Chess has a New World Champion: China's Ding Liren (theguardian.com) 70
The Guardian reports:
The Magnus Carlsen era is over. Ding Liren becomes China's first world chess champion. The country now can boast the men's and women's titleholders: an unthinkable outcome during the Cultural Revolution when it was banned as a game of the decadent West.
After 14 games which ended in a 7-7 draw, the championship was decided by four "rapid chess" games — with just 25 minutes on each players clock, and 10 seconds added after each move. Reuters reports that the competition was still tied after three games, but in the final match 30-year-old Ding capitalized on mistakes and "time management" issues by Ian Nepomniachtchi. Ding's triumph means China holds both the men's and women's world titles, with current women's champion Ju Wenjun set to defend her title against compatriot Lei Tingjie in July... Ding had leveled the score in the regular portion of the match with a dramatic win in game 12, despite several critical moments — including a purported leak of his own preparation. The Chinese grandmaster takes the crown from five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who defeated Nepomniachtchi in 2021 but announced in July he would not defend the title again this year...
[Ding] had only been invited to the tournament at the last minute to replace Russia's Sergey Karjakin, whom the international chess federation banned for his vocal support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Ding ranks third in the FIDE rating list behind Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi.
It's the second straight world-championship defeat for Nepomniachtchi, the Guardian reports: "I guess I had every chance," the Russian world No 2 says. "I had so many promising positions and probably should have tried to finish everything in the classical portion. ... Once it went to a tiebreak, of course it's always some sort of lottery, especially after 14 games [of classical chess]. Probably my opponent made less mistakes, so that's it."
Ding wins €1.1 million, The Guardian reports — also sharing this larger story: "I started to learn chess from four years old," Ding says. "I spent 26 years playing, analyzing, trying to improve my chess ability with many different ways, with different changing methods. with many new ways of training."
He continues: "I think I did everything. Sometimes I thought I was addicted to chess, because sometimes without tournaments I was not so happy. Sometimes I struggled to find other hobbies to make me happy. This match reflects the deepness of my soul."
After 14 games which ended in a 7-7 draw, the championship was decided by four "rapid chess" games — with just 25 minutes on each players clock, and 10 seconds added after each move. Reuters reports that the competition was still tied after three games, but in the final match 30-year-old Ding capitalized on mistakes and "time management" issues by Ian Nepomniachtchi. Ding's triumph means China holds both the men's and women's world titles, with current women's champion Ju Wenjun set to defend her title against compatriot Lei Tingjie in July... Ding had leveled the score in the regular portion of the match with a dramatic win in game 12, despite several critical moments — including a purported leak of his own preparation. The Chinese grandmaster takes the crown from five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who defeated Nepomniachtchi in 2021 but announced in July he would not defend the title again this year...
[Ding] had only been invited to the tournament at the last minute to replace Russia's Sergey Karjakin, whom the international chess federation banned for his vocal support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Ding ranks third in the FIDE rating list behind Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi.
It's the second straight world-championship defeat for Nepomniachtchi, the Guardian reports: "I guess I had every chance," the Russian world No 2 says. "I had so many promising positions and probably should have tried to finish everything in the classical portion. ... Once it went to a tiebreak, of course it's always some sort of lottery, especially after 14 games [of classical chess]. Probably my opponent made less mistakes, so that's it."
Ding wins €1.1 million, The Guardian reports — also sharing this larger story: "I started to learn chess from four years old," Ding says. "I spent 26 years playing, analyzing, trying to improve my chess ability with many different ways, with different changing methods. with many new ways of training."
He continues: "I think I did everything. Sometimes I thought I was addicted to chess, because sometimes without tournaments I was not so happy. Sometimes I struggled to find other hobbies to make me happy. This match reflects the deepness of my soul."
Gaming is too gameable. (Score:4, Interesting)
Sports, games, those things will be over soon. Sports -- undetectable performing enhancing drugs, genetic modifications .. will enable unfair advantages. Same thing with board games like esports, and chess, how are you going to ensure that cheats aren't being fed via implant or other mechanisms? Scandals will increase over time and get above controllable levels. Many champions would be cheaters.
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re: (Score:2)
Off-topic. “Wrestling” isn’t a sport, it is a dance show. No different from a movie. People do expect fairness in sports or there’d be no scandals. Why do players get suspended for cheating?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Same thing with board games like esports, and chess, how are you going to ensure that cheats aren't being fed via implant or other mechanisms?
Metal detectors plus radio wave spectrum scanners. That's how they've been doing it.
In addition, there's been a lot of scientific research on postgame statistical analysis.
Re: (Score:2)
Metal detectors plus radio wave spectrum scanners. That's how they've been doing it.
An embedded computer smaller than a fingernail can easily beat any human. Soon they will be smaller than a grain of rice.
