
Magnus Carlsen is World Chess Champion - jordanmessina
http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/7539-fide-world-championship-2013.html
======
kadabra9
Reading more about this match and Magnus in general, I learned of a measure
termed "Nettlesomeness" which has been used to measure which players do the
most to make their opponents to make mistakes. Magnus, with his highly
creative style of play and unexpected moves, not surprisingly ranks the
highest in this measure.

He seems to have this remarkable gift of making moves which aren't just
strong, they get inside his opponent's head and cause them to either
overthink/break down. I'm interested in the technical details behind this
metric. Has anyone heard of it before?

Regardless, congrats Magnus. You are truly a generational talent, and I'm
excited to see what your win will do for the game.

[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/11/net...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/11/nettlesomeness-
and-the-first-half-of-the-carlsen-anand-match.html)

~~~
erikig
Thanks for the comment, the concept of nettlesomeness intrigues me.

"...Carlsen is demonstrating one of his most feared qualities, namely his
“nettlesomeness,” to use a term coined for this purpose by Ken Regan. Using
computer analysis, you can measure which players do the most to cause their
opponents to make mistakes."

I was surprised to see that this isn't just some subjective measure but can me
measured using computer analysis. In chess this can be a great tool against
one's opponents but in collaborative endeavors it can be a detriment to team
productivity. I wonder whether the same analysis can be used to pin-point
nettlesome members of team e.g members of an open source team whose
contributions sidetrack collaborators and cause them to make more trackable
errors...

~~~
biot
I think this is actually based on subjective measures. An annotated game[0]
will have ?!, ?, and ?? added by human commentators to indicate varying levels
of mistakes. A computer analysis can make use of these subjective move
evaluations within an annotated game to easily measure which players cause
their opponents to make mistakes at a significantly greater frequency than
their normal rate of mistakes.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_annotation_symbols#Move_e...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_annotation_symbols#Move_evaluation_symbols)

~~~
GavinB
Since computers play chess (better than humans) by looking at moves and
ranking them as advantageous or disadvantageous, I would think it would be
relatively straightforward to use a computer to decide whether a move is a
mistake or not.

~~~
Deestan
It would be able to tell if the move was a mistake _if playing against a
computer_. A move that would be bad against a computer opponent might throw a
human opponent off balance through surprise, or take the game into a type of
board state which was unfamiliar and disorienting to the opponent.

~~~
icambron
I suspect that's precisely why the computer _can_ measure it. This is the
scenario:

1\. Player A makes a move the computer considers suboptimal.

2\. Disoriented player B responds with another move the computer considers an
important mistake.

3\. Player A capitalizes with moves the computer thinks improves his position,
even relative to the original baseline.

4\. The computer concludes that A is nettlesome.

So it's measuring the delta of what it considers optimal with what actually
happens against real humans.

------
realrocker
Congrats Magnus Carlsen! You finally unseated our beloved Vishwanathan Anand
and made the beautiful game even more beautiful.

Allow me to go on a tangent to let me tell my personal story with chess. I
began playing at age 7 when my elder brother borrowed a chess board from a
friend. It was a nice break from the physical altercations between us(read mat
fights). My maternal grand ma called it "Satan's Game". And my mother toed the
line. Why? I don't know the exact reason, but I guess it was an amazing time
sink. Or maybe they both had watched this Hindi movie by Satyajit Ray: The
Chess
Players([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076696/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076696/)).
When the game s between my brother and me became violent(You moved it when I
was off to the toilet...) it was banned from our home. But we didn't give up.
Our summers were spent playing chess in a nearby mango orchard or the
graveyard a mile away. The chess board made out of paper with plastic pieces
was the only "toy" we never broke. Those were the best days of my life. And
it's still safe 20 years later. With every piece intact. What a game.

