Norway Chess 2019: What is the Role of Armageddon?

Magnus Carlsen is known for many things, and many consider him to be the greatest chess player ever. But offering a draw in a better position? Anyone who follows top level chess would laugh at the mere thought of this. In fact, it is widely known that Magnus is a ruthless competitor, a player who has made a living from squeezing out advantages and ultimately victories from the most innocuous of positions.

This is why it came as a shock to the chess world when, in game 12 of the World Chess Championship, he offered a draw to Fabiano Caruana from a better position. Many questioned Magnus’s decision. Even former greats, such as Gary Kasparov, offered sharp criticism: “In light of this shocking draw offer from Magnus in a superior position with more time, I reconsider my evaluation of him being the favorite in rapids. Tiebreaks require tremendous nerves and he seems to be losing his.” Later however, Magnus would state: “If a draw hadn’t been a satisfactory result, obviously I would have approached it differently.”

Of course, Magnus was well within his rights to draw the game and enter the rapid tiebreaks but his decision brought to light an interesting question: what are the implications of a classical event ultimately decided by rapid/blitz games?

A few weeks ago, I got my answer. I went to check the Norway Chess super-tournament, only to be confused as I scrolled to the results page and saw scores such as 1.5-0.5. It was then when I realized that there was an armageddon component (a sudden death game where white gets time odds while black gets draw odds) to the tournament. In the case of a decisive classical result, the winner would receive two points and the loser would receive zero. But after every drawn classical game an armageddon game was to be played, with the winner receiving 1.5 points to the loser’s 0.5 points. 

The subject of my initial confusion. Credit: Norway Chess 2019

I had heard of armageddon before as a strategy to break a tie at amongst players with the same score at the end of a tournament but I had never heard of something like this ever having been done before. So why the radically new format? 

On the surface, the answer seems simple. We don’t like ties, or draws. We like winners. We like dominance. Fans and tournament sponsors especially despise quick draws, now infamously referred to as “GM” draws. When two of the game’s titans draw, it deprives us of the entertainment, enjoyment, and buildup of a seemingly mouthwatering clash. In this new format armageddon seemingly solves both problems, right? It gives us a winner in every matchup, and is guaranteed to be entertaining knowing the players will be fighting for a full point in the standings in just minutes.

This is no doubt an opinion shared by many, including accomplished chess personality Greg Shahade.

Count Greg Shahade as one who thinks there are too many draws at the highest level. Credit: Twitter

While I concede the above points, this current system in some ways cheats the game. At least as it pertains to classical chess. It takes away the natural element of the game. In a classical tournament, a draw should be accepted as an equally respectable result as a decisive game. As it stands, there are many decisive results in tournaments, and the draws are fighting draws. As I am writing this article, I noticed the results of round 6 of the Croatia Grand Chess Tour tournament: 5 decisive results, with one draw between Giri and Anand (the game was fought till only rooks remained).

Giri and Anand discussing after a hard fought draw. Credit: Croatia Grand Chess Tour 2019

I think we should appreciate that sometimes both players play at a near perfect-level and a draw is the correct result. Or that sometimes many blunders are made by both sides and a draw is the most fitting result. There is excitement in both of these cases; an excitement that we in the chess world should embrace rather than sending the message that draws are to be condemned.

One such cost is the de-emphasizing of classical chess, which comes as a byproduct of this new armageddon format. Norway chess, after all, is first and foremost a classical chess tournament. In fact, it is one of the strongest in the world. Have we thought about what it must be like for these players to play such long and grueling games all while the armageddon game looms in the back of their mind? That is, an armageddon game in which they could potentially waste all the hard work done in the classical game in just a few hasty minutes.

Take for example the matchup between Levon Aronian and Alexander Grischuk in round 1. Aronian and Grischuk played quite an interesting classical game filled with atypical ideas, but eventually drew. In the ensuing armageddon game, after about 40 moves, players had so little time that the game was about moving quickly rather than the moves themselves. In the scramble, Grischuk ended up losing on time. 

Is this the way we want our classical super-tournaments to be? It seems rather harsh for Grischuk to play a decent game with black, draw, and then end up with 0.5/2 points after losing an armageddon game on time. Results like these may end up having ripple effects on the classical games---players may not make the most objectively accurate moves but might play more and more just to seek or avoid the armageddon game, depending on the situation.

This new armageddon format at Norway Chess represents a changing of the nature of the game. It introduces a format in which elementary mistakes, time pressure, and nerves dominate more so than the actual quality of chess. I am not saying we should eliminate armageddon, rather that we should leave it for the appropriate time.

I liken armageddon to penalty kicks in soccer. How would we feel if we just started every world cup game with penalty kicks? Part of the excitement of penalty kicks stems from the fact that it is a last resort, a high-stakes tiebreaker between two teams after they played an entire match to a draw. The only question left then is: when should chess’s penalty kicks take place?