Gibraltar, Wijk An Zee, World Cup 2017, WC 2016 are All Decided by Blitz Playoffs - Good/Bad?

I just happened to watch the Gibraltar Playoff Final between Levon Aronian and Maxime Vachier Lagrave.   It went down to the wire in a tense blitz playoff game.  Very exciting!

Then I remembered that Magnus won his Wijk An Zee in a 5 minute playoff blitz against Giri.  Then the World Cup in 2017 was again won by Levon in a blitz playoff.

And then Magnus retained his World Championship against Karjakin in 2016 in a blitz or rapid format after the classical games were tied.

Now a prior thread/comment someone thought that Giri was at a disadvantage at having to beat Magnus at Blitz.   Now Kramnik (and many others) thinks that Rapid/Blitz is a rather different game than Classical Chess.   And after all, there are 3 different world titles in those time controls!

So summing up, Rapid/Blitz playoffs are tremendously exciting!!  There is so much drama, so much tension.  Time pressure vastly increases the chances of the most horrific blunders!!  (Eg., I saw the Great Magnus overlook getting mated in one by Grischuk in a blitz game.  The Great Magnus!)  

With excitement, drama, and tension, this is great viewing and entertainment for chess fans, and casual chess fans.  

BUT at what cost?  What are the downsides?  Should very important tournaments, Candidate tournaments, World Championship Matches be decided by sudden death Blitz Playoff games that are arguably a different animal than Classical Chess?  

What's a proffered alternative?  How about this?  For tournaments:  Sharing the title and the money.  Put all the players names on the trophy, lol!

For Candidates playoffs between all the tied players:  A Classical Game for the 1st time control, and a one hour sudden death for the second time control.  

For the World Championship Match:  If it's a tie after so many games, then the Champion retains the title.  

My last observation is this:  There is a trickle-down effect.  If so many important games/tournaments are being decided by blitz playoff games, then it behooves players (and I'm primarily thinking of junior scholastic players) to spend time, at least some time, practicing blitz/rapid play!!  Because if you don't, you're going to be at a significant disadvantage if and when you are in a blitz playoff against an experienced Blitz player!

Now here's the thing, I have heard quite often from my betters to not play blitz, or at best, to limit my blitz play.  Why?  Because it's going to hurt my long game.  But if titles and tournaments are decided by blitz, it behooves the tournament player to have solid experience at Blitz, yes?

What say the chess.com community about the Chess Pro game being decided by Blitz playoffs?

Blitz is often necessary because of the possibilities of draws in chess and the use of an odd numbered format (like best of 7) is unfair to the player with the black pieces in the last game.  Endlessly playing classical games just isn't plausible and blitz is both faster and more likely to lead to a decisive result.  If the blitz games are drawn, then the last step is Armageddon, where one player gets white plus a time edge and the other player gets black but is credited with a win if the game is a draw.

To answer some of your questions: first, I think prize money is usually shared if there is a tie even if there is a blitz playoff.  Some prizes can't be split, like a place in next year's event, or a place in the World Championship Match, or World Cup Winner, or so on.  It would bad for chess if every event was shared several ways.  Gibraltar was a 7 way tie.  Imagine if the Candidates was a 5 way tie.  Any kind of Classical playoff would take forever and it would be difficult to format with an odd number.

The idea of the champion retaining the WC title in the event of a tie was the norm for many years.  You can look this up on Wikipedia.  It seems plausible, but it's actually a really big advantage.  It's also unlike any other sport/competition.  The champ essentially gets a free half point to start the event.

I agree that players will be encouraged to play blitz, but these GMs can already play blitz very well.  Some are certainly specialists and some are perhaps weaker than their classical rating would suggest, but I don't see it as a problem.  At the junior level, nothing is decided by blitz tiebreaks.  I play a lot of OTB, including state championships and other events with GMs, and I've never seen or been part of a blitz tiebreak.  It really only happens at top level events like the one you discussed.  Even most GMs will probably never be in a blitz tiebreak, except maybe at the World Cup, and those tiebreaks start with 25 min rapid before getting down to 10 min and 5 min.  Plus, young kids already play blitz anyway.  I think playing blitz is fine and helps with pattern recognition.  I went from a beginner to about 1500 by playing blitz against stronger players and having them explain my basic mistakes and recognizing patterns.  You also see new opening ideas that you can research, analyze, or save for later.

To answer your last question, I like blitz tiebreaks as they're more fun and exciting than just mathematical tiebreaks.  I don't see any other way to break ties.  Classical tiebreaks would be impossible.  They take forever and if there's a large number or odd number of players it doesn't work.  Sharing the prize and title is also fine, but why not have a bit of excitement and give the title to whoever can win in blitz?

 Knighttour2, you make a very solid argument.  I'm good with your recommendations save one.  I'm okay with the World Champ retaining his title in the event of a tie in number of classical games won.  Play a 24 game match or a 16 game match.  If it's tied at the end of 16 games or 24 games, then the Champ retains the title.  White has a slight advantage against Black.  

The Champ has a slight advantage in case of tie games.  You wanna be Classical World Champ?  Then win more games at Classical Time Controls.