~~~
denisnazarov
Intro to that film (amazing): [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zCsn-
he5Kk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zCsn-he5Kk)

------
aaronetz
<blasphemy alert> Does anyone know some good alternatives to chess, as a game
that mixes deep thought and aesthetic variety? I tried Go, but found it
somewhat boring compared to chess, because of its uniformity (which, on the
other hand, has the advantage of beautiful simplicity and symmetry.) On
another note: it is unfortunate, in my opinion, that chess has a special
standing among board games. I would love to see some more variety in world-
class intellectual matches, similar to what exists in physical sports.
Something like a "board game Olympics".

Edit: Thank you for all the useful replies! In reply to some of you, I am a
complete beginner at Go. Maybe the word 'boring' was not carefully chosen. As
a programmer, I should have known better - that things may seem boring
(tiresome?) until you become more fluent with them. I should certainly give Go
another shot...

~~~
Cthulhu_
Magic: the Gathering? It's a game of infinite possibilities and strategies and
has a big meta game around it, too. Plus collectibles. Plus cool artwork. Plus
good apps.

~~~
phaus
In some ways, the internet ruined games like MTG. I still like to play, but
the widespread availability of tournament decklists stifles creativity.

There are still formats where you see a wide variety of decks, but T2 play
normally involves picking one of maybe 5 or 6 viable options.

~~~
emidln
The netdeck argument is probably for a different site, but I strongly believe
that MTG as a tournament format benefits enormously from widely available top-
performing decklists, video and text coverage, and articles on deck strategy
as well game tactics with particular decks or deck archetypes.

~~~
phaus
The publicity definitely helped the game grow, but at the same time, people
who play tournaments rarely deviate from decks based on the ones that the pros
are using.

~~~
emidln
The people who play tournament chess rarely deviate from proven opening
sequences as well. As such, publishing move by move accounts of Chess
tournaments for documentation and study hinders creativity. See what I did
there?

~~~
phaus
For ranked players, you are absolutely correct. That being said, there is
still quite a bit more variety in chess at any level than there is in any
given T2 cycle of MTG.

With MTG, even if I went down to my local card shop for Friday Night Magic,
there would be enough people there with netdecks to ensure that creative
attempts at deck building don't succeed very often.

In a local chess tournament, the level of play isn't even close to being that
standardized. Most of the local chess clubs I've been to don't even have more
than one or two rated players.

The difference is pretty simple. In MTG, anyone with 200 bucks can buy a world
class T2 deck and learn to play it reasonably well in just a few hours. On the
other hand, highly standardized play in chess usually only occurs after years
of intense study.

There is, however, an easy way to fix MTG's shortcomings. I just play
casual/peasant/other unorthodox formats. It makes things more interesting and
its cheaper.

~~~
ubernostrum
_The difference is pretty simple. In MTG, anyone with 200 bucks can buy a
world class T2 deck and learn to play it reasonably well in just a few hours._

So, I spend my weekends putting on a black uniform and working as a tournament
judge at professional-level Magic events. And... maybe you're right that
someone could do well at a local FNM this way. But at any sort of serious
competitive level (even at the Pro Tour Qualifier level), your assertion just
doesn't hold up.

You can see this in tournament results, by the way. Card availability is
basically only an issue for casual/FNM play. At any sort of real competitive
tournament, the field is made up of players who have access to the cards they
want, and the winner is determined by a combination of preparation and skill.

Most importantly, you can see this in results from Limited formats (where
players build decks using cards opened on-site from standard booster packs,
which are unpredictable enough to constitute a random per-player card pool).
Though there are certainly "Limited specialist" players, for the most part you
will see similar lists of names among the top finishers in both Limited and
Constructed formats, which drives home the point in a frankly undeniable way.

~~~
phaus
I wasn't really claiming that its easy to win MTG tournaments. I was just
illustrating that fairly standardized play begins at a much lower level than
it does in chess, because even beginners can buy a world class deck for a
small amount of money.

