5:06 am, "Wlodzimierz Holsztynski (Wlod)"
wrote:

You were (greatly :-) disappointed because you didn't
peruse the introduction to the book.

I seriously doubt that; generally speaking, I
find the text more interesting than the games
themselves. The exception is where the text
is nothing but blather.


I have the 2nd
russian edition of the book. It iincludes two intros,
both to the first and to the second edition. Bronstein
wrote in both introductions that his monography
is devoted to the middle game.

I hardly expect an author to expound on the
virtues of 1. e4 e5, 2. Nf3 Nc6, but most of
these games became "interesting" long before
any commentary whatever appeared. At the
time the games were played, most strong
chess players would have been familiar with
the then-current fashions in the openings, but
this book has been raved about for decades
afterward, and there is a gaping hole between
the more recent fashions, and what was then
well-known.

Perusing the recommendations given on rgc,
it becomes apparent that the older such a
work is, the greater its chances of being
praised in the same manner as this book has
been. My conclusion is that people tend to
recommend books which were recommended
to them, years, if not decades earlier, for the
quality of such books is simply not up to par;
not up to the standards which would bring the
books to the top of any purely objective list.

Example: Basic Chess Endings, as we know,
is filled to overflowing with analytical errors, yet
it has been mentioned time and again as one
of the "best" endgame books; when people
complain that they were unable to read it, the
answer is offered up: it's a reference work, not
a romance novel. But that brings us right back
to /quality/ again; a reference should have few
if any careless errors, unlike GM Fine's effort.
Now, if it was not possible to write without so
many errors "creeping in", then we would have
to choose among the possibilities using some
other criteria; but in fact, there /are/ endgame
books with no discernible errors, let alone
enough for a compendium of them to render
another book in its own right, as with BCE.

Now that I have a very strong chess engine
handy, I could probably look over the gaping
holes in GM Bronstien's famous work, but I
now have the impression that all these
recommendations are worthless; just look
at some of the books highly recommended
here-- they are mediocre at best, while a lot
of more modern works are systematically
overlooked. It's nostalgia that rules the day,
not quality.

If you go to the Web site jeremysilman.com,
you will find what is purportedly the biggest
collection of chess book reviews extant; but
looking over some of these, I discovered that
books on the primary reviewers' favorite chess
openings are covered in-depth, while books on
say, cave paintings by hump-backed camels
are glossed over, not really reviewed at all.

There is a /huge/ variance in the length and
depth of the reviews, and as the averages
indicate, even the numerical scores given by
the various reviewers vary widely in meaning.
For one or two reviewers, a book given a 9
means it was fairly good, while for others, a
9 means it is the finest book ever written, on
a pet line in the reviewer's very favorite chess
opening. It's all subjective, and sometimes,
very, very shallow.


-- help bot