Inject it under the skull. The only tricky part is the brain interface. Plenty of people are working on that.
In addition, there's been a lot of scientific research on postgame statistical analysis.
That is based on the presumption that if a human is "too good", then they must be cheating.
The obvious solution is to train your chess engine with a GAN to fly just under the threshold.
Re: (Score:2)
An embedded computer smaller than a fingernail can easily beat any human.
Which one? Do you have a model number? Can I buy it on Mouser?
Inject it under the skull. The only tricky part is the brain interface. Plenty of people are working on that.
OK you're talking about science fiction.
Re: (Score:2)
The radio or sound waves can be very low bandwidth and low power so they are near the noise floor they only need a few bits of data to get through per move.
Re: (Score:2)
Inject a computer "under the skull"? You can't poke a needle through your skull, you have to drill through it.
And how would you power it? Let alone interface it to the brain. Oh yeah, Musk is working on it... How many monkeys died or suffered severe brain damage so far? Nuralink is vapour.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Many top athletes suffer from asthma. Just so happens that the treatment for it also enhances performance. They are allowed to take it because it's medically necessary.
I'm not even suggesting they are cheating. Maybe it's just that people with asthma tend to rise to the top ranks.
With all the recent debate around trans people in sport, I think it's time we re-evaluated how we compete, and how we keep things "fair". It's already a fudge - very tall people have a massive advantage in basketball, and nobody do
Re: (Score:2)
The trans people in women's sport is solvable (at least for the next decade or two) by putting a rule that if your body developed under high androgen levels you have to compete in the high-test (traditional male) category rather than the low-test (traditionally female) category..
Re: (Score:2)
Currently cis women who happen to have been born with high testosterone levels are banned.
The issue with forcing trans women who were not able to transition early to compete in the men's category is that it's both unfair and unsafe in some sports. It also requires some standard of proof of what happened potentially decades ago, and excludes athletes from countries and social backgrounds where healthcare was not available during their childhood.
We really need to come up with better ways to compete.
Re: (Score:2)
Instead of calling it men's and women's categories .. call it high testosterone and low testosterone .. that sidesteps the whole "I'm a woman" thing. Categorize based on developmental androgen levels rather than gender.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly this. Except it should be "open category" and "low testosterone". There should be no bar on who can compete in the open category.
Soon enough we will need categories for non-enhanced people as well, and for various grades of enhancements. Let the para athletics boards oversee the proper grouping of competitors, because they have decades of experience making competitions fair.
Re: (Score:2)
It would have to be awfully low testosterones, given that 16-year-old boys outcompete Olympic women.
https://boysvswomen.com/ [boysvswomen.com]
Testosterone is a HELL of a drug.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
they probably would have pulled such a stunt while Carlsson was still active.
Maybe the embedded cheat-engine wasn't ready yet.
Re: (Score:2)
As you say, most Chinese people neither know nor care about chess. Yet they now have both men's and women's world champions.
Another straw in the wind.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Lol cope harder. Instead of blaming China you should look inwardly on why you enabled the blatant stealing of technology when their were other democratic countries with fair laws.
Re: (Score:2)
China, under the current government, has a long history of enabling cheaters in science, acedemia, and sports. It could be he won fair and square, I hope that's the case, but I will definitely not be surprised when a story comes out next year or so talking about him being a cheater.
There are pretty good anti cheating measures in place. Also, the quality of the play (measured by accuracy) this year was lower than it used to be with Carlsen, they were trading blunders. It certainly didn't look as if they were cheating...
Re:Slashdot sucks these days. (Score:2, Insightful)
Where are all the nerds? Not one person actually commenting on the games, etc.? Basically just a guy accusing the winner of cheating because he's Chinese. I guess that's why ycombinator is so much better these days.
Re: (Score:2)
The people who could comment sensibly on the games probably don't frequent Slashdot.
The habitual use of computers has transformed chess; there is an increasingly wide and obvious gulf between the early stages in which the players draw on computer analysis, and the much wilder (and far more inaccurate) later stages. And a great deal of the opening, middle game, and endgame knowledge of the pre-computer era has turned out to be not knowledge at all, but unfounded beliefs.
The games in this championship match w
Re: (Score:1)
I'm sure he would have been even less impressed that Nepo was not playing under the Russian flag and if you don't denounce Russia you get banned
Re: (Score:2)
I watched analyses of all of the classical games. Liren made many bad moves that cost him games he should have won. No cheating there. Strangely, both players seemed too emotional to be playing at that level.
Your greatest opponent in chess is you. (Score:3)
When you learn to beat yourself, you can play with yourself any time and never be bored again.
Just don't forget to be gentle to your bishop. Or your knight, if you're into that sort of thing.
Re:Your greatest opponent in chess is you. (Score:5, Informative)
Your greatest opponent in chess is you.