Limited is a great format that I'm glad you mentioned. Anything involving a
draft is going to be pretty creative.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that MTG is inferior to chess. I like both
games equally well.

~~~
ubernostrum
I usually reply like that because often I see the attitude that Magic is just
a game of spending money on cards -- whoever buys the best cards wins. When in
reality, card availability is more of a barrier to entry, and all it does is
get you to the point where you're on an even field, card-wise, with actual
competitive players. From there it's up to you to have the skill to hang in
there.

Beyond the decks/openings analogy though, I'm not sure Magic and chess really
compare well.

I think the most interesting distinction is in innovators vs. honers; Gerry
Thompson is now out of the game at the professional level, but he was one of
the greatest honers who ever played the game. Gerry was not known for coming
up with new deck ideas, and in fact the few times he tried it he did horribly.
But his ability to analyze the tournament landscape week to week, and make the
perfect couple of tweaks to existing deck shells, was unmatched.

------
anuragramdasan
60 minutes from last year. pretty cool stuff right here
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc_v9mTfhC8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc_v9mTfhC8)

------
sethbannon
I'm super excited to see the impact this will have on our noble game. I think
it could see a real surge in popularity in the years ahead. And at the age of
22, Magnus is only just getting started.

~~~
edias
It will be interesting to see if Chess, or other boardgames for the matter,
will benefit from streaming services as much as video games have.

I've seen the Chess-Network on twitch.tv break 1k viewers which is tiny
compared to the 300k League of Lengends and Dota 2 tournaments but still a
substantial amount regardless.

~~~
primitivesuave
I get really annoyed with the commentators on Chess Network, they have a
tendency to overanalyze and talk way too much. The best commentator I've found
is an Australian named Mato: youtube.com/matojelic

~~~
whtrbt
Austrian?

~~~
nebffa
He is European-born but has lived in Australia for some time now.

------
mattivc
It's quite fun to see the media attention he has gotten here in Norway. For
the last few weeks the sport segment of most news show spent as much time
devoted to chess as football, which is not something i ever expected to see.

I'm not much a chess player myself but it still very satisfying seeing so much
attention brought to a intellectual sport. I hope at least some of it will
stick around.

------
McUsr
I am Norwegian and fucking proud of it right now, due to Magnus Carlsen.

He comes from a Nation consisting of 5 mill. people, compared to Anand's
billion people.

This is probably the greatest sports achievement our country will ever make,
as there are really no comparable sports achievements in the world, not now,
anyway.

IMHO: They should knight him the second he gets of the plane when he returns
home. Because no other Norwegian has ever accomplished anything close to this,
with regards to bring honour to our nation.

Gratuler Magnus!

~~~
sytelus
I'm always amused by how people tie their pride to things they have absolutely
no control over. In case of sports, it's even worse. Most sport outcomes
aren't repeatable. When "your" team/person wins it is very likely due to
random mistakes others made or you were fortunate to avoid _this time_. They
may very well loose if the game was repeated again. Would your pride wash away
then? Even if sport events were repeatable, why _you_ should take pride when
you had almost no contribution to their success (may be except buying a ticket
or offering your eyeballs for TV ads)? In US, its even worse, considering
teams are not even "national", they are actually owned by random zillionairs.
I was almost floored to see people spending spending significant portions of
lives and money in to cheer leading what is essentially absolute random team
where members are pretty much from anywhere, sometimes even opponent teams!
Why anyone should be spending their precious Sundays and take monumental
amount of pride when some random zillionair's team wins because of what are
essentially random non-repeatable events? Sometimes I think sport fans are
people who skipped any or all education on probability and statistics.

PS: Before you all get on my case let me tell you I do get the fact that
sports does have display of skills value (same as skills of artist) that is
worth paying for. I also get that professional sports is hard and money hungry
adventure and without fans it won't exist. What I don't get is why is it a
matter of _pride_?

~~~
qw
If someone loses "he lost".

If someone wins "we won"

------
girvo
After spending the last 18-months immersed in the professional StarCraft 2
scene, I can totally appreciate a lot of the meta-stuff around Chess now. I
always enjoyed Chess, and was not too bad at it (compared to those around me,
certainly nowhere near even an amateur-pro!), but for some reason SC2 "clicks"
better for me (I think being addicted to Brood War while spending 6 months in
South Korea probably has something to do with it).

The discussion of "mind games" {"nettlesomeness" here) is something that SC2
has an obsession with, and certainly can play a _massive_ part in pro
tournaments, and I'd never considered it applying to chess... but now that I
think about it, everything in SC2's meta really came from Chess to begin with,
only applied in real-time with 300+ actions per minute and hundreds of pieces
with few illegal moves. And yet I struggle more with grokking the advanced
strategies of Chess than I do for StarCraft!

