Caruana Piles on the Pressure But Fails to Break Carlsen

Stockfish would likely go 100-0 against Magnus, let alone any other human, in these early midgames that you believe machines "cannot accurately analyze." I mean relative to perfect chess your point there is accurate, relative to humans - it is not. This is how computer preparation has so radically changed the game. If one player walks into the prep of another player, they stand an extremely strong chance of getting a much worse position. Carlsen is the strongest player in the world yet he was completely lost before Fabiano had even left his opening prep in the game 8. The only reason he was able to survive is because Fabiano did not play particularly well (relative to the class of these players) once he stopped playing memorized moves.

This, then, sets the stage for what highest level chess is turning into. And that is becoming the avoidance of risk and the avoidance of the unknown, because if you enter into anything remotely risky or unknown your opponent may well have already looked at it with Stockfish and you're just going to get slaughtered. This is why things like the Berlin have all but entirely replaced things like the Najdorf. At the highest level, you can no longer afford to risk playing these interesting, dynamic, and risky type openings. Bc1/Bb2 in game 9 is a great example. It's not a particularly amazing idea but it entails minimal risk for white and, more importantly, was probably not analyzed by Caruana. Which it wasn't, yet the position was riskless enough that Fabiano to neutralize it without much trouble.

So I agree the Roshambo of who's memorized what is a somewhat interesting metagame on its own. But I think this metagame is starting to dominate the game itself. I'd rather see the players just play what they think is best without this nagging concern about whether the response they see is going to be human, or the start of a lengthy period of memorized computer analyses. And that's precisely what Fischer Random achieves.

@cp560 Maybe the most succinct way of phrasing this is that in the past opening preparation entailed risk. For instance Kasparov talks about how over the board sometimes he would suddenly see something, have doubts about his opening preparation, and play something else! Now it no longer does.

From the perspective of a human those computer lines are going to be as good or better than anything you could come up with. So playing memorized lines, and this roshambo of trying to guess what lines your opponent has/has not memorized is something that's going to become an increasingly decisive factor in classical chess at the highest level. It's an interesting metagame in its own right, but in many ways Fischer random already illustrates the great chess battles that used to be the norm. Check out the games from the recent St Louis Fischer Random tournament. Just really amazing games!

www.uschesschamps.com/2018-champions-showdown-replay

I'm rooting for Magnus because of his participation in this site.

@OhNoMyPants

I've no doubt that the St Louis 960 tournament you love so much was wonderful. That's not the issue, however, the issue with 960 is that it has no place in a *chess* tournament, especially not the WCC. You've agreed that it's a variant, like crazyhouse or racing kings, and who is best at these variants is not what's being decided here. What's being decided is who the best human chess player in the world is, nothing more or less. Attempting to shoehorn in post-hoc alterations to a system you may not like is not a solution.

@OhNoMyPants

I understand completely your many points, agree with very many of them too, also your strongly advocating a shake-up, like Fischer Chess etc is quite interesting too.

At chess.com the very great Nakamura has normally been called upon to provide late middle game analysis, which is so very fast and quite a bit more accurate than the in-house GM/IM analysts. Also Hou Yifan (a woman, in a still very kinda male world) has explored many good ideas in this match.

A more rare treat has been 2 and full 1-hour extended interviews (chaired by GM Sierawan) with Garry Kasparov, on the USA St. Louis site. Today in Game 10 and also in Game 1 too. Kasparov no all-knowing oracle of course, but for sure one of the 3 best players of all-time. Next up after Kaspy was Vishy too, also a very great chess player.

Kasparov also instantly concluding the "Black is OK" is the new norm in the chess-machine era. The machine almost takes the joy out of opening prep stuff. White cannot ever anymore just win directly out of the opening. An impossible task anymore.

Kasparov even directly cites his many own personal battles with Karpov in the incredibly ultra-sharp Zaitsev Ruy Lopez from move 15~20 onwards. Unique positions, totally untouched with any computer influence. Just gut-feel and intuition, possibly allied with great opening prep etc, sadly no longer possible today Also quite interesting to hear Kasparov state that Karpov uniquely previously (and now Fabi too) do both have the ability to just disregard all previous moments in the match or the ongoing game and just play the actual position objectively (with no regret for any missed opportunities). Kasparov saying that his own emotions could not ever disregard the moves that had gone before. Quite interesting insight this.

Of course, just one aspect of highest-level psychology on the 64 squares. Kasparov could quite uniquely identify just the right mindset of the correct approach at the most crucial moments.

G10 also going this way too. An ultra-sharp Sveshnikov yet again. Almost impossible to fathom complexities, even for the engines. Superb Chess so far, very hard to split these 2 players. Maybe some way for Black to win this very hard game. Will wake up tomorrow to the result. Getting very close to tie-breakers though.