Clearly you've never played against a chess AI. There is no defeating something that has played trillions of games, learned every known gambit, and invented some of it's own.
Re: (Score:2)
Clearly you've never played against a chess AI. There is no defeating something that has played trillions of games, learned every known gambit, and invented some of it's own.
Clearly, you play way too much with chess pieces and not enough with yourself or with others.
Re: (Score:2)
Playing with yourself, beating yourself. Leave your comments to stories about Pornhub, we're talking about chess here.
Re: (Score:1)
Woosh! Something just went over your head...
Re: (Score:2)
I understand the intent of their post but it is objectively false in an absolute sense, which was my point. Perhaps the whooshing sound was my point passing you by.
Re: (Score:1)
> Re:Your greatest opponent in chess is you.
By playing against yourself you will never learn.
Will see how long it takes to get the joke and flag you as funny instead of informative in any way.
Re: (Score:2)
Will see how long it takes to get the joke and flag you as funny instead of informative in any way.
Though my girlfriend claims it's long enough, I still don't think that it is.
Over (Score:2)
"The Magnus Carlsen era is over"
Um, yeah. He retired last year.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
He chose not to participate in this tournament for personal reasons, but the tournament was already scheduled, so they decided to have it anyway without him.
Regardless, Magnus Carlsen is still the best chess player in the world, and no one disagrees.
Re: (Score:2)
Magnus Carlsen didn't retire, he's still the world's best chess player, and he still plays and wins tournaments.
AFAIK he only competes in speed chess and things he finds fun, not the exhausting world championship stuff.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
"The Magnus Carlsen era is over"
Um, yeah. He retired last year.
He didn't retire, he's still playing and still the best - by far: 60 rating points is a lot. His next OTB classical tournament is Norway Chess in May. He also won both the rapid and the blitz world championships during the holidays.
Congrats to the new Human World Champion (Score:2)
Good work on defeating all the other fleshy meatsacks. Meanwhile our robot overlords are rolling their eyes and patting your head.
Playing for your life (Score:2)
I guess it motivates you differently when you are probably playing for your own and your familys life - and not just defending your title for the millionth time.
Translation (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because games can end in a draw?
(and often do - this match had some drawn games in it)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It seems like it would be fairer to have all the games be of the same type rather than having to revert to rapid games.
Absolutely true! It's as if, in the Wimbledon final, tie-breaks were contested at table tennis.
The new cultural revolution (Score:2)
an unthinkable outcome during the Cultural Revolution when it was banned as a game of the decadent West.
While China has learned [wikipedia.org] from the mistakes of Cultural Revolution and have liberalized its people from most aspects of life (*),
Russia's Sergey Karjakin, whom the international chess federation banned for his vocal support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
the West is decaying in path of its own version of Cultural Revolution (**).
(*) of course, most media in the West would insist that China has absolutely no freedom and people believe so because they don't actually read real Chinese (social or traditional) media like this comment did [qr.ae]; the reality is more like China has no absolute freedom -- indeed you would get less much trouble cri
Re: (Score:2)
Run along, Boris, adults are talking.
Re: (Score:1)
Run along, Boris, adults are talking.
Adults? On Slashdot? Where??
The best analysis (Score:2)
The best analysis as the match progressed was that of Danill Dubov and Irina Krush. Very illuminating, Krush is a strong enough player to discuss the position intelligently with Dubov, and she had a logical and structured approach which made their analysis very accessible. Took care to explain the intricacies slowly enough for pretty much anyone who plays to be able to follow. Dubov's summaries were also excellent.
Anyone wanting to understand how chess is played at this level, how a grandmaster thinks an
And an interesting thing about the games (Score:2)
First, the choice of openings! If you told a chess enthusiast from 30 years ago what they were going to be, they'd have been astonished.
The idea that the Sicilian would have vanished, to have been replaced by the closed Morphy defence the Ruy Lopez. The idea that white would have felt obliged to avoid the Marshall - and that black would have felt able to embark on it, in a World Championship match. Extraordinary. One wonders if the open defence to the Ruy is due for a comeback, why not, if the Marshall
Re: (Score:2)
The choice of openings is largely explained by the influence of computers. A variation like the Marshall Gambit was brilliantly creative a century ago, and still had enough poison to be played by Spassky against Tal in the Candidates. I imagine that today's computer analysis tells players which lines absolutely to avoid, which ones are most promising, and the best lines to choose up to about move 30. That is liable to kill any speculative gambit.
I recall a story about some grandmaster demonstrating the late
Re: (Score:2)
But the interesting thing about the Marshall is that its white that is avoiding it.... The amount of poison in it seems to have increased over time!
I Question The Legitimacy And Sanity (Score:2)
Ban someone for being a vocal supporter of Ukraine.
Allow a dirty commie from a communist country that is actively supporting Russia and has the same goals involving other countries.
Absolute lack of integrity.