I have a hard time sitting in my recliner and concentrating. I cannot begin to imagine sitting on a stage knowing the cameras are rolling and people all over the world are debating my every move. For 4-6 hours. I can barely watch any event televised event for the very reason that i don’t give a hoot about what the talking heads babble on about. Game one appears to be headed for a draw in my extremely novice opinion. Is this what we really want to use to publicize chess?
It is not the main goal of the world championship to publicize chess.
Respectfully disagree with you on this point. if it isn’t to publicize the game, why do it? It could be played in any location or venue. Heck the game could be played in Magnus’s living room and the WCC would remain the WCC.
I think I might have misunderstood "publicize" as English isn't my first language, and thought it implies something along the lines of "popularize". If it just means to make the games accessible to the public I don't disagree.
Whether we agree or disagree, i respect your opinion. And to be certain, if people want to watch the games and sponsors can pay the bills, then so be it, i wouldn’t take away from that. My point was simply that by making it a sizable event, FIDE is certainly trying to both popularize and publicize the game. And why not? I’d be disappointed if they did not do so. Here is my issue, once the event has been built up and we get viewers to tune in, they will most likely see a drawn event. To the more learned viewers this may well be exciting, but to the new viewers I’m afraid it is just a lost opportunity to make the game interesting and enticing.
I hear you too. I agree that sponsors are necessary to pay the bills. So I am not against making the WC a fun event. And in fact, FIDE has already made a lot of changes to make the World Championship viewer friendly:
- They shortened the time control and reduced the number of games.
- No draw offers are allowed before move 30.
- They even included a rapid/blitz tie break, which is quite a radical change.
And in my opinion having 2 GMs talking about the games make them more accessible to the audience. I remember watching Kramnik-Kasparov on ICC when no audio was available, and it was way harder to follow.
Where I disagree is that I don't think that there should be massive changes in the time control, the mode or in the game itself just to entertain the crowd. (FIDE tried that a while ago and implemented a KO system with a shortened time control. The result were champions who were not even in the top 10.) Chess, if played well, is a drawn game. So if the two best players play it is to be expected that most games end in a draw. It also takes longer as a football game, and the action isn't visible to the untrained eye. So I understand that for most people this isn't as exciting as football or basketball. But maybe the WC isn't just for everyone.
Well stated @Jenium. There is a lot of agreement for what you’ve said. I have the sense that if we were in the same room debating this, we wouldn’t be very far apart in reality. Good chat all around with you. Let’s look forward to a great game today!
Really liking this so far. Both players fighting, no boring safe crap. Even position, but complex.
Probably wont be online again till the game is over, but good start (after move 13...Nd3)