Is chess experiencing a weak era?

That's precisely what CAPS is : Computer Aggregated Precision Score

... and Capablanca ranks in the 2700s according to engine matches.

For someone who seems to know little about the subject, you hold some rather firm opinions.

Yeah, Carlsen misplayed that one, for sure.

Though, the player who beat him (Vokhidov) was the 2015 World Champion (U14), and he's now a Grandmaster closing in on 2600.

I think it's fair to say that Vok was underrated. (Although I believe he was 2450+ at the time.)

Hold on there, CAPS system is very ineffective in actually taking into account things like bad blunders. Some blunders don't matter as much while others do.  Capa was just very weak compared to masters of today, i have studied his games and he makes a lot of mistakes. Definitely would not even stand a chance to draw a game vs magnus, let alone win one.

It is absurd to compare old Grandmasters with current ones assuming that they would perform exactly how they did in their time. It is like saying that Rod Laver would not stand a chance against any top-100 tennis player of today because his ball speed was ridiculous and he was not muscle-powered. Capablanca today would use the tools available today and would be professionally prepared just like anyone else in the field. He would be MUCH stronger today.

This said, I guess that Carlsen is a worthy world champion, and falls in the same league as the Laskers, the Capablancas, the Tals, the Fishers and the Kasparov. What is "wrong" with chess today is not the quality of Carlsen (or of Caruana, or anyone else), rather the fact that the game is now much better known, and can be computer-analyzed at levels unthinkable decades ago. In GM match analyses we read here on chess.com, even a very subtly weak move is often enough to lose. The result is that risky moves are on average less rewarded, and mistakes are more decisive than brilliancy. The difference in today's chess is not only in how many mistakes does Carlsen compared to Capablanca, but how many matches he wins thanks to brilliant and decisive moves.

bro.... capa played in a time when chess was only something for the "elites", very very few people actually, seriously took chess and tried to improve on it.  Nowadays you have many 13 year old GMs, chess is being studied relentlessly and chess is no longer only for the privileged. Also, chess now is way, way more popular than it used to be.  If capa played today he would be an average player at best.

Magnus dominates in an era when literally thousands of people take chess very, very seriously and have the best analysis possible. Now chess has money, incentives, everything causing mass influx of players.  Capa played in an era when very few people actually took chess seriously, best analysis was only the priviledge of some elite chess schools and the competition was very very slim

You compare and see for yourself.

Do you understand that as competition increases it becomes very hard for players to actually rise above the competition?  capablance was a part of the "elite" circle i talked about. He had access to the best analysis, hung out with the best players so if he didn't get to train tactics then no one else did so it won't matter.

Yes, today capa has resources but there is no "elite" group anymore. A 2300 master who is dedicated can easily outstudy capa and train more.  There is no "exclusive resource" anymore. 

It's simple really. Back in the 30s chess was not even looked at as a sport. It was just a past time for elite men, that's it. Now it's a professional sport with a lot of money in it(thanks to fischer) and now instead of one rival now you have thousands of strong players who are studying chess for 12 hours a day.  To dominate in this era is something else. Capa's domination cannot be called "domination" since only like a few people took chess competitively.

dude... the COMPETITION ITSELF was very, very slim.  Is this simple fact entering your understanding? say you enter a class and there are 5 people who take that class very seriously. It will be tough to ace that class. Now imagine if that same class had 5000 people. Now do you think it will be that easy to ace that class? nope it won't be. 

I simply don't agree with your assumption that capa would magically, automatically make better use of computer knowledge than thousands of masters around the world.  Yes he studied a position but so did an IM. I have no proof or basis to believe that capa would apply that knowledge more effectively.

Also, just saw capa vs alekhine game today. There were 6 mistakes by capa (evaluation swung in excess of 0.6 points)  and this was the norm back then. Past masters can only dream of playing as accurately as people like karjakin do.  I am not even talking about magnus since even trying to compare magnus to capa is a big disgrace to magnus. A man who dominates in such a competitive field is simply the GOAT

Wow, the hate on this one. Magnus's play styles are different from past players but he's more accurate than probably any player in history. Fischer would lose to Magnus if they played in 2020.

I wouldn't say weak, but i would say "boring" to some?  Technology can be a great thing, if used correctly.  At the top levels of chess, engines have gotten SGM's so deep into games its resulted in a lot of draws.  Many of those draws are exciting/fighting games though.

But if you're talking about the level of the average everyday player?  No, the game hasn't changed.

Well that point of capa making better use of engines is theoretical so it can't be debated. Every GM u see nowadays gets there very young so your age point is completely redundant. Karjakin was a GM at a way younger age than capa for example. All GMs of today have basically been strong in their youth.

Capablanca's "10 year streak" is a very, very skewed and redundant stat. You actually have to look at two things, first how many games did he play during that time (his streak began during World war 1 and continued in the turmoil which WW1 created, meaning not many tournaments were held back then) ...  secondly the level of opposition he played.

Let me tell you some facts, first let's define our terms

If you define "long" as over the number of games played, then the next question is "which games do you count?" It shouldn't be surprising that if a grandmaster plays in their local weekend circuit against much-weaker players, they are almost never going to lose. For the record to have value then, one needs to impose restrictions on the strengths of the opposition. If you argue that you count all FIDE-rated games, then Bogdan Lalic reached 155 games undefeated. Alternatively if you require master-level opposition, then the record holder is current world champion Magnus Carlsen, who was undefeated over 125 games (or 122 games if you follow Carlsen and do not count three games against opponents rated over 500 points lower).

Alternatively, if you define "long" as "years without a loss", then Carlsen is not anywhere close to the record since his streak lasted for only two years. In this case you could argue for Steinitz, who was undefeated for 9 years winning 25 consecutive games in the process. However, that streak was only 32 games. Or you could argue for Bobby Fischer, who was undefeated from 1975 to 1992, during which he played 0 games. But at that point, why stop with Fischer? You could probably pick a random person off the street and they would've been undefeated for years.

No it is not

Hi!

Ye i copy pasted it. This comment does a great job of explaining why "streaks" are overhyped. If capa played today he would have to play hundreds of games and he won't even be able to keep a winning streak of 5 games lol

I think modern grandmasters aren't weak just they are all super strong and close in strength.  Fischer and some others just had a huge margin of strength between their competitors so they seemed a lot stronger.

Kasparov called Morphy the "prototype" for the 20th-century Grandmaster, as Morphy intuitively grasped the game at deeper (and more precise) level than his contemporaries.

I think of Kasparov in a similar way: he was the prototype for the 21st-century Grandmaster, specifically with how he embraced the art of engine prep, even when chess engines were in their infancy.

Absolutely, this is the best way to express this.

Let's just call it what it is, the nostalgia effect. People tend to enlarge the strength of things which they can't see or which happened in the past.  We have the best player in the history of the game playing but that's the issue, he is still playing. We see him everyday, we see him stream etc... the idea of a guy from the 1920 which we haven't seen much being much stronger appeals to us a lot more. So we tend to forget that he used to make 5 mistakes per game but we tend to enlarge his strength by thinking about the perfect games he played.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. I am 100% sure in the year 2100 people would treat magnus like a god just like how they treat old masters nowadays even though someone stronger could potentially come by that time (although i think it's hard for anyone to be better than magnus, even after 100s of years since there is a limit to human capability)

In short, nostalgia is a powerful thing

Lol kramnik talking about someone else playing too softly? we all know how badly he would be beaten by magnus in blitz