SVEN: !!!!!!

bet a dollar more than I was comfortable with on the SCANDO so that it would force me to stay involved/interested.

chess sharp over here

Guess we don't have to ban the Berlin. That's a relief.

That the champion beats people in the Berlin Wall doesn't excuse them for playing it.

Why do they need an "excuse"?

Not only the result matters; the process (the style in which they lose) also does.

I have few objections to Vishy in this particular case, at least he tried a positional exchange sac; sadly, it didn't work. But I don't think that the queenswap variation produces such opportunities often enough, and anyway, Jobava-style middlegame action would be more fun to watch to sub-2000 spectators (i.e. the majority).

That's why I think that the two-player match system of determining the world champion doesn't really work and the championship should be held as a double round robin of 6 GMs with the soccer scoring system (3 points for a win, 1 to each for a draw) rewarding 'going for the throat'. The two-player format doesn't allow to punish draws effectively because then he who wins more than the opponent becomes the champion, no matter if it's +2 -1 =9 or +5 -4 =3.

*shrug*

That's an awful lot of tinkering over a completely arbitrary personal preference.

Having a single series between two players (or teams) for the World Championship works so well for clarity and for drama that nearly every major sport does it. The ones that don't really suffer for it. There's also a major history associated with the World Chess Championship and its lineage, so I don't think efforts to get rid of it will go anywhere.

Regarding punishing draws, Fischer wanted to simply award 0 points for them, so the match would only end when there were a certain number of decisive games. I'd be interested to see that, provided of course that there's an upper-limit.

This system was a failure when there was no upper limit of the length (in 1927-37, 1978-85).

If you set a small upper limit, it's unlikely that the required number of wins will be reached, and you'll still have to decide what to do if the score is even (which is going to happen quite often if the opponents are equally worthy). Letting the champion retain the title in this case will result in him playing in a safe, drawish style. Deciding the title on rapid and blitz tiebreaks will favour whoever excels in those formats (finds decent moves, not necessarily interesting ones, faster), which is not exactly the purpose of a classical time control match.

I'm actually afraid that Carlsen's strategy in the hypothetical 2016 match against Caruana will be to play it safe in the classical and rapid parts and then outplay him in the blitz tiebreak because Fabiano's main issue by far is time management.

When you earn the right to play for the championship, you may choose your own system.

apart from '84 i don't see a problem with it. in any case, a 12 game series is waaaaaaay too short for a WC match

4 year cycle and 24 game matches would be perfect in my world. First to x wins sounds awesome on paper but it seems it would just go on forever.

Yeah, first to X wins has just too much potential for resulting in an awful match of 50 draws or whatever. And if you put a limit on the games played then no one will get the requisite number of wins and then the whole thing is moot, anyway.

The cycle does seem pretty fast, it makes me think Carlsen may have trouble staying as World Champ even if he stays #1 rating-wise. A 4 year cycle would definitely help with that but at the same time it's kind of fun that there could be a new challenger or champ every couple of years.

Of course, if it's Anand next time again then we will all wish it was 4 year cycle instead lol.

the berlin wall should be banned from humanity.