I'll won't forget these feeble attempts of script-writing this match once Vishy again plays with the vigor of a wilted cabbage leaf

Good, once a year is way too often imo. Is every two years going to be standard going forward?

There's conflicting information about when the match starts. Wikipedia said the 7th yesterday, now it's been changed to the 8th. The front page of the official site says the 7th.

When you scroll down on the official site, it says it starts at 10:00 AM US Eastern Standard Time. The schedule that was on wikipedia says 3PM Moscow Time, which is actually in 5 minutes (it's currently 6:55 AM US Eastern Standard Time and 2:55 PM Moscow Time as I type this).

So...um, yeah.

If I'm not mistaken, today is just the opening ceremony. First game is on the 8th.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...-championship/

Yeah, that's what wlrs and I said.

I'm sticking with "Carlsen wins by at least three points", just like last time.

Firmly in the "it'll be a better match next time against Caruana" camp.

Also this.

What do you think about Das Boot's objections to the methodology?

Well, I mean part of what Das Boot said is correct (it's not quite reasonable to just manipulate draw rates as your variable, and that draw rates are already incorporated into ELO calculations in the first place), but I think he might have missed the point of the analysis.

The idea *isn't* to demonstrate that a higher draw rate benefits Carlsen per se, and certainly not to suggest that Carlsen should actively play in a manner that seeks draws.

Rather, the idea is that there exists a "natural" draw rate between these two players, that is already factored into their ELO ratings, and if they play in a "normal" manner, and draws occur at that expected natural rate, then Carlsen should score 60% of the total points.

The problem is that we don't necessarily know what this natural draw rate is, and without it we can't calculate precise odds of each player winning the match, even if we were 100% confident that their long term results would converge towards a 60/40 split of the points.

Therefore we are forced to guess the "natural" draw rate. As a poster on a message board, or as the author of a column on 538, the most reasonable thing to do* is provide a series of different estimates of the match probability, for different draw rates, and allow the reader to pick whichever draw rate they think is most realistic, and use it to estimate the odds. Now wlrs used a smaller range of draw rates than the 538 article (which for some reason charted draw rates under 25%, which we know is absurd). The 538 analysis does show, though, that the odds offered by Ladbrokes would be accurate to ELO *if* the draw rate was truly zero, but underestimate Carlsen's hopes for any draw rate higher than zero.

One possible conclusion would be that Ladbrokes was lazy in their analysis, forgot that draws are a thing in chess, and posted a bad line. The other possible conclusion is that they are accounting for other factors besides pure ELO. I'll leave the choice of conclusions as an exercise to the reader.

Das Boot is right when he points out that continuing the trend described in the article, if the draw rate were 90% it would "mean" Carlsen was "expected" to win 150% of the decisive games. This isn't a criticism of the method of simulating match results though, this is just proof that 90% is clearly not the correct "natural draw rate" to use in a realistic simulation of the match.

*For a simple post/article; what I'd prefer to see out of 538 is a more detailed analysis of what the natural draw rate most likely is, using a large sample of games between players at a similar level with similar rating differences (you could define "similar level" as any game where both players are >2700 if you wanted to avoid limiting yourself entirely to games involving Carlsen).

The imagery in this post is amazing

https://twitter.com/LithuaniaBasket/...45548975521792

Carlsen building his case for when he asks for Lithuanian citizenship, that is a very smart move. I think we will give it to him!

about the statistical analysis: what BJJ said. Additionally, when using ELO to predict a result when a draw is possible you have to guess the draw-% somehow and I don't think there is a really satisfactory method around (maybe Glickman wrote something about the subject? not sure, it's entirely possible there is literature). This draw thingy is a big issue if you want to apply ELO ratings into football betting.

what time is 3pm moscow in EST or GMT?

oh it's now, nevermind.

a grunfeld is a nice thing to see!

Is it normal to spend so much time thinking on move 9?

Interesting game - Anand at least giving Carlsen some problem to solve

Watching Svidler commentary on the official site - recommended

Who is the female commentating with Svidler?

Well, the cool thing is that the position that is on the board after 0-0-0 has NEVER been played at a competitive level. At least my 6 million game database cannot find anything on it.

As a matter of fact, it is Carlsen's 8.. Nc6 that is the first rare move, so I find it rather surprising that it is Anand who seems to be firmly in his preparation so far.

Dis gon be gooooood!

WTF, can't the commentators see the Houdini analysis?

Not sure about the WGM

...c6 instead of ...e6, which I though looked better

WGM is Sopiko Guramishvili. Most known as a girlfriend of Anish Giri I think, which is probably how she got recognized for this job. Doing OK so far though, her English has no accent whatsoever.

1. it is bad taste to use Houdini for commentators. That's the reason they are there, to explain stuff to us without using the engines, which we can do ourselves.

2. Houdini analysis that you are seeing in the official site and stuff is just really weak, so pay little attention to it.