On Apr 22, 9:02 pm, Quadibloc wrote:
If the "detail" makes the vast majority of proposed solutions
impossible, then it settles the question of applying those solutions.

John Savard

Then you have a Titanic type situation, where things are doomed and
nothing will change it? Just keep riding it out in hopes another
Bobby Fischer comes along? Not sure how chess will produce another
Bobby Fischer, unless there is another Cold War. Kasparov is probably
the closest to Fischer, but how large of an impact did he have on
Chess?

- Rich

On Apr 22, 9:25 pm, Kenneth Sloan wrote:
Quadibloc wrote:

I wasn't trying to get *personal*. I didn't think that the need to
book a hall for a fixed amount of time was irrelevant to having to
arrange the World Championship match so that it takes a fixed amount
of time - and thus involves a fixed number of games.

Not at all. Simply change the time controls so that each game takes no
longer than HALF the amount of time left until the end of the hall
rental. Disciplined use of this strategy will allow you to play an
unlimted number of games.

If you are going with an unlimited amount of games, how about having
it so the first player win with white and black would be the world
champ? You throw out draws. Halving the time per game is like the
solution of blitz as an overtime solution.

- Rich

On Apr 23, 3:23 am, " wrote:

In return for ditching the 24-game format in favor of the first player
to win six games, FIDE restored the rematch clause in 1978 as a sop to
Karpov, a favorite of the Kremlin, against Soviet defector Viktor
Korchnoi
whose family was held hostage inside the USSR. This dirty deal
disgusted Fischer. -

THIS CRAZY WORLD OF CHESS by GM Larry Evans (page 13)

How many organized sports have players playing 24 games? And, let's
get real here people, when you start to introduce time controls to
chess, having titles, awarding points, Chess becomes a sport. Why
should any sport need more than 24 games in order to decide who the
world champion is? Want a simple solution? How about if the
defending champion doesn't secure more points than his opponent after
24 games, then he loses his title, and there is no reigning world
champ. At this point, chess could end up changing the rules and
introducing a superior tiebreaking system. You then would end up
having a year without a world champ at chess. Someone please tell me
exactly what reigning world champions do to help the growth of chess?
If nothing, why not end up not having one, if allows chess to to make
needed changes. As I see it, the reigning chess champion is known by
next to no one outside the chess world. How useful is that? Are we
supposed to blame the reigning champ as not being Bobby Fischer? In
other word, if the world champion isn't know around the world, not
having one would end up meaning they won't be missed.

As far as unlimited number of games go, are they going to hold the
world championship in the FIDE headquarters? Please tell me how
exactly you will be able to have a location to have the tournament for
MONTHS? Also, tell me how the world is going to care. Is the
unlimited number of games going to be like selection of Pope? One day
we end up producing a winner?

- Rich

On Apr 22, 11:04 pm, help bot wrote:

Let's suppose that the goal is to eliminate, or at
least reduce to a sliver, any unfairness in the W. C.
cycle; the first step might be to eradicate the FIDE;
or perhaps, to somehow move the championship
cycle outside its grasp. But that would not in any
way guarantee a fairer handling of the title; for
instance, suppose the surrogate organization were
to be the USCF: it's a good bet that in spite of
everything, FIDE's "achievements" would be in
grave danger of being "bested" in short order... .

-- help bot

I am not looking to personally eliminate FIDE. However, if anyone
here wants to help IAGO get into the chess business to have the best
solution (even if not perfect), for chess in a tournament level, that
is up for being changed, please speak up. I don't have any chess yet
on the 2008 IAGO World Tour. I am up for chess in some form being on
IAGO World Tour calendar. Well, some form outside of chess variants.

- Rich

On Apr 21, 6:43 pm, "David Kane" wrote:

The problem, as I've said, is that in a short match, the tied match
possibility is not at all small. That's a real problem, and can be reasonably
addressed by various tie-breaks. Unfortunately, the real world is
going the other way - matches are getting shorter thereby increasing the
champion's advantage.

Of course, for various reasons, we've seen the prestige of the
WC devalued greatly over the past decades.

When you speak of the "real world" do you mean the world outside of
chess, or how chess is actually done in reality? If it is done by the
later, that should be in the scope of chess to change. But, it also
can reflect practical realities.

