Fabio and the Meaning of Leuven GCT Rapid and Blitz for the 2018 WC

Look at Fabio's Score:

It's very, very good for Fabio to realize a good lesson here from Leuven as he prepares for his World Championship Match against Magnus later this year.  

Here's the lesson or take-away for Fabio:  Win the Championship during the Classical portion!!!  Do not, do NOT, DO NOT let the match go to a Rapid tiebreaker or an Armageddon.  Magnus has a Huge Edge in this tiebreaker format.  Although it's possible for Fabio to pull off the upset in a tiebreaker, the odds of doing so are heavily against him.  His best chances lie in obtaining a match lead in Classical, and then holding on for dear life to the end as Magnus claws, thrashes, and imbalances the positions to obtain fighting chances.

Just hope that Fabio can get to Plus 1 in the match, and then hold on for dear life as the Magnus Beast comes roaring back.  Fabio's gotta be a frontrunner against Magnus for the best possible chance to pull off the huge upset.

Go Fabi!

I really don't think it's a bluff.  If it is, it's working to perfection!

Bu Xiangxi and Wesley So have beaten Magnus in Classical games in the past year.   That's where Fabio needs to aim.

Agreed that everyone knew a tiebreak was basically a win for Magnus.  I would estimate Fabiano's chances in tiebreaks at 10%.  I don't think this tournament taught us anything new about Fabiano.

This is somewhat off subject, but why is it that someone who is tops at Blitz and Bullet falls down in Rapid?  Naturally, I'm thinking of Nakamura.  Not having played over many of his Blitz and Bullet games because these forms of chess rarely interest me, I'm assuming he is a great bluffer and confident mover.  Perhaps others have a more experienced, knowledgeable explanation.

Blitz and rapid are wholly different.  It's hard to flag someone in rapid and you can't make fast second-best moves and win because your opponents have enough time to find refutations without flagging.  G/25 and G/5 are worlds apart.  Naka plays fast and often plays unusual openings like 1.b3.  This gives him an edge in blitz/bullet but not in rapid.

Lightbulb just got turned on!  I have never ever thought about blitz that way.  "Blitz is about creating positions in which you can play fast."

That is insightful!  Thanks Deirdre for quoting Naka.

Imagine that, one of the best Bullet and Blitz players says "It's not even chess."  This is what I've been saying for years.  My respect for Nakamura just increased by an order of magnitude.

Let's be clear... the chances in classical games are NOT 55-45. Carlsen has a much bigger advantage than that.

"Let's be clear... the chances in classical games are NOT 55-45. Carlsen has a much bigger advantage than that."

Whatever Magnus's edge is in Classical Chess, let's agree that his edge in Rapid and Blitz is even higher!

So you respect people who agree with you. lol.

Blitz can certainly be chess, but the best players will squeeze out every bit of performance by playing like Naka describes... that doesn't really happen until a high level though.

Sure, for example, there are lower rated players who attack all the time in blitz... but that's because they suck at chess in general. It's not a choice, it's just how they play no matter the time control.

AFAIK Caruana's reputation is he's not so good in speed games.

I even remember seeing some chessbrah video of him doing some blitz. Obviously he's strong GM strength, but compared to other world class players he was a few 100 points below them.

It's even to the point that you simply avoid certain opening systems as Black (mainly) in blitz because they require you to be too circumspect, or they're too passive. May work perfectly well in rapid and long play, but in blitz you simply don't have the time.

As for their respective chances in longplay, the Elo difference between Carlsen and Caruana is now down to something like 20 points. Form will decide this match, I think.

After 6 rounds have been played in the Paris stop of the Grand Chess Tour, Fabio is in dead last.  Here are the latest ratings:

Magnus Classical:  2841.5

Fabio Classical:  2822.0

Magnus Rapid:  2880.0

Fabio Rapid:  2716.0

Magnus Blitz:  2939.0

Fabio Blitz:  2770.4

Fabio's best chance is to win the WC match in the Classical portion.  Win with the White pieces, in particular.

Good, I'm glad the horse face got a good horse laugh.  Of course, you happen to be wrong.  Whether I agree with Hikaru Nakamura or not is of no consequence, but that your mind immediately went there reveals you have an oversized ego; that's the way you think.

I wrote what I did because I was surprised GM Nakamura expressed this degree of insight into something in which he excels.  That means that Blitz and Bullet won't be overtaking real chess, classical chess, anytime soon in the hearts and minds of the best GMs.  That's something for me and all those who love chess to celebrate.

"I wrote what I did because I was surprised GM Nakamura expressed this degree of insight into something in which he excels.  That means that Blitz and Bullet won't be overtaking real chess, classical chess, anytime soon in the hearts and minds of the best GMs.  That's something for me and all those who love chess to celebrate."

This is a very good thing.

Analogy. Instead of 9 innings of baseball, let's just have one inning and call 9-inning baseball games, Classical Baseball.  Instead of 4 quarters in professional football and basketball, play just 1 quarter, and call it Rapid Football and Rapid Basketball.

See how silly that is?  Chess, aka Classical Chess, is the premier chess form.  

You were... surprised a pro had insight?

?

I guess you mean to say you were excited that an accomplished player's insight not only had the ring of truth to it, but it disparaged a form of chess you personally have little respect for. Whether your lack of respect for blitz is sour grapes or not would be speculation and ego on my part, as you chastise me for earlier, but trying to deny you said you greatly respect Naka for agreeing with what you've been saying for years is a bit pathetic. As a pro player, and a speed player of great renown, his remarks cut down blitz games in a way almost no other person's can, and that pleased you.

I completely agree.

The annoying threat in my mind though is rapid games.

I very much disagree we should replace classical chess with rapid games, but at least one GM wrote about his wish to do so (I'm glad it seems most people strongly disagreed with him)

Slow Chess Should Die a Fast Death

Yes, should it go to  into the tiebreakers, Caruana will need nothing short of a miracle.

Permit me to return the compliment by saying it's disheartening that you lack a certain sophistication that can't imagine F. Scott Fitzgerald's dictum that "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

Let me spell it out.  I was surprised that someone who makes a particular form of endeavor his specialty is insightful and humble enough to know it's not as important as the classical form from which it sprang.  Sure I was pleased to hear this, but only because a certain intellectual aesthetic that attracted me to the game some 55 years ago and subsequently became a life-long love for the variety and styles as different as Petrosian from Tal is alive if not always well.

I know of Shallow Shahade who has ingratiated his mediocrity into the conversation on the future of chess, and how right you are that Rapid is more of a challenge to "classical" chess ... for the time being.  Things proceed in stages and before long Rapid will be too slow for the ADHD crowd who prefer to satisfy there adrenal glands over a higher somatic organ, the one supposedly setting atop their shoulders.

Unlike most practitioners here, I enjoy playing through the games of the greats to my own piddling attempts at something lasting.  I mean, why look at my scrawls or your finger-painting when the depths of a Vermeer, a van Gogh, a Hassam or a Sergent are laid out before you.

Only time will tell, but despite Hikara's comment the prospects are not bright.  I suspect the quick will eventually supplant the thoughtful as it has in so much of our culture. We'll be left with an extreme sport producing lesser and greater scrawls of what was once high art, and I imagine Danny "The Popularizer" Rensch will be right there, leading the charge.  By then I'll be gone and not have to witness the flotsam and jetsam washed ashore from the wreck of the U.S.S. Chess.

Ok, sorry for misunderstanding.