I can see your point, but I'd prefer rapid (or maybe something like G/60, and getting faster) as opposed to having the match end in a tie and the champ winning.  The champ could then try to draw every game and wait for his opponent to overpress, because he has to win.  In a 24 game match it might not matter but the current format is 12 games and I could easily imagine a top player using the psychological edge of the tiebreaker to gain a significant advantage.  As a matter of principle, I think competitors should start on equal footing

The format also doesn't work if there is no champ, due to the title being vacant for some reason, like the death of the holder, retirement, break with FIDE, etc.  It's happened before.

Bad. They should be decided by armageddon.

"The champ could then try to draw every game and wait for his opponent to overpress, because he has to win."

But I think that strategy could backfire too.  Don't overpress.  And the player going for a draw can get too passive in his position, and blam!!  That's what you get for playing for a draw.  

There's a difference between playing for a draw and playing a solid opening that gives the other side no realistic chances, like the Berlin or the QGD Exchange.  A booked up World Champion could more or less force his opponent into playing risky chess, assuming he doesn't blunder much.  Of course it could backfire, but so can any strategy.

Daniel,

Unfortunately, having to add the adjective classical to chess reveals just how far this traditional form has slipped in status in an age of engines, databases, and attention deficit millennials.  Look at the emphasis Chess.com puts on Blitz.  Hell, if Mr. Rensch and the gang ever gave serious consideration to sponsoring a traditional tournament I'd have a coronary.  Popularity is more important than profundity, you see.

I find it interesting that Knighttour2's concluding paragraph concentrates on "fun" and "excitement" and not the quality of the games produced.  I don't think these emotional aspects are legitimate for determining a winner unless your motive is to popularize chess for the peanut gallery.  However, these is something to be said for the efficacy of Blitz in that It places a premium on experience and intuition and less on careful analysis, so it favors the more gifted, natural player over the one who has to work at it.  However, except in rare circumstances you can write off the depth of the conceptions in such games.

Frankly, I think a better method favoring the natural player is Chess 960 at traditional time controls.  This would showcase the natural talents of the genuine chess player because it tests a player's adaptability to new positions not bound by standard openings, and extends intuitive patterns into truly unfamiliar situations in the middlegame.  Ultimately, this would be far more interesting for chess

Of course, Chess 960 as a tiebreaker may not be as popular because it appeals to the brain and not the adrenal glands.

Bob

If you're White and playing for a win, you don't have to play the Ruy Lopez against 1. ... e5 if you open up with 1. e4.  Also, if you're White and open with 1. Nf3 or 1. c4 the game could take any number of turns.

Chess.com does sponsor a classical tournament, the Isle of Man.

I also think that top level GM blitz/rapid games are played at a pretty high level.  Not as much as classical, but still pretty high depth.  GM level rapid games aren't like chess.com bullet where people play garbage and try to flag each other.  These guys can really play serious chess, even in 5 minute.  At the last WC match, Magnus looked to be clearly the better player than Sergey, who looked like he was just hanging on, and sure enough, in the 25 minute rapid, Magnus crushed him on the board and on the clock.  The time crunch allows quality to show, which is what you want (or at least what I want) out of a tiebreak.

My comment about fun and excitement was comparing playing blitz to just using a mathematical tiebreaker and having the tournament end with a tie.  There's nothing wrong with wanting to popularize chess by making it more interesting.  To me, your comments seem a bit snobbish and I don't think that mentality is good for chess.  Lots of sports, like hockey and football, have changed their tie/overtime rules to create more excitement.

Do you have any evidence that blitz favors the more gifted?  Wei Yi is a pretty bad blitz player compared to his classical rating, and so is Fabiano.  At the top level, blitz rankings are similar to classical rankings, except there are a few who struggle and a few who are blitz specialists, like Artemiev and Savchenko.  

The problem with 960 is that some positions give a huge, possibly decisive advantage to white.  I think some positions are analyzed at like +2.5 for white right from the get go.  Some positions also have openings that are basically forced in order to have any kind of piece coordination.  In one of the blitz battles, I think Magnus-Naka (the first one) they blitzed out about 20 moves in a 960 and then Magnus just resigned because his starting position was just dead lost.  Classical-length 960 is almost unheard of as well.

Blitz is actually similar to the overtime of other sports.  In basketball, if the game is tied after 48 minutes, you play a 5 minute overtime.  It's the same in chess, except it's 5 minute blitz.  Most sporting overtimes are just shorter versions of the typical game and it's the same in chess.

OP: that's true, but now the challenger almost has his openings dictated by the champ because of the champ's draw odds.  The challenger has to avoid the monotonous lines, which allows the champ to prepare.  The champ doesn't need deep Ruy Lopez because he can just play the Berlin, or deep QGD lines as white because he can just exchange.  I see this format as giving the champ a sizable advantage, to the point of being unfair.

I have to respectfully disagree.  I don't think it's an unfair advantage for the Challenger to win one more game than the existing World Champion to wrest the Title away.  

Just like in baseball where the tie goes to the runner.  Is that unfair to the defensive team?

In baseball the ump has to make a decision, either out or safe.  There's no in between or do over.  It's an arbitrary choice and it's probably done that way to make the game more exciting because having a baserunner is more exciting than an out.  I don't see a good reason for the Champ to have the edge.  Look up the history of the chess WC if you haven't already and you'll see what an edge it is.

That means their chess skill is almost equal.Suppose that they play against machine and gives less draw (the bigger skill gaps between human and machine).

ok

My original question was:  "What say the chess.com community about the Chess Pro game being decided by Blitz playoffs?"

Nothing we can do.  It is what the organizers and players agree to, I suppose.