If it is the former, then isn't that a sign that the chess world has
lost touch with the real world? In those cases, should necessary
changes be made?

- Rich

"Rich Hutnik" wrote in message
...
On Apr 23, 3:23 am, " wrote:

In return for ditching the 24-game format in favor of the first player
to win six games, FIDE restored the rematch clause in 1978 as a sop to
Karpov, a favorite of the Kremlin, against Soviet defector Viktor
Korchnoi
whose family was held hostage inside the USSR. This dirty deal
disgusted Fischer. -

THIS CRAZY WORLD OF CHESS by GM Larry Evans (page 13)

How many organized sports have players playing 24 games? And, let's
get real here people, when you start to introduce time controls to
chess, having titles, awarding points, Chess becomes a sport. Why
should any sport need more than 24 games in order to decide who the
world champion is?

The reason for longer matches is so that they are meaningful.
You haven't given a single reason why 24 games is too many.

The point you are missing is that the "World Champion" designation
is marketable. More people will pay attention to a match that is
credibly a "World Championship" than to an equal number of games
that aren't.

The trend to deciding the WC with tournaments and short matches
has weakened the WC title. FIDE's old way - where there was
a difficult qualifying process including both tournaments and matches
- followed by a significant 24-game match meant that if you had
won the championship you had done something special.

You seem to favor something like the FIDE knock-out
titles. This was a single tournament "championship"
involving short matches, and tie-breaks with increasingly
fast time controls. The problem is that it produced a
string of no-name winners, and everyone knew that
the FIDE KO title was not a "real" championship.




Want a simple solution? How about if the
defending champion doesn't secure more points than his opponent after
24 games, then he loses his title, and there is no reigning world
champ.

You seem to be advocating trivializing the world championship
so that there is *never* a credible champ. How is that
better?

At this point, chess could end up changing the rules and
introducing a superior tiebreaking system. You then would end up
having a year without a world champ at chess. Someone please tell me
exactly what reigning world champions do to help the growth of chess?
If nothing, why not end up not having one, if allows chess to to make
needed changes. As I see it, the reigning chess champion is known by
next to no one outside the chess world. How useful is that? Are we
supposed to blame the reigning champ as not being Bobby Fischer? In
other word, if the world champion isn't know around the world, not
having one would end up meaning they won't be missed.

As far as unlimited number of games go, are they going to hold the
world championship in the FIDE headquarters? Please tell me how
exactly you will be able to have a location to have the tournament for
MONTHS? Also, tell me how the world is going to care. Is the
unlimited number of games going to be like selection of Pope? One day
we end up producing a winner?

First, a finite length produces a winner if you give the champ tie-odds.
Second, in practice you could have something like a 10-game
sudden death tie-break in the event of a tied regulation match. Statistically
that will break the tie a huge percentage of the time, without
extending the match very long at all.

- Rich

"Rich Hutnik" wrote in message
...
On Apr 21, 6:43 pm, "David Kane" wrote:

The problem, as I've said, is that in a short match, the tied match
possibility is not at all small. That's a real problem, and can be reasonably
addressed by various tie-breaks. Unfortunately, the real world is
going the other way - matches are getting shorter thereby increasing the
champion's advantage.

Of course, for various reasons, we've seen the prestige of the
WC devalued greatly over the past decades.

When you speak of the "real world" do you mean the world outside of
chess, or how chess is actually done in reality? If it is done by the
later, that should be in the scope of chess to change. But, it also
can reflect practical realities.

I am speaking of what chess has done. I agree that it is likely
driven by realities, probably relating to finding funding for
organizing matches.


If it is the former, then isn't that a sign that the chess world has
lost touch with the real world? In those cases, should necessary
changes be made?

- Rich

On Apr 23, 10:03*am, Rich Hutnik wrote:
On Apr 22, 9:02 pm, Quadibloc wrote:

If the "detail" makes the vast majority of proposed solutions
impossible, then it settles the question of applying those solutions.

Then you have a Titanic type situation, where things are doomed and
nothing will change it? *Just keep riding it out in hopes another
Bobby Fischer comes along? *Not sure how chess will produce another
Bobby Fischer, unless there is another Cold War. *Kasparov is probably
the closest to Fischer, but how large of an impact did he have on
Chess?

