If Magnus wins tiebreaks, will people forgive and forget G12 Draw?

I agree with your analysis but I don't see what that has to do with nerves.  Fatigue, faster TC, and high rating are all reasons to go to tiebreaks but none of those have anything to do with nerves.  If anything, they support the idea that pragmatism, not nerves, was key.

I just finished watching IM Daniel King's summary of Game 12, and he said something very interesting at the end.  Since 2014 Magnus and Fabio have played 6 Rapid Games over the board (online rapid games are not counted), and the result has been absolutely even!!  I was surprised to learn this.  I thought Magnus would have had at least a 4-2 advantage since 2014.

Knowing this makes me even more excited for Fabio's chances tomorrow.  Magnus is the favorite, but you never know.  The Philadelphia Eagles with their backup quarterback Nick Foles upset the favored New England Patriots in the 2018 Super Bowl, so Fabio could do the same!!

If anything, I would have expected people who disapprove of his draw offer to be likely to forget about it if Caruana wins.

I may be in the minority, but I think that Carlsen offering the draw was a sportsmanlike act. While he still had some advantage, it wasn't as great as it was a few moves previously, according to Caruana. So his planned attack had fizzled, his attack wasn't enough to convert to a win against such a redoubtable opponent as Caruana - and so he showed that he respected Caruana as an equal, and wasn't needlessly going to tire him out by going through the motions.

So I don't see anything to forget and forgive.

John, I agree with you. I also understand the fans' pain; they want to see an exciting game!

even in the 40's Bronstein was playing in Leningrad in 1947, and he talks about the fans coming in in military uniform; from the Front, they would come....and how he wanted them to enjoy an exciting game, and not a "technical" one. I have to go now, but maybe later I will do a blog post about this. Good day to everyone!

I have always been a big fan of mr Carlsen. I went to London to see game 3. was really Great time. But if I had gone to see game 12, I would be asking for my money back. it was a disgrace. He is the world champion. world number. hundreds of people have gone to London to watch this match. thousands worldwide watching via internet. He had a really good position. you could of won the game. and he offered a draw. I HOPE FABIO WINS.

Somebody better light a fire under Magnus....otherwise I don't think he has the passion to win it.  

I think no matter who wins people will forgive and forget. Well, they will forget anyway.. After looking at the results of 12 games, it seems like most will be wanting to forget the entire tournament. Look at post number 25. Dozens and dozens of people worldwide are still interested, so at least they wont forget. 

Chess fans have been suffering, in my opinion, just about ever since Steinitz came along. Naturally, a chess player has to think first of the best way to win, which includes paying attention to not losing. I have racked my brain, but while it would seem a change to the rules of Chess, so that different choices would be the rational way to play, is the only answer, I have no idea how a change could be made to make Chess look the way it did before Steinitz.

I definitely think Magnus has the passion to win it.  No doubt at all that he wants to retain the title.

I think he wants to win it....but the draw he gave up in Game 12 might have shown either a lack of nerves or the unwillingness to fight for the win.  

Another possible explanation was offered earlier: cold-blooded pragmatism.  

He wants to win, and he thinks his best chance is in Rapids.

The more the elite players play like  style-less, super-pragmatic computer programs, the more I enjoy going over games of Adorjan, Gufeld, Tal, Nezhmetdinov,, Zukertort, Boleslavsky and Bronstein, among others, with their own annotations!

:-)

What?   You don't see the beauty in slowly accumulating  positional advantages that gradually exploit small centipawn inaccuracies aka the torturous grind?  

You'd rather go over the slashing swashbuckling attacks of yesteryear's games like a pining doe-eyed romantic in love with imprecise sacrificial themes?  

You like human blunder-chess?  Egads, you are positively an ancient Neanderthal!  This is the age of sterile concrete computational chess!!

I'm writing this after move 27 of the 2nd Game of the Rapids tiebreak.  

Magnus is winning, and it completely justifies his draw offer in Game 12.  

It's over.  Magnus won 3-0 over Fabiano in Rapid Tiebreaks.    All the people who thought Magnus had lost his hunger were deeply mistaken.  It was cold-blooded pragmatism, and Magnus is a Killer.  Kudos and props to King Magnus.

P.S.  I don't like the Classical Chess Championship being decided by Rapids, but the rules are the rules, and Magnus played intelligently with his Match Strategy.

I take full credit for calling it right.  It's also better for Magnus to have 4 games of a faster TC rather than the second half of game 12 to show that he is the better player.

I'm curious to hear how Fabi prepared for the tiebreaks because he was saying that he felt his chances were decent, but it looked like what I and others expected: Magnus played some offbeat stuff, Fabi got into slightly worse positions and time trouble, and Magnus won.

By Magnus winning the tiebreaks with a perfect score, I think that even if one prefers normal chess to rapid chess, it is possible to see that he has at least some claim to be the better chess player of the two. I could not think of any result to the tiebreaks that would affect one's impression of all those draws in the main portion, but the result Magnus achieved is the one that can do so.

I too would prefer the chess games of old. But I see no way to get there from here. We can't just tell chess players to forget about Steinitz, to play less well than they're capable of.

I would like chess games as exciting as the ones of the Romantic era, but I don't want to get there by compromising the quality of the play, say with tighter time controls.

No, I want the chess players to be as competent, and to think as hard and carefully over the board, as they are now and as they do now, with the result of exciting games. To achieve that, a change to the rules of chess themselves are needed, but I have no idea what possible change in the rules could have that effect.

Cutting down on draws is easy enough, I have had suggestions for that, but making the play more tactical and less strategic? I mean, maybe one could eviscerate chess by changing how the Pawns move, but I'm not interested in doing that level of violence to chess either.