In today’s 13th round of the 14 round London Candidates 2013…
Kramnik as White drew against Gelfand.
But Carlsen as Black defeated Radjabov (why 64. a34?).
Both leaders are tied at 8.5/13. But…
Statistically, the single most likely outcome of the upcoming 14th round is that both Kramnik and Carlsen will draw. That would leave the two leaders still tied, which only sounds exciting. In fact it would be an anti-climax, all due to the unwise use of mathematical tie-breakers.
Carlsen has more wins (and more losses) than does Kramnik. So if both leaders draw, one leader will be declared the tournament victor by a math equation. And we all know this before the final round begins. Boo (whistle for you Europeans).
Much better than a math tie-breaker would be a post-tournament coin toss. That way the excitement would not be drained away as soon as both games look drawish, perhaps shortly after their opening phases.
Even better would be pairs of Blitz speed games the next day, until the tie is broken.
The point is, to preserve the human excitement, when the regular tournament phase ends with leaders tied, the tournament winner should not be decided until after something further happens after the regular tournament games are all completed.
. .
Playoff cannot happen now. Either someone wins outright tomorrow, else if they are still tied, Carlsen wins on tiebreak—more wins. Kind of feels like Kramnik will be punished for going undefeated.
Bronstein had superior tie-breaks, both by # of wins, and by SB, but FIDE determined a play-off was necessary.
Unlike subsequent playoffs, where the player(s) with the superior tie-breaks was given an advantage should there be a tie in the play-off, Bronstein was given no such advantage. The format was a twelve-game match, and if still tied the first to win a game. Bronstein was up 4.5-2.5 after seven games, but Boleslavsky won the 8th and 11th games to pull even. Finally Bronstein won the 14th game of the match to become the Challenger for the World Championship.
If both are tied, then what’s wrong with Kramnik VS Carlsen in another match to see who the real winner is? If that game is a draw then 1 round of G/30, then if another draw, then go to G/10, etc.
The only anti-climax will be if GM Carlsen does not win this tournament. No one will seriously see any other match possibility with GM Anand as being for anything but money. Insofar as the tiebreak rules they were well known in advance. I remember the hullabaloo about speed playoffs in earlier iterations of these modern candidates tournaments. No matter what you can’t please everyone.
I don’t think so. Draws are the bane of chess, and we often talk about organizers creating tournament rules to bring about fighting chess. Here, depending on what happens tomorrow, Carlsen may be rewarded for having more wins. I have no issue with that. The downside in this case is that Kramnik has played a great tournament, and no one can accuse him of not fighting. A playoff in this instance, however, would give tomorrow an entirely different feel. Some will be dissatisfied with a tiebreaker of any kind, but I for one will gladly trade that for the pressure that will be put on the games tomorrow. It’s going to be a good day. Kramnik has Black, but it’s against the mercurial Ivanchuk. His time issues in this tournament have been astounding, and Kramnik is thinking deeply about that right now. Carlsen will have White, but Svidler is playing his best chess in a long time. The result will be that the two leaders cannot play safely tomorrow, marking time to the playoff.
A coin toss?? That would be about as un-exciting as anything can be, on top of leaving a foul taste in everybody’s mouth.
Blitz games maybe, but that’s too drastic a switch in gears. Better might be something like:
– easing it in gradually. Although I’d prefer even more gradually, like G/60, G/30, G/15, G/9, G/5, G/3. And don’t forget that 2-second increment in the blitz games.
But please don’t forget that math tiebreakers can generate excitement too, provided that everybody knows what they are in advance. An impending math tiebreaker will put one of the players in the “draw isn’t good enough” mode and encourage fighting chess.
Or encouragement for unnecessary risks that don’t have sufficient bearing on the position. I don’t see draws as an issue for chess - and lord knows I am not and have never been a “draw king”. I see draws as an issue primarily if people just don’t appreciate good play; to me its not significantly different from complaining (depending on your taste) that Bach doesn’t use enough electric guitars in his arrangements, and that the Beatles use too few fugelhorns. The music is good without fugelhorns, there is no reason to legislate fugelhorns into it.
There’s an enormous amount of ground between taking “unnecessary risks” and playing not to lose to make a playoff.
I’ll give some more thought to your “instruments” analogy. Accepting it for the sake of discussion, please take notice that the Beatles scored the fugelhorn for recordings of “Penny Lane,” “Martha My Dear,” and “All You Need Is Love.”
Accepting it for the sake of discussion, please take notice that the Beatles scored the fugelhorn for recordings of “Penny Lane,” “Martha My Dear,” and “All You Need Is Love.” 