~~~
Segmentation
Comparing a centuries old board game with completely balanced rules, to an
infant video game that still has major balance problems (if you looked hard
enough), is silly. Chess is as balanced as it gets.

~~~
KVFinn
>Chess is as balanced as it gets.

It's "balanced" in some respects but both sides use the same features and most
games end in a draw, and high level play is less and less interesting. And for
that matter it's not even balanced really -- tournaments have players play
both white and black because they are so inequal. This is like balancing
starcraft by having everyone play mirror matchups or swap races.

>So Anand encountered a "mild surprise" in the opening moves that left him
"flying blind" (meaning the board was in a position with which he had not
previously studied) and because of that he decided to not keep pursuing the
game. He just engineered a draw.

>Most real people are "flying blind" after the first couple moves of the game,
and it's the challenge of trying to solve a puzzle against a live opponent
(who is also flying blind) that makes the game so fun. At the highest levels,
Grandmasters go very deep into the game in positions they have studied
exhaustively, and then the moment they feel uncomfortable they search for the
emergency brake, and consider themselves happy to escape with half a point.

>Intuitive understanding of the game and moments of brilliant improvisation
are the most exciting aspects, and yet memorized lines of play are so deeply
entrenched now that when a top player encounters anything outside of
memorized, studied lines he heads directly for the draw. It's really the
opposite of what you'd hope.

[http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2013/11/11/high-level-
chess.html](http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2013/11/11/high-level-chess.html)

[http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2013/5/30/announcing-
chess-2.html](http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2013/5/30/announcing-chess-2.html)

~~~
smky80
As much as I recognize and appreciate the limitations of chess, it pains me
physically to see the strategic depth of it compared to something like
Starcraft. It's not close by orders of magnitude.

I still remember some important match almost 15 years ago between two world
class Starcraft players, who also apparently were friends off the board, being
settled in 3 minutes by one guy "4 pooling" (basically sucker punching) the
other.

~~~
omni
A 4 pool isn't a sucker punch. It is a highly risky opening strategy that
almost always ends the game very quickly. If your opponent does not scout it
quickly, he is very likely to lose. If he does, you are very likely to lose.
The existence of this early all-in option does much to "keep players honest"
during the opening phases of the game and greatly expands the strategic depth
of the beginning minutes. Without this option, each player's optimal strategy
would always be to sacrifice defense and scouting early in favor of better
late-game economy.

~~~
smky80
> a highly risky opening strategy that almost always ends the game very
> quickly

In other words, a sucker punch?

~~~
omni
Like girvo said, I meant that it's not unfair. If you think surprise attacks
and imperfect information don't add strategic depth to a game, then we have
nothing left to discuss.

~~~
smky80
It's not to say Starcraft isn't a challenging game or there isn't any depth to
it, but I am saying if 4 pooling is considered deep stuff, you have to realize
that something like chess is on a completely different level.

I'm quite sure you could put all you would ever need to know about Starcraft
strategy into a single 300 page volume, whereas there are entire libraries
full of chess books, databases of millions of games and 3300-rated computers
slugging it out constantly, and the game still hasn't been completely
exhausted yet.

~~~
omni
Look, I'm not even disagreeing with you. I never said StarCraft is as deep
strategically as Chess is. I think Chess is certainly more strategic. I also
happen to think StarCraft is a much more interesting game because it has
tactical, psychological, and physical aspects totally absent in Chess. These
statements are not incompatible.

The only issue I took with your original post was that you seemed to be
claiming that 4 pool openings made the game less strategic when in fact the
opposite is true. It's a common mistake made by people who do not understand
the game.

