Chess is like Philippine politics

“Chess helps you to concentrate, improve your logic. It teaches you to play by the rules and take responsibility for your actions, how to problem solve in an uncertain environment.”
--Garry Kasparov

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- The political combat in the Philippines can sometimes be compared to chess.
Both camps believe they will win and they will never entertain the possibility of losing.
They will lose only if they are “cheated”.
A defeat for most of them is a misnomer.
They run to win, not to lose.
In politics, however, there is no draw.
One must win and another must lose.
In chess, victory is achieved sometimes in a tie-break or after the full regular match like in the best-of-12-games format of the just-concluded FIDE World Championship in London.

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I made a mistake when I posted on social media that “I have the gut feeling that the world will have a new world chess champion tomorrow (Wednesday, November 28, 2018)” several hours before the start of the FIDE World Chess Championship tie-breakers between defending champion Magnus Carlsen and Italian-American challenger Fabiano Caruana in London, which finally ended with the Norwegian world No. 1 retaining his title.
My “gut feeling” erred, this time.
Caruana, who would have been the first American world champion since Bobby Fischer won in 1972, lost to Carlsen in three time-limited games.
Carlsen, who has won the championship three times before and was the favorite to win the game, took a two-match lead and needed only a draw in the third tie-breaker to seal his victory.

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My basis for picking Caruana in the tie-break was when Carlsen offered a draw in their last match prior to the tie-breakers which many experts, including former world champion Garry Kasparov, believed was a winning game.
They suspected that Carlsen was panicking and losing his nerves after the title match ended in deadlock at 6-all after 12 draws during the regular best-of-12 tussle.
It made Kasparov wondered in his Twit: “In light of this shocking draw offer from Magnus in a superior position with more time, I reconsider my evaluation of him being the favorite in rapids. Tiebreaks require tremendous nerves and he seems to be losing his.”
In the wild and oscillating Game 12, Carlsen, with the black pieces, and Caruana, with the white, began with the Sveshnikov Sicilian, just as they had in Game 8 and Game 10.

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“Carlsen was the first to deviate from the earlier contests, perhaps a stratagem to take Caruana out of his seemingly excellent preparation for the championship, and to angle for a decisive result at last,” reported The Guardian. “By the 12th move, the two were in uncharted territory, looking at a board that that no two people had created before at this level of chess.1”
After Carlsen’s victory, Kasparov Twitted anew, this time in a different tune: “Carlsen’s consistent level of play in rapid chess is phenomenal. We all play worse as we play faster and faster, but his ratio may be the smallest ever, perhaps only a 15% drop off. Huge advantage in this format.”