Levy Reacts to Magnus Carlsen’s “Controversial” Comments
22.02.2024
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it's a little square peg in a round hole trying to make chess into an arena style sporting event. your heart is in the right place but not everyone likes sports like you do lol. I personally don't think the hero worship in commercial sports (not to mention the sportswashing) is something worthy of replicating. having a more sensible circuit system and messing with the format are all great ideas nonetheless.
Thanks, Levy!
I disagree that there are too many tournaments – as a spectator, I want lots of tournaments. I like FR's emphasis on creativity and skill over memorization. I think blitz is stupid and unrelateable. I think 20-minute rapid is the most exciting for live spectating, but enjoy watching full-length "classical" in the Candidates and WCC. Just my personal opinions.
They say Fischer was crazy but he was right about chess.
Tldr fide is shit
Keep the championship , I think it’s like winning the NBA finals . You’re the best that year and here is your ring . Now how people qualify for it or how they get into the finals might need a change but most sports have a build up like regular season and then playoffs into finals.
Bring back guess the Elo and your subscribers game , tired of bs of MC and Hik games
Levy I want to let you it's just my opinion that how long the games and tournaments are shouldn't affect
As you mentioned cricket we a format where 1 game is of 5 days and for same format we have tournament that takes 2 years for just 1 tournament but we cricket fans enjoy it celebrate it
I'm not a huge chess player nor a huge chess fan but classical chess games with no real time limit that lasts for days really don't interest me all that much. Like you really don't need 30 minutes for each move to determine who the better chess player is. A chess game, imo, should at most be 1 hour long in total. If a player needs to spend 30 minutes on one move, sure. But the opponent will likely have a significant time advantage because of that. Especially since the longer the game, the more likely it'll end up in a draw anyways which will eventually be determined by a much shorter game as a tiebreaker. Or the winner will only be decided after a week of playing. A lot of people would rather just watch recaps to skip the 30 minutes in between moves. I don't think only fast chess is the move but ridiculously long matches need to go. It's not fun for anybody.
It seems to me Magnus is trying to minimize the rote memorization of computer moves, and get back to humans actually figuring out what the best moves are, as they play.
Golf has a pretty good system for their tournaments. Every year, players have an opportunity to qualify for a PGA Tour card. This is their invitation to a general PGA calendar.
Beyond the general calendar, some events require additional qualifications (like the masters). These can be your invitationals
At the end of the year, the top players by ranking automatically keep their tour card. The bottom tour players have to requalify. It really is a great way to cycle players in and out of the top levels
Day 6 of being held hostage to Magnus Carlsen in Levy's videos
I have to say i agree as long time viewer of chess. It's way more fun watching chess players go on instinct, pattern recognition & fast calculations rather than playing a memory game for 3+ hours. Short games are also more fun to watch, because you can follow the entire game. It's not like a regular person have 3+ hours in a row, to sit there and watch just one classical game. I literally just watch recaps of classical games, because they are too long. I don't have time to watch a 3+ hour game so i just watch recaps. But when there's faster chess i can sit and watch and entire match play out.
I absolutely agree with classical chess becoming obsolete, me as a viewer i couldnt be arsed to watch live classical chess. Too long and even more it always goes down to 5 mins down the clock for the game to progress more so why bother making it 1 and half hour. Invitational also actually just stagnate the game bcs it just creates a competitive scene between the same players making those outside the top 10 to not have the chance to improve by lets say having a chance to play against magnus etc.
I really enjoyed watching the freestyle chess tournament. It was so interesting seeing metas be established and changed every day with new opening theory and unique positions seen in multiple games
Take some cortisone man
Your thesis seems to be that chess cannot thrive with Fischer random, but what exactly is the problem. Less viewers, less money, less sponsors? Let it be like that for the sake of the game.
I agree that the familiarity of standard chess is not replicable (at least for me, a sub-1000 viewer). At the same time, chess has survived centuries without catering to the general audience. Do we care about the money around the game and its popularity, or do we want chess to become a better game per se, and not because we are gamifing the tournaments so that they are more palatable to the public?
Chess boxing! 😊
I'm only 8 minutes into the video so far, but i wonder if there's a way they could make chess events more interesting by assigning points to the different ways to win a game? For instance, a checkmate using a pawn would be worth, say, 15 or 16 points, and so it incentivizes the players to go for more interesting or risky plays to push for those extra points that a knight checkmate might give, versus merely a queen checkmate.
I'll add more comments and thoughts as i progress or finish the video, but this was simply an idea i had in my brain as the video got to around 8 or 9 minutes.
I think ill watch someone else cover the world chess championships
The world championship doesn't matter because the GOAT decided to retire while still in his prime. We only have tournaments financed by wealthy entrepreneurs because they are the only ones willing to put up the money. Top players advocate for Chess960 to get computers out of the game, but most casual players don't prefer it.
As a spectator, personally I think shortening classical chess to 1 hour, 10 mins can make it commercially viable since the players can whip out 20 moves of theory anyway. What do y'all think about classical chess overall when it comes to broadcasting it on tv?
I love chess, but honestly I give 0 shits about watching any kind of chess tournament live. In fact I don't care to watch it at all. I will look at the games they played, and interviews, but watching them stare at the board and move pieces around is pointless and it'll never be mainstream popular to watch that.
i think once a year there should be 1 classic tournament. If it takes a month, fine. If it requires 12 hour days of chess for week after week, great. Perfect.
Chess 960 should not only replace normal setups, but opening positions should be further randomized. Make sure the eval bars give black and white an equal chance of winning, but start with nutty positions with pieces all over the board. Maybe black is missing two pawns and white's missing a knight when this chaotic variant of chess starts, but the positioning of the remaining pieces still add up to neither player being at an overall disadvantage. Openings in regular chess are ridiculous. In most cases, you're not even actually playing chess. It's a memorization exercise where some 12 year old kid from Pakistan or New Zealand or Egypt (or.. wherever) can beat you because he knows the first 13 moves of his opening but you only know the first 12. The losing player isn't even necessarily worse at chess in that situation. He/she just didn't study that opening as much as the opponent did. Mixing things up gives players a chance to put their ingenuity and intuition to work. That's what chess should be a true test of. The current state of high level chess has evolved into something as exciting as double-entry accounting.
I would like to provide another perspective for openings. I think the only way to learn the ideas of your openings in the past were to play against your level or have a player that did this teach you. Now they can practice with the computer and learn the ideas of an opening. That means that now you can gain experience without playing actual games which is bridging the gap between top players which play against the best opposition for a long time and younger people in countries where there aren't as much competition.
I don't see the difference between people of the past winning because they knew a line or a trap that the other didn't or grandmasters now winning against each other because one knew a line while the other did not. I normally don't think for the first 4 or 5 moves so I don't see the problem with grandmasters not thinking for 20 moves.
Just wanted to provide a perspective that might weaken your hate for openings
yes freestyle chess kind of sucks. Mildly interesting but I want to see the best players play the setups that I use every day.
I disagree with the "tennis format" idea, it'll just induce players to play more and more causing players to eventually burn out
What if the first 6-8 moves(opening) is pre decided by the viewers or other people just like in the chess engine tournaments. That would make it interesting for both parties.
Like imagine a double egg opening, it would be far more fun to watch.
You forgot that they randomly shuffle the front row too in Fischer random
20:10 this is so relevant for me , I have been always told that uk chess is a game which u can play anytime and make exceed in it and they just ask us to deflect from our game and go study so that we can sustain in the future, the top folks in the field are doing pretty decent but the players who look up to the folks don't have the back up resources for the future . And they end up doing some clg or school thing which they never wanted . And the sad part is that sometimes they never get time to return back to the game after the whole clg entrance exams which are definately soul sucking.
Opening theory is a test of memory not chess ability. There's a reason Bobby Fischer invented Fischer random, and it's to make the best chess player win. As for televized chess… let's be real here: it's not a TV friendly sport. Trying to squish it to 2 hours for TV ratings is a fool's errand. Better if the players play well, rather than fast.
I like the idea of borrowing the idea of circuits/seasons from tennis. There’s a “clay court circuit” building to the clay court major and a “grass court circuit” building to Wimbledon. The tennis model is a good one. Maybe set up a Masters and Majors type of season (again stolen from tennis) building to a huge championship at the end of the year. 10 or so big Masters events in different formats and in different locations through the year worth lots of points to qualify. Smaller Masters tournaments worth fewer points that maybe he huge players don’t all attend. Have a classical circuit building to Tata Steel, a Fischer random circuit building to the big event that just happened (but put it in late spring). Could have a speed chess circuit or combined rapid and blitz circuits. Big end of year tournament is a gigantic international celebration of chess. All major championship winners, last year’s super tournament winner, and the top 8-16 point earners from the season qualify. Big round robin with different formats over the first 1-2 weeks, and then a short classical single elimination bracket (or the higher seed can choose the format?). If we want to keep crowning a World Champion, the winner of the end of year spectacular is that season’s World Champion!
Yes, we need a understandable event calendar. Half events must allow trash talk.
I just fixed chess
I don't know how they should do it, but I would love to see a video from you looking at the history of the World Chess Championship. I feel like a retrospective as to how we ended up with this format could be clarifying as to what changes should be made, and your understanding of the game's politics (so to speak) is unparalleled. Major developments that come to mind: Lasker's insistence on challengers raising large purses (after Steinitz died in poverty); Lasker's attempt to resign the title; Alekhine's death while Champion; gradual removal of conditions favoring the incumbent champion; Fischer forfeiting in 1976 over format; the adjourned Kasparov-Karpov match; the split title; and of course Magnus declining to play and the recent increase in WCCs tied in the classical portion.
Im sorry gotham bro..
did you ever watch arm wresting before.. neither did i
but its quite amazing!!!! ( i love all competition )
check out devon larrat, levan, denis cymplenkov etc…..
VERY entrtaining , top roll, pronation, hook, king press, …scinece of strengh.. might suprise you… and not BORING!!!!
amazing stuff,,,!!!
this the i have a dream speech for chess lol W vid
Yes, chess needs a system like tennis, no invitationals, more players per event, point system for player of the year, majors or grand slams with double points. I know you'll make fun of this, but the PBA, professional bowlers tour has a very similar system that is great from top top pros to regional pros, and the PBA is on TV every weekend and pulls more ratings than tennis. Regardless these systems let more players in and a chance to rise and join the top top ranks and that is what chess needs
I'd like to see chess have leagues and cups like football in the uk does. 10 minute rapid games I think would appeal to a bigger audience. Take the top 100 rated players, separate them into 4 divisons of 25 players (ranks 1-25, 26-50, 51-75, 76-100). Have them all play each other a set amount of times, im not sure how many times would be best. At the end of each season the top 5 players in each league get promoted and move up to the league above them, whilst the bottom 5 move down a division. Alongside this, include 2 tournaments each season in which all 4 leagues take part, you could get creative with the structures of these and take inspiration from other sports. I think it'd be a really entertaining format to experiment with that casual chess players like me that dont usually tune into watch live events currently could understand more and get behind. This comment doesnt even cover the half of it, there'd feel like theres so much more at stake due to their being significantly less tournaments. Plus the DRAMA when the season is coming to an end or an underdog from lower leagues goes on a mad cup run in one the tournaments. I think coverage of this would attract far more eyeballs, therefore sponsors and therefore much bigger prize pools. Make it happen levy
Excellent content, expressing so much to agree with: That crowning a world champion may no longer make sense, especially if the crown depends on an incomprehensibly changeable cycle, comprised of far too many, non-centralized, invitation-only, philanthropy-driven events. But some of the proposed solutions could only increase the confusion. Specifically, faster time controls for "normal" chess and slower time controls for the Fischer Random/Freestyle/Chess360 format might only make the players err and viewers scratch their heads more often–neither of which will necessarily increase commercial viability (if that's the goal). Would introducing a per-inning clock improve baseball for fans or the players? Would surprising NBA players with a different court shape or hoop height for each contest improve basketball?
In some very real ways if chess ever breaks through to mainstream Gotham played a massive role. Structure (this video), narrative (Hans and other storyline), plus content (self explanatory). WE LOVE YOU @GothamChess
I think for non-kids, time scrambles get passé, but waiting minute after minute for someone to move is bad for spectators and therefore bad for for people who depend on spectator money. THERE IS A SOLUTION. You get a certain amount of time for a move, BUT YOU CAN"T CARRY THAT TIME OVER. Say, 45 second for your move. Every move. And if you want to accommodate occasional longer thinking, you can have a few packets of 4 minutes. You go over your 45 seconds, your next packet of of 4 minutes opens. A reasonable way to do that is you start with 1 packet and starting with Move 10, you get another packet every 5 moves.
960 is excellent for team play. The Olympiad should move to 960. It's less good for individual play because some positions give White a much bigger advantage than other positions. I enjoy playing 960, but it's not fair for serious individual play.
You're quite right that the system to qualify for the World Championship is far too convoluted. Some sort of big event for the WC is good. Lucrative. And probably it should still be a match. But determining the challenger should be a big tournament and the final match should be the following week. And it should happen every year.
You do need something going on the rest of the year. You hype the WC and revive interest in the Olympiad, you still need a tour like tennis or golf to keep interest the rest of the year.
My first point is the most important. A time control of 0/45 is much better than either 90/5 or 5/1.
I'm a regular person that sometimes likes to play chess and watch it aswell.
If I'm being honest, classical time control cannot keep my attention at all. Having one of the players stare at the board for like 20+ minutes per move is just… not something worth watching.
Even in the recent freestyle chess (chess 960), it has the same problem. Even with the narrators/commentators and sometimes having the board analysis… during the game it's just boring, nothing much to say. One the other hand, rapid/blitz/bullet is much more exciting and I can watch it, but classical time control is just unwatchable for me.
What I do for classical tournaments is to wait for someone (usually you) to do a recap on the matches, and that's it.
Twenty eighteen, twenty twenty four. Your inability to say dates correctly is the biggest existential threat to humanity that I can see. Also when you say "he could have went" instead of real English which would be "he could have gone".
Ahhh I’ve been flash banged ‼️
Draft chess is my idea – They take turns placing a piece on the back rank, and the other player has to copy of course, then they choose. (with same rules of 960) black goes first drafting, to help even it, but helps them customize their position . players will have styles they like to prepare and will be a fun game of counterplay as well, but still enough variety in openings to keep it fresh
karpov kasparov went 5 monthes and 48 games…LOL
them were the days of fucking men!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
btw… karpov won the first few games… did he not!!!!! ?????
as a tennis player/fan, i think that the system works solid, however even for tennis i would like to see a type of World Championship, however i think that the way FIDE conducts their events is awful and needs to be redone
i want to see Levy Chess Box!
Magnus' opinion carries more weight than others because, champion or not, he is the top player in the world. Feels bad for Ding – and anybody else who wins the "world championship." FIDE should listen to him because with Magnus not competing, their tournament is a joke.