Why is GM chess so boring?

Every time two super, duper GMs sit across the board from one another, the chess world waits with baited breath.............and then they play 30 moves of theory, enter a rook ending, and - after 4 hours - draw agreed. Then the spectators sign in to chess.com and post a thread "Draws are ruining chess, engines are ruining chess, 960 is the future, bullet is the future, chess is finished and we have to play go!"

The problem isn't that chess lost it's romance or there's too much theory or any of that. The problem is watching near perfect players create near perfect games isn't really exciting unless you're interested in perfection. There are actually LOTS of master level games produced in tournaments you aren't following: Women's events, open events, junior events, national championships. And - in these tournaments - you see crazy opening lines, sacrifices, hung tactics, and little children beating big, bad GMs.

If you're bored of Tata Steel, follow Gibraltar. There's madness every day on multiple boards. The problem isn't that chess is boring, it's that you're following the most boring games!

I don't think super GMs are near perfect, just that they're all very close in skill.

But I like your suggestion.

That's probably because GM's tend to play good moves,so they usually,when they're not playing too fast,they tend to play good moves.Now it's time to bring in a famous Bobby Fischer quote,"The game is a draw theoretically."These reasons are why GM's play either drawish,boring chess or the great shebang of the chess world.

I think the OP makes some very good points.

to predictive

OK pedantry over

New Topics created by the OP :-----

2014        14

2015        18

2016          3

2017          0

2018          7

2019         10  already, just one month into the year!!!

You're more interested in me than I am.....

Kinda cool to have a stalker

Actually, though, things have happened to chess. Basically, Steinitz revealed to the world what had once been a secret known only to chess masters of the highest rank like Morphy and Andersson: positional stuff matters.

You can't put that cat back in the bag, though. Since you've mentioned Go, it might be noted that Go went through a phase when it was boring. The first player (who, in Go, is Black) won every game once all the top-ranked players had learned the lessons in the play of Honinbo Shusaku.

This got fixed by a rules change: komidashi, which required the first player to win by a certain number of extra spaces on the board. That led to a top player in Japan, Go Seigen (of Chinese origin) developing a more active and dynamic playing style which breathed new life into the game until the present day.

Alpha Zero - even it doesn't play perfect chess, but it plays it a lot better than any human - has confirmed what the play of Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov has shown... if one is sufficiently superior to one's opponent, one can get away with playing dynamic attacking chess today. So following minor events is one way to see more exciting chess.

However, if you look at ticket prices for major league baseball games versus games between triple-A teams, as just one example, you'll see that it's only human nature to be most interested in competitions between the very best in any field.

That's why I think that a judiciously chosen rules change is a valid and reasonable way to breathe new life into chess. Diehard chess fans will look over the scores from Gibraltar; the general public wakes up and takes notice of the World Chess Championship. If it's dull, they go back to sleep.

This is why Vassily Ivanchuk is my favorite player...  I have been sad not to see him in the Tata Steel tournament this year.  Never a dull game when Ivanchuks at the board.

Well, some of the draws in the WC match were more like 5-5 in soccer.

I was just giving the stats.

A friend told me that top level checker tournaments use something called the "3 move restriction rule" in which the first 2 moves of the player moving first and the first move of the player moving second are chosen by lot. This rule helps to avoid almost automatic drawing openings by forcing the players to enter a "tableau" that is not too drawish. I wonder if something like this could be instituted in Chess. Of course this would have to be greatly modified as to what random moves would be forced upon the players and to what depth of moves. For example, if you are White and you are an 1 e4 player and now forced to play 1 d4 or 1 c4, you definitely would be slightly out of your comfort zone. But now, would it be fair that Black be force to play 1...h5? Of course not! Maybe the ideas put forth to diminish the prevalence of draws in correspondence Chess by modifying the tournament scoring by taking into consideration the type of draws could be be utilized to make Grandmaster Chess more exciting. Maybe giving Black more time on his clock could be a way to go.

I don't think top level chess is always more boring than chess between more modest players.

I have played a lot of games in competition where very little happened.  And my OTB rating is only 1902.  Rarely if ever has this been due to a cautious approach on my part, it is just the way things are.

A draw is not always boring and boring chess does not always result in a draw.

For example look at the games Magnus has played since he took up the Sveshnikov is the last WCC.   The 2 classical games with Caruana were drawn, but full of fight.  It is a fighting opening, so the games are more likely to be hard fought.

Well said.

For me it 's boring because i'm to dumb to understand .

+1

Me 2.

Some fantastic, interesting games at Gibralter today.