Then I probably screwed something up. I do that a lot. Maybe somebody with less screw-up tendencies can perform a similar experiment?
Or play some unrated live games and watch for when black's clock gets down to one minute.
I mean, you may have done it perfectly it's just completely not what I'd expect :)
There is never an increment in Armageddon games, because they are used as the last resort to break a tie. In most cases it means the players have already tied several sets of games @ rapid, 10 min, blitz (and perhaps even a whole classical match). Hence, the name.
When first introduced, the time limit was 6/5 with Black getting the draw odds, but this proved over time to strongly favor Black. 6/4 was tried for a while but seemed to favor White. 5/4 may or may not be "fair" but it's as close as we are likely to get in this type of game.
I understand the need to play off for a trophy, and some organizers offer a small bonus prize as incentive as well, but for a title as important as World Champ, the games should be decided at the classical time controls only. To lose a WC match on an Armageddon tiebreak seems more unfair than anything.
Winning the WC on tiebreaks... I'm sure many fans hate it. I think it's detestable. I didn't get into chess soon enough to enjoy the classic battles, but the matches of the past seem much more grand. They didn't come around as often, they were much longer, and they were only ever classical time controls. In a way I feel like I missed out, I'm glad I get to watch these though and that they finally reunited the title. If there were still multiple world champs being decided every year with short matches and blitz playoffs it would hardly be worth following at all.
I understand the need to play off for a trophy, and some organizers offer a small bonus prize as incentive as well, but for a title as important as World Champ, the games should be decided at the classical time controls only. To lose a WC match on an Armageddon tiebreak seems more unfair than anything.
I agree with that. Fortunatelly, on the current WC match, the organizers gave plenty of chances before that point (4 games @ 25 minutes, then 5 matches of 2 games @ 5min+3sec).
There used to be protection for the defending WC in that in the case of a tied match the champ kept the title. It seems to me however that the only champion(s) that ever enjoyed this advantage/protection were former soviet/ussr players. Is there a match in which this wasnt the case ?
I understand the need to play off for a trophy, and some organizers offer a small bonus prize as incentive as well, but for a title as important as World Champ, the games should be decided at the classical time controls only. To lose a WC match on an Armageddon tiebreak seems more unfair than anything.
I agree with that. Fortunatelly, on the current WC match, the organizers gave plenty of chances before that point (4 games @ 25 minutes, then 5 matches of 2 games @ 5min+3sec).
I hate it too.
This is the ultimate joke, I would say. On what basis they say it is fair? There is not statistical evidence to say 6 minutes Vs 4 minutes is fair. Should it be 5minutes Vs 4 minutes? or 40 minutes Vs 4 minutes? Well nobody knows.