The specific problem that a tie score in a match of fixed length
allows the World Champion to retain his title doesn't seem to be
fixable if we accept that the World Championship match has to be
organized in a way that is amenable to ordinary hall rentals.

I felt that this wasn't the biggest problem with Chess, so I wasn't
too concerned if we couldn't fix it completely.

Going to blitz would indeed cause the problem that then people might
not be satisfied that the victory really went to the best chess
player. One of the things people *want* from the World Championship is
examples of the finest chess that can be played, since it has the best
players in it. Going to speed chess might heighten the drama of the
event, but it would detract from another important element of its
interest.

So my inclination is to *stick* with giving "draw odds" to the old
champion, since that's actually a widespread convention, but instead
make other changes that will make draws less common. For a match, 1/3
- 1/3 and similar solutions don't work, but there are other measures
that would. Besides changing the rules of chess so that there are more
ways to win, at least partly, one could take measures like one I
mentioned - if a match is tied, eliminate the last win. (Doing that
would require giving the champion White in the first game, though, it
seemed to me, if game order is crucial.) But *before* doing that, see
if it's still tied if one gives extra points for wins with Black, I
will now add, inspired by another post.

John Savard

On Apr 23, 3:23 am, " wrote:


Both Botvinnik and Karpov enjoyed even greater
advantages than Kasparov.


The old two-wrongs-make-a-right fallacy again.

This kind of muddled thinking leads to all sorts of
delusions and fantasies, since Reason is simply
tossed out the window.

According to one fantasy, GM Botvinnik was the
"favorite" of evil villains who did everything in their
power to keep his challengers from getting the
title. Unfortunately, just about everybody did in
fact get the title, for GM Botvinnik lost the world
championship title more times than any other
person in the history of the game!

The fantasy also held that one day, an insider
would reveal that in his expert opinion, MB was
the Kremlin's favorite, and this mere opinion was
touted by storyteller Larry Evans as the smoking
gun which would show his wild speculations to
have been correct. Unfortunately, the story ends
with that "insider" telling the world that, in his
expert opinion, it was GM Smyslov who was the
favorite of the powerful Kremlin puppet-masters... .

Oh well, it made for a good story.


-- help bot

In article ,
Rich Hutnik wrote:
How many organized sports have players playing 24 games?

It rather depends what you call a "game". Tennis in the
form of a 5-set match between reasonably even players can easily
go to 60+ games; professional golf tournaments are commonly held
over 72 holes; bowls matches used to be held over a large number
of ends, but fairly recently switched to shorter sets; boxing
matches used [esp in the bare-knuckle era] to consist of a large
number of rounds, but Elf'n'Safety has cut that down. A fairly
direct "equivalent" to chess is the snooker world championship,
being held currently, where the early rounds are over 19 frames,
and matches get longer until the final is [IIRC] 35 frames.

[...] Someone please tell me
exactly what reigning world champions do to help the growth of chess?

Well, at least in principle, it gives us a focus -- the WC
has a certain amount of authority to speak for chess, eg to talk
to governments, to raise money, to improve conditions for [eg]
former professionals fallen on hard times, etc., etc. The same
could be said of the FIDE President. In the days when the former
was undisputed and the latter was of undisputed probity, this was
clearly a force for good.

If nothing, why not end up not having one, if allows chess to to make
needed changes.

Perhaps. Tennis and golf are two sports that manage without
a WC [and boxing manages with lots].

As I see it, the reigning chess champion is known by
next to no one outside the chess world.

I suspect he is known by quite a lot of people who have no
connexion with or interest in chess, but who happen to be Indian.
I admit that in Europe he is probably less well known than were
Kasparov, Fischer and Capablanca; but the actual weight of numbers
may well be in favour of the current holder.

[...]
As far as unlimited number of games go, are they going to hold the
world championship in the FIDE headquarters? Please tell me how
exactly you will be able to have a location to have the tournament for
MONTHS?

That, of course, was the problem with KK1. A match that
started with fanfares and grandeur in the best venue in Moscow
finished in a telephone box somewhere in the suburbs in front of
two men and a dog.

--
Andy Walker
Nottingham