Boring World Championship

I don't understand how the World Championship became so flat. First of all the number of games, 12, is not enough for a World Championship. If tomorrow I want to buy a book on this world championship, what will I buy? A pamphlet made up of 10 pages with 12 draws?

Then it seems that the death of chess was not made by computers, but by the players. Why the organizers didn't put the rule of no draws before 40 moves?

With what Anand and Carlsen are going to be paid, I guess they should work a little more than 1 hour every 2 days.

Honestly it is better to spend all that money on amateurs tournaments, where draws are long and suffered, and players really give their best.

+1

The loser still gets 800k or more dollars. Things could be different if the prize for second place was a set of steak knives.

The rules of chess say that a draw by threefold repetition can happen anytime, thats usually how the players get around the so called 'Sofia' rules so it doesn't matter whether you say No Draw Offers Before Move X or not, if theres a three fold repetition after 15 moves or whatever the game is a draw.

World Championship matches have had 85 percent draws since the days of Botvinnik, its nothing new but the 12 game format makes it worse.

They are both multi millionaires, this is about something more important than money..

My views, in part:

I do not share with the majority of chess enthusiasts their antipathy to short draws. I agree with Boris Gelfand that commentators have the responsibility to explain why the players chose not to play it out. World Championship contestants are not afraid of a fight. Rather, they know that winning a match requires finding the appropriate moment to land a blow that will have some effect. Before that moment, the players must probe one another's preparation.

World Championship matches are characterized by deep exploration of a small repertoire of openings. Small truths often are revealed. Most possibilities never appear on the chessboard. Moves that are not played are central to the story. As the players seek victory by finding the correct moves, commentators explain to the rest of us why the roads not taken are less sound.

In the first game, Anand's ninth move had been played only a few times prior, and never by top players. White won the previous encounters due to unsound moves by Black. Anand's move was correct for the position, and it turns out that Black has a slight edge. The game soon ended in a draw.

 Your right. When Carlsen wins we will not have to hear so much about how good Aging Anand is in games.

Massimo, you want 'em to make bad moves so the game is more exciting? You want 'em to make a bad move so the game goes longer? They have an aversion to making bad moves. They're responding to what's on the board.

this is getting ridiculous, all this bad mouthing these pros cuz they won't make a bad move.

If I had a dentist I wouldn't want him to make a bad move to make the dental surgery more exciting. If there was a nuclear reactor next to my house I would want to make sure the manager of the reactor had a strong aversion to excitement, and that no matter how anyone tried could not be persuaded to make a bad move in running the reactor.

I remember in the 1970s when Canada and The USSR played a series of hockey matches. The Soviets had supreme control over the puck. The Canadians couldn't get close to it; there was lots of passing back and forth between the Soviet players; they just wouldn't make a bad move.

Some people said it was boring, that the Soviets were killing the game. Others learned from it. learned the principles that the Soviets brought to the game.

It was thrilling to watch the mastery they had over the puck.

Why the organizers didn't put the rule of no draws before 40 moves?

There is a "no draws agreed before 30 moves" rules in place, isn't there?

In any case, neither game qualifies, being 3-fold repetitions each time.

In a way i am glad as now we are going to consider changing the draw rule!

Sooner or later.

Anand's ...b5 and Qg4 were hardly bad continuations... 

The fact of the matter is that chess has a format that discourages fighting games. No one needs tactics or flying pieces nor do we need players tnrowing their hands in the air at move 15 because they can't see a forced win. 

Kasparov likes to talk about getting sponsorship from big companies like coca-cola or google but why in the world would they invest in a sport that doesn't even give players room to actually play the game? And what can be said of chess if players actively pursue positions that are allegedly drawn before 30 moves? It just doesn't look good.

First of all, for the players, the point is not to be entertaining, but to achieve the best result that they can get. Neither player gets any extra points for being entertaining. If you don't like it because it's boring, well, nobody's forcing you to watch it.

Second, just as bticker pointed out, both draws were draws by repitition. There's no way to prevent that with rules. Unless you got rid of the threefold repitition rule, in which case, instead of repeating the same position 3 times, they would have to repeat it 25 times in order to draw by 50-move rule.

Third, even in cases where the two players draw by agreement early on, is a long, worn-out draw with a bunch of waiting moves (which is essentially what your "no draws before move 40" rule would create) any more "entertaining" than a quick draw forced by repitition?

So far so dull. But at some point there will be fighting chess. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Personally, I can't tell the difference between a game that's generally considered "boring," and one that's generally considered "fighting." And I really don't care. All I care about is the result, because that's all that counts. If Magnus/Anand wins the next 6 games and plays brilliantly in all of them, then he becomes World Champion. If they draw all 12 games and the one of them wins on tiebreaks, then he becomes World Champion. Same thing.

They would be even more conservative

Match play is certainly different to tournament play.

Boring - I don't have a forced win at move 15 so I'll draw

Fighting - I don't have a forced win at move 15 but I'll play on in this even position. 

A poor breed of chess players.

For me the latter is often much more boring than the former. At least the former is quick and concise. Then again, as I said, I don't care if the games are boring or entertaining. I just care about the result.

if u can't tell the difference then you need to learn more about chess.