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Comment by curiousgal | Hacker News Reader

It's the first time since 1978 (Karpov-Kortchnoi) that a world chess championship begins with 7 draws, the longest draw in a raw beggining in a world chess championship !

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Carlsen-Karjