If there is a tie after the regulation games, be they 12, 16, 18, 22, etc., have the contestants play additional games at the same time control. The first player to win an extra gem wind the match.
I would have them assigned White or Black for the first extra game by a coin toss. Fair, but not perfect. However, if the players know that is what they face in the event of a tie after the first set of games, that is an incentive to win and not have extra games.
The cost of a somewhat open ended venue is indeed an issue. There are a number of ways to address this. The original venue might be booked for the first three to five additional games. After that, let the contestants play in the privacy of a hotel room or at a local chess club with a video feed free to all.
One last thought. The idea of making a profit from the title match, as are Agon and FIDE’s goals, should be revisited. IMO, FIDE should be functioning on a non-profit model for the greater good of chess. That does not mean that FIDE should operate at a loss (as it appears to be doing quite well these days). It simply means that organization of WCC matches should not be given to profit making companies like Agon and its subsidiary offshore entities who litigated in Federal court and lost their attempt to increase their profits by restricting access in real time to the match in NYC.
The solution is simple. As I wrote on my Armchair Warrior blog (xpertchesslessons.wordpress.com/) years ago the solution is to award more for a win with Black. If this had been done with this match Magnus would have had to win with White in the last ‘real’ game since Sergey had won with Black, while Magnus had won with White. Therefore Sergey would have had the lead and a draw would have lost the match for Magnus. Go did this long ago and it shows, with Go players increasing exponentially while Chess is running in place, at best. Botvinnik said only 16 games were required for a WCC. Who am I to argue with the man who said he was "First among his peers? At best he was second to the Politburo…
This would FORCE players to fight for a win. Something, anything, must be done to stop the players from agreeing to so many “buddy-buddy” draws!
Chess will be consigned to oblivion if something is not done to stop the Royal game from dying a death by draw.
I don’t understand. It seems reasonably likely that one player would win game eight with White and the other would win game eleven, say. How would that solve anything? Whatever the defects of the current system, or Mr. Lafferty’s suggestion, it at least is decisive. Mr. Bacon’s is not likely to be.
When White is satisfied with a draw, as clearly was the case in game 12, there isn’t much that Black can do about it when we’re talking about a game at this level. Carlsen was careful to keep the position balanced. For Karjakin to have tried to win would have forced him to adopt a level of risk closely resembling suicide.
Why Carlsen didn’t try harder to win game 12 is an interesting question. Maybe he had slept poorly the night before and realized he wasn’t at his best. Maybe he figured that he would have a bigger advantage in the faster time controls of the tie-breaks than in the classical games, and just wanted to make sure of getting there. Who knows? The point is that he was the one calling the tune. Karjakin didn’t have much choice except to play along.
ACP President Emil Sutovsky has proposed an interesting innovation. He would lengthen the match to 16 games, and put the rapid, and, if necessary, blitz and Armageddon tie breaks BEFORE the classical games, not after them. He would play the tie-breaks over two days, Saturday and Sunday to get the maximum audience, and also so as not to force the players potentially to play four rapid plus four blitz plus an Armageddon game all in one day. The advantage of this is that one of the players would know going into the match that he needed to win it, and the other would know that he only needed to draw it. The final classical game in the match would likely be charged with energy, instead of being a somnolent affair as this year. I still don’t like incorporating faster time controls into what is supposed to be a classical world championship, but this is at least worth a thought.
All of the tiebreak systems create the impression that the winner is an “accidental champion”. If a player cannot defeat the title holder after 16 or whatever designated number of games the match regulations set up, then the world champion retains the title. To be the man, you have to beat the man.
To take it to an extreme, why not have the players play a game of Candyland, or tiddly winks, or rock paper scissors to determine the world championship? Why does chess have to emulate soccer or hockey with having a shootout that bears little resemblance to the real game? I found the final “game” of the match to be less than thrilling as Carlsen teased Kariakin with a number of repetitions which forced him to play less than optimal moves rather than have a draw declared by an arbiter.
I absolutely agree with Mr. Magar. Some sports start at the beginning where everyone has a (theoretically) equal chance, but others, like chess and boxing, determine a challenger and then let him face off against the champion. It is ridiculous to suddenly make the challenger equal.
LOL. Of course it has, but in this modern era of big money FIDE and Agon promotion Rapid/Blitz is seen as both cost effective promotionally and more exciting for the “fans” who in their view prefer shorter time controls in general. I think what we need is a wealthy patron to offer the top two rated players in classical, $5 million each to play a real classical match out side of FIDE and take the WCC title private, never to be given over to FIDE again in a reunification match.
Current system is not perfect, but it allows any player chance to play for a title. This chance is very difficult to earn, but not impossible. Under your system, we will end up having wealthy patron (or a current world champion) to decide who has this chance.
We have already seen something like this, when Kramnik was selected to play Kasparov for a title over Shirov, who beat Kramnik in the match, or when Ponomarev has never received a chance to play Kasparov.
It is not that I agree with posters who state it makes as much sense to determine the world championship
on rapid or blitz chess as it does to determine soccer matches on penalty kicks, college football games on
each side getting a shot from the other teams 25, shootouts in hockey, etc.
For in all of these tiebreak systems, the system is RADICALLY different than the game itself. However, could
you imagine a never ending college football, soccer, or hockey game?? Hard to sell for TV audiences.
Chess is even more so. The world chess viewing audience does not event compare to that of other sports.
To market effectively for TV, there must be a Championship day in case of tiebreaks.
While I like Lafferty’s proposal the best, the likelihood is the game will NOT end in a win for either side, but
a draw. How many consecutive “championships-maybe” can a TV Network sell??
sorta akin to the World Correspondence Chess Championship where i read in Mr Soltis’ always entertaining column in CL, that the first decisive game was after 57 draws! ugh. (forgive me if i misquoted that number. posting during my lunch break at work).