~~~
smky80
Well certainly individual preference is a matter of taste. For me, "4 pooling"
and these kind of largely random rock-paper-scissors choices -- which can
often be decisive, as is the case here -- put me off Starcraft and a lot of
games in general, at least as anything more than casual entertainment. But I
do remember enjoying the game before I yelling at kids to get off my lawn.

------
ktd
This is actually a good example of why I'm not particularly interested in
chess anymore-- a game that's that heavy on draws and where so many of the
situations are adaptations of well-known positions simply isn't that
thrilling. I really enjoyed chess when I was a kid, but the better I became
and the more I learned about it the less I found it a compelling game.

~~~
elliptic
I don't understand - when you made this decision, did you expect that you were
going to be good enough so that these features of chess (draws and deep, well-
studied opening theory) were going to be relevant to you?

~~~
ktd
>I don't understand - when you made this decision, did you expect that you
were going to be good enough so that these features of chess (draws and deep,
well-studied opening theory) were going to be relevant to you?

Yeah. I played chess competitively as a kid, attending state tournaments,
taking lessons outside of school, and so on. However, I found that the more I
got into it and better I became, the less appealing it seemed.

Ironically, I felt that chess between relative amateurs was much more
interesting than chess between more skilled players, because the
improvisational component that I loved was much more relevant when people
hadn't been going through the opening books.

------
pdknsk
I'm not a particularly good player, but the match was rather boring IMO, other
than game 9, which Anand cut short with his blunder. I wonder if the dull
first game, described by Anand as a "satisfactory draw with black pieces", set
the tune for the remaining games.

------
jordanmessina
Press conference is live right now for anyone interested:
[http://chennai2013.fide.com/fide-world-chess-
championship-20...](http://chennai2013.fide.com/fide-world-chess-
championship-2013-live/)

~~~
deletes
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFJNESXsRkY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFJNESXsRkY)

~~~
simias
My god those comments. Even chess streams are not safe it seems.

~~~
deletes
A couple of month ago my browser update( or an incompatible addon ) glitched
and I can't see youtube comments anywhere anymore. Its great actually. If I'll
want quality content I'll read Hacker News( and equivalent ), otherwise I'm
interested in the video itself and i don't need others to form my opinion of
it.

------
KedarMhaswade
Brilliant! Magnanimous. I am a Vishy fan, but this match was really one-sided
when Vishy faltered at critical moments. Does it mean age matters? Will Vishy
rebound? I hope so, but perhaps it's the sad reality that I acknowledge --
better player won and the problem with the chess world (the number 1 elo-rated
player was not the WC for so long) got corrected.

Where do we go from here?

~~~
TylerE
Highly unlikely. It seems that most super-GMs start to decline around 40.
Vishy is 44. There have been some that have stayed quite strong into their
later years - Korchnoi, quite a strong player at his peak (Peaked at 2695 @
age 48, quite late in and of itself), played for the world championship in
1978 and 81 (age 47 and 50), and stayed a regular on the tournament circuit -
he beat a 2700+ ranked GM in a 2011 at the age of 80, and continued to to play
seriously until he had a stroke late last year.

~~~
edgarvaldes
V. Korchnoi is (was) a great player. His matches with Karpov were always
interesting.

------
3327
Chess is amazing it blows my mind why simple tools and games like this are not
incorporated in some 'fun' way into the education system. By 'fun' I mean that
if children were told to play chess they would not. A system would be need to
be designed so that they look forward to chess class as they do for PE and
art.

~~~
japhyr
I've been teaching, middle school and high school, for the past 15 years. I
have always had a stash of chess sets and clocks in my room. They see pretty
consistent use.

I love chess in schools for a number of reasons. One of the most interesting
things about watching chess in schools is seeing who rises to the top. The
best players tend not to be the brightest academic students. The best players
tend to be smart kids who fight some of the bs that schools make kids endure.
These kids are smart enough to 'get' chess, and have enough fight in them to
stick out the difficult moments in games and tournaments that separate the
best from the really good. These are the kids who tend to get in trouble a
lot, who get bad reputations among teachers. Watching those kids show everyone
up by winning chess tournaments soundly against the brightest academic kids is
pretty awesome, and can be life-changing for some students.

