Does Karjakin even have a "puncher's chance"?

I'd like to see Sir J win and was delighted he drew games 3 and 4, but maybe I just hoped he would fight a bit harder today. I'd prefer not to see him squander as many chances as Magnus.

I just saw the video of the press conference of the 5th game. Carlsen was in a really terrible mood, Karjakin, by contrast, was very cool. Anyway, emotions aside, Carlsen right now needs to score a win arguably more than Karjakin does. So I hope we will have very exciting games from now on.

Emotions aside, I would say that Karjakin needs to score a win more than Magnus does, because being the weaker player, Karjakin has less of a chance to come back from a loss than Magnus does.

"Karjakin, strictly speaking, is not necessarily required to win even a single game before the tie breakers."

Right, but that's strictly speaking. That doesn't mean it's to be recommended to strongly influence your play just based on this. I'd say the fact that Karjakin has not lost yet is improbable, though it has worked so far.

Absolutely, it is very puzzling that Karjakin has adopted so passive a strategy for the match but who knows? Perhaps he is hoping that Carlsen may get demoralised by prolonged,dogged resistance and lose objectivity as a result. 

Elubas, at some point, you may have to admit to yourself that you were wrong about Karjakin's chances in this match.

He's playing well - but it's totally expected that he will lose at some point. 

It was also expected that Trump would lose, though...

Seems like a fair point, although the champion here will decided by skill, not media narratives and conspiracies.

That's not how it works. Just because someone has low chances doesn't mean they can't win. Otherwise you would say they have zero chances of winning. If he wins then I would say, the low chances won out. Reasonable enough; upsets do happen.

Obviously, his chances are much better now than they were before, since the match has been halved in size. But my initial prediction was before the match.

Yes, but people didn't realize that voter turnout and the stigma against Trump would make the polls much less reliable. I'm not totally surprised in that regard. I still favored Hillary, but not overwhelmingly so. And I'm sorry for talking about it on the forums, but solskytz brought it up.

I want Magnus to win, but it's also nice to see a nail biter. We'll see what happens as the tension has greatly risen.

Matches with many draws aren't exactly a new phenomenon either. Lasker - Schlechter 1909 comes to mind - two people who were also incredibly adept at forestalling an enemy threat before it manifests itself on the board, and about whom you would ask yourself - how can this player ever lose?

You have many theoretical lines in which there are not many open lines, pieces get exchanged swiftly and before you're quite out of book, there's suddenly nothing to play for. 

You have also lines that are richer, of course - but then, unknown to you, your opponent suddenly prepares to the line you play and finds a way to kill the action as in the above paragraph... you realize that you either go for the dead draw variation - or you suddenly become inferior. 

I believe that this is largely what we see here. At the top level, even if they pick fighting openings such as the Marshall, the Najdorf, the KID - in these openings too - and we "chess plebeians" don't know this - there are "hidden" ways to reach exactly those dull, dead, playless positions and the players will find them to kill the action. 

I also remind you of the draw-draw-draw as an attrition technique which you use against an opponent that you perceive as superior - which is what Kasparov did to Karpov way back in 1984. He saw that he was being spanked when playing his usual game - so he just closed everything down and made as many draws as was humanly possible. Karpov got exhausted, started to drop games after really an endless marathon of draws - and finally the match was cancelled as it was felt that it was no longer a true sporting event - probably a correct decision, although there were tons of protest at the time. 

It just was no longer a reasonable chess match - it has become something else. 

Here too, Karjakin knows that Carlsen is the stronger player. He even said so in interviews before the match - so a consistent drawing strategy is not out of place from his viewpoint. 

Humans will lose to non-humans, because the non-human is not afraid of crazy complications which it can calculate at billions of positions per second.

Between humans of any level, so long as the level of the two specific opponents in a particular game is close, there's always the "tacit agreement" to avoid certain lines and certain complications - while a computer will never understand why to avoid - the computer just calculates effortlessly, rapidly, tirelessly, with no fear, no quivering stomach, no uneasy feelings, no concern as to the result of the game. 

The rules and dynamics that applied to human games in 1909 still apply to human games today. Playing machines is a totally different game - and a game that a human can no longer play for the reasons I mentioned above. 

Only a fool thinks that a match is boring just because it involves draws. 

Black is NOT always trying to draw. In most of the games, Carlsen equalizes, as white or black, then strives to create something. In game 5, he pushed a bit too hard and got an inferior game. Game six was the first really uneventful draw. And that was the game where Karjakin's preparation showed through the most.

I see grammar is not your strong suit. But please address my point. I'm tired of hearing this nonsense about how the WC match is tame and boring because the games are draws. At least three of those draws were very fiercely fought games, with plenty of interest and excitement. It's not like the players are shaking hands on move 10 and leaving the hall. 

Carlsen isn't playing for draws with Black.

He sacked a pawn with Black in his last game...

Those who thinks this fight is boring should use their time on games they understand, like first-person shooter video games.