Pawn storm

Earlier this week the 2018 World Chess Championships concluded. It was in fact the first championships that I have followed from first to last game, which might come as a surprise. It's really just a reflection on how technology has enhanced our everyday lives. When I was young, chess matches came in books, maybe magazines. I remember watching a few matches from one championship on our family's Sky TV, which was a rather curious choice for ESPN back then.

There was another reason though: For most of my most productive chess period 1994-1997, the chess championship was disputed. The two strongest players of the time, Gary Kasparov and Nigel Short, appalled by the corruption of the international chess body, FIDE, started their own championship. FIDE in response held their own and with sponsorship never being huge in chess there wasn't many matches. Fortunately by 2006 there was one match to unify and it has been pretty clear who the champion was ever since. By this time though I barely touched the pieces, except the odd challenge by friends. In China I also had a few chess events even playing a simultaneous exhibition against some of the English students (a simultaneous exhibition, or "simul" is when you play against many people at the same time. Since most had literally learned to play the same day, it was pretty easy except for a few who had more than a few clues.

During the period where the title had been disputed they experimented with different formats for the championship. To someone unfamiliar with tournament or match play, it might intrigue you to know that there are many different formats to chess. The world championships used to always be played "classically", which is with each player having 100 minutes to play the first 40 moves and then 30 minutes for the rest of the game. But other formats from "rapid" (each player would have 25 minutes plus 10 seconds extra per move for the whole game) to "blitz" which has 5 minutes for each player with a small increment per move. If you go to a chess club when players aren't involved in playing you'll hear the clatter of pieces and the smashing of clocks in casual blitz matches. Online, blitz is a staple because it can be sustained. But for the purists nothing beats classical games because it's a true measure of a player's abilities, and that's what is mainly used in tournament play. So when the chess championships started including different formats to decide the champion, people were aghast.

Although technology has now connected the chess world comprehensively it's also one thing that gets close to tearing it apart. In the year that I stopped playing chess, an epochal moment happened. Gary Kasparov, arguably one of the strongest players ever, lost a match to Deep Blue, an IBM-designed chess computer. 21 years later there is no debate about who would win in a match of man and microchip. And now they are tool for preparation - so much so that in the recent match sometimes more than 20 consecutive moves were "home preparation" by the players, without any requirement to use their skills of calculation. And just like the effect of performance-enhancing drugs in running, there will always be suspicions about whether online computers are producing some of the moves in real tournament play when players or their confederates use devices covertly. Back in my youth, I had a computer programme "Gary Kasparov Chess" which was hard to beat but would play moves that are obviously "not human". This is still the case to an extent - sometimes the moves are too steeped in cold, computer logic to even appear like a natural human move. But by the same token, they can uncover new motives, overlooked resources and "impossible moves" that over the board are impossible to see.

The 2018 World Championships was between Magnus Carlsen of Norway and Fabiano Caruana, an  Italian-American. The format was very modern - 12 games of classical chess, after which, if the scores are tied, it'd go into four rapid games, after which, if it is still tied, would go into blitz, after which, if the scores are still tied, would go to an Armageddon format (which is so new I've never played it!). The classical portion was 12 straight draws - Caruana in particular showing a depth of preparation that kept the incumbent Carlsen on the ropes. Carlsen showed though that once Caruana's home preparation finished, he was resourceful enough to find solutions. Astoundingly in the 12th match, Carlsen, finally with a stronger position with more time on the clock, with the ability to end the match with one win, offered a draw to Caruana. The chess world sighed. Gary Kasparov tweeted that it was proof of Carlsen's lack of nerves and predicted that he would collapse to defeat in the rapid phase. There was cringing all around, too, on the internet: We'd have a World Championships (again) decided not in the classical format but one with fanciful time controls. Had the classical format died? And had they been finally killed by the computer.

With the rapids all scheduled for a single day I was up early enough to catch the commentary of both the first two matches around the time of breakfast, and the third concluded while I settled in at the office. Despite Kasparov's curse, Carlsen was the clear favourite and has long been considered the best rapid player in the world. And so it came to be, once the rapid games began he won three straight games retaining his title. Caruana seemed exposed in this format and even in level positions made inaccuracies that led to defeat.

I don't agree that the "rapids" pollute the sanctity of the title. For me the world chess championships is to find the strongest player overall and all round. If twelve classical games cannot prove a winner, the two are clearly fairly level in that format, so it's time to find another format. The classical remains the prestige form, while still allowing for dynamic, time-pressured play if that doesn't prove a winner. As it is, the different formats are the medicine for the computer-prepared play. Even before the time of computers, matches just in classical format could take months to complete. The first time Kasparov played for the world championships, it lasted 48 games! Magnus Carlsen has been champion for the last 5 years and in time could rival Kasparov as an era-defining champion and GOAT. Time will tell.

In the same way that running was a sport of my youth, chess was my hobby and I nurture the possibility of resuming play at a club in 2019. Running though will always be steep competition for my time. My year of running is winding up in the next 10 days, with the biggest event being tomorrow with the Omaha Half Marathon, which will prove whether I can run 21.1km in under 90 minutes - my goal for the whole year. I've been getting progressively more nervous today but I know that I'm fitter than I've ever been and the most likely to do so. If the weather can grant us some grace, it's going to be an awesome day!