I love teaching chess because you can teach anyone some simple ideas such as
opening strategies, piece values, and simple endgames, and they can then beat
anyone who hasn't learned those concepts. Kids who never thought they could
learn a "smart person" game like chess suddenly play well, and start to
realize they can do intellectual things. Then you start to see natural talent
come into students' games.

Playing chess with kids is fun! If you have the chance, introduce a kid to
chess.

------
eneveu
It seems like the official commentary is of sub par quality. According to the
/r/chess subreddit, this commentary is pretty good and fun:
[http://www.twitch.tv/chessnetwork/profile/pastBroadcasts](http://www.twitch.tv/chessnetwork/profile/pastBroadcasts)

------
rikacomet
Now what the heck happened in the end? Anand gave up a knight advantage,
purposedly for a clear cut draw. I have no clue why he did that this time.

He took queen with queen, clearly, knowing it would be lost to king, and then
again the pawn with knight. He had a knight, of all things!

~~~
cjbprime
> Anand gave up a knight advantage, purposedly for a clear cut draw.

When you assume that a world-class GM played "purposedly" for a draw that
would lose him the championship title, you're probably wrong.

> He took queen with queen, clearly

He was in check. Taking W's queen was the only way to avoid losing his own for
nothing.

~~~
rikacomet
are you sure about that? the king could have moved back up, but in front..
moved from right side to left side between those two lines, without moving in
front of the queen line.

~~~
dfan
If Anand played the king to the eighth rank instead of to h6, Carlsen would
have kept checking on the seventh and eighth ranks, with a draw by perpetual
check.

~~~
dfan
Just to make sure I am absolutely clear, I am talking about 61...Kh6, which
enabled Carlsen to play 62.Qb6+ forcing the queen trade.

------
gshakir
Cool, it was held in Chennai, my home town. I remember some of my friends
along with others (25 at a time) lining up to play Anand at the same time
about 15 years ago. Anand was a Grand master at that time. Who else is from
Chennai here at HN ?

------
xfax
A well-deserved win. Can't wait to see what else Magnus goes on to accomplish.

------
lukekarrys
You can watch IM Danny Rensch & GM Ben Finegold review the game right now on
[http://www.chess.com/tv](http://www.chess.com/tv)

------
fedvasu
Honest Question : So now Chess will be more fashionable game?

------
wavesounds
I wish they gave the girl announcer access to the laptop as well so she could
describe what she's saying using the screen just like the guy can.

------
reidmain
As someone who played chess as a child but gave up after high school what are
some apps that would get me back into the game?

~~~
Technophobe
Books.

~~~
girvo
I have to say, the combination of your username and comment was rather perfect
(even if it was on purpose).

And you're pretty correct there, too, according to the last person I asked
this question of.

------
JonFish85
But has he played Judah Friedlander?

------
mmwanga
Move #14 (Nxc6) does not make sense. Why did Magnus do that?

------
oconnor0
Is the site down for anyone else?

------
RLC
Magnus seems more like a guy I could invite over for a couple of beers. No
offense on Anand he seem to be more like a KOOL-AID type of kid and always a
boy scout but a douche!

~~~
selmnoo
Anand is a total class act. All the other top chess players only ever had good
things to say about him. And Anand is one of the people who coached Magnus.

He's known to be focused strictly on the game and never do mind tricks to
throw an opponent off. A lot of top players respect him for this.

~~~
qq66
What do you mean by mind tricks?

~~~
wglb
Things such as Emanuel Lasker's cigar:
[http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/nimzowitsch.html](http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/nimzowitsch.html)

and other such stuff.

------
RLC
Of course he won the name alone speaks for itself "Magnus!" Just fucking HUGE
at anything you can think of! Compared to Viswanathan which sounded like a
vegtable ready to be consumed or a rubbing oil or even like a dip for your
prata.

~~~
polar
Viswanathan means lord of the Universe.

~~~
sigzero
Didn't quite help him though.

~~~
curiousDog
Helped him for a long time. He was champion since 2007.

