World Chess Championship format sucks!

 

That's the way it used to be, back in Fischer's day. And that's the way it should be. It was fine the way they did it. 

24 games. 12-12 tie, the Champion retains the title because the challenger could not unseat him. Challenger had to score 12.5 to take the title, which demonstrates he actually beat the sitting champion. And it was enough games that it wasn't "too" long, but it normalized out any flukes or bad days by a player, and gave everyone enough opportunity to truly demonstrate their strength against the other. 24 games is a high enough sample to really get to know who is better at Chess 

But it's the Classical World Chess Championship. No "rabid" or bullshit "Blitz" should even be a part of it. If you can't beat the champion you don't get to be champion. So champion retains title in the event of a drawn match. That's the way it should be. Like Ric Flair said...

"You wanna BE the Man? You gotta BEAT the Man! WHOOO!!!" 

 

If you want to BE the Man, you gotta BEAT the man! 

i agree with icy    with all of what he said     after the 12 games is up if its a draw .... i would like to see them play off at a faster time limit    tossing for colours for the first game and say best of 5 or maybe 3 what ever the outcome we are seeing 2 great players i take my hat of to both of them i feel for caruana cause he's never had the chance to call himself the world champion the way he has played so far he deserves recognition 

 

@FaceCrusher: almost every sport (chess too) has some tie breaks to decide the winner. all the champion showed is that he/she was better than the previous challenger, not the current challenger. imagine tennis without tie breaks, or soccer without penalties just to let the winner go through....would be easy to play for the draw especially in a sport like chess which has, I believe, draws as perfect play result.

@davidinnes: thanks for agree, but I am she. your idea is nice by the way, in my opinion it is fair both players have to prove they are better than the other :) I would also like to see less difference between the 12 games and tie breaks, to go from 100 minutes chess to 25 I think is, but who am I, too much

 

I believe it makes sense that the onus rests with the challenger to demonstrate why he should unseat the champion. The burden of proof does not lie with the champion to demonstrate why he should be champion - he has already done that. If that challenger is worthy of the title, he should be able to defeat the champion. 

This is the way that it used to be back in the days of Fischer vs Spassky. I really love that system. But, if you HAVE to have a tiebreak - I think super fast time controls are a horrible way to do it. We already have the World Rapid and Blitz Championship for that. 

I just think that we'll reach a point where the best player will be able to draw virtually every game, given as much time as they get.  Whoever is the first champion if and when these rules take effect could just be champion until they retire.  Every game would be a draw and the finals would be even more overloaded with draws than they currently are.  So if you're trying to make things more exciting with this rule change, the mission would not be accomplished.

There's another point I'd like to make.  I can't speak for everyone, but there's one think in the playoffs of virtually any sport that I dislike.  And that's when there's a team with a significantly better record than their opposition, but there opposition won the championship the previous year.  Even though often the previous champion never stands a chance, the announcers will keep talking like, "Can the other team dethrone them?"  Even though the other team is far superior this year.  After many times of noticing this, I've come to the conclusion that whoever won the previous year seems to have little to no impact on if they win again.  My model only using the current year's stats predicts the winner much more of the time.

Players get better and worse between tournaments and their old record should not carry over to the near tournament.  Do you want to crush every little man's dreams of becoming the champion when they find out they can't because the champion would just draw them every game to "win"?

This is a complete crap! If what you say is true and Champion is too focused on drawing every game then - the worthy Challenger needs only 1 victory! And this is a reasonable expectation from future World Chess Champion!

Indeed, 24 games.

Comparisons between the state of chess play today vs. Spassky-Fischer miss the point. The game is very different today. There are no adjournments. There is endless computer preparation. Spassky-Fischer had 10 decisive results in 21 games. If today goes like every other day has so far, we'll have no decisive result in 10 games. In 1972, a tied match after 24 games was very unlikely, so holding the championship as a result of a draw was unlikely. We need something to sharpen the encounter.

 

Using rapid/blitz as tie breaker misses the point. Classical chess is about deep understanding of the game and not so much about speed of play.

 

For tie breaks, why not give a random position (or a 960 position) ?

960 isn't even classical chess, so you seem to be arguing against yourself. After endless draws, haven't both players established that they have a deep understanding of the game? 

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