[chessmind] Dennis Monokroussos: Did Karjakin resign...prematurely?!?

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Posted by Dennis Monokroussos:
Did Karjakin resign...prematurely?!?
http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1205908883.shtml


   [1]I responded to [2]this in the comments section of [3]this post, but
   it seems interesting enough to merit its own discussion. So here is
   Bernard Kobe's comment:

     Kudos to Karjakin for playing on as long as he did. I hate the
     notion that this is in some way disrespectful -especially in a
     rapid game! No doubt it is perceived as disrespectful, and
     perception makes it so. But to some degree this is a convention,
     and it's bad for chess because it makes top-level games less
     accessible to lower-rated players. You should not be reinforcing
     the convention.

   To which I reply:

     Hi Bernard,

     Whether I should or not depends on both objective and subjective
     factors. Since I think this convention is a good thing, it's
     subjectively proper that I reinforce it. As for the objective
     propriety, that depends on the truth of the matter. Is the claim
     that that top-level games are less accessible to lower-rated
     players by virtue of "premature" resignations good evidence, if
     true, that the convention is a poor one?

     To this I have doubts on many levels. First, unless every game goes
     until mate, there may always be some lower-rated player who doesn't
     "get it". Unless you want to do away with resignation altogether,
     there are going to be boundary problems here.

     Second, even if we can find some reasonable approximate threshold
     (e.g. the "average" club player - approximately 1500), I think that
     this particular game easily satisfied that standard. Even if the
     1500 couldn't beat Kasparov with White, there's nothing
     conceptually difficult about White's task.

     Third, eliminating (relatively early?) resignations may be bad
     pedagogy for lower-rated players. One learns better when motivated
     by curiosity than when spoonfed. Some spoonfeeding is ok, and
     that's what the 20,000 beginners' books on the market by Reinfeld,
     Horowitz, Chernev, Pandolfini and so on are for.

     Fourth, how does knowing how to win an ending with a huge material
     advantage make GM play more accessible? The part of the game that
     makes it GM play has to do with the adventures surrounding 14.Qxe6,
     not the trivial remainder that would have ensued.

     Fifth, even if it would be a good idea from the
     pedagogy/accessibility standpoint for GMs to continue playing
     positions out, that's not the only value worth considering. Why
     should the players have to waste their time and energy on a game
     that is de facto over in the absence of a natural disaster, heart
     attack, stroke, criminal act or divine intervention? It's also an
     aesthetic blight. Playing the game until mate could take 40 or 50
     moves, if Black attempts to put up "quality" resistance. That would
     turn this mini-masterpiece into something akin to a quarter and a
     half of a great basketball game followed by two and a half quarters
     of garbage time. The amateur, like most basketball fans, will
     simply change the channel.

     Three final comments. First, even if the convention should be
     changed, Karjakin's action is still disrespectful, given its
     existence. (Or if one thinks that in this particular case it was
     justified even given the convention, substitute a different case of
     your own choosing.) Second, the "rapid" element doesn't seem to be
     relevant - Ivanchuk had three times as much time as Karjakin, and
     there were increments as well. Finally, going back to a point I
     made earlier, one of the things I did as a kid was to play out
     positions where one side resigned. Generally it was pretty obvious,
     but occasionally I learned something, and it's very unlikely that I
     would have learned it had it been given in the text. Chess strength
     is a skill, and solving problems for oneself, or at least trying
     to, is the best way to improve.

References

   1. http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1205904554.shtml#3521
   2. http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1205904554.shtml#3520
   3. http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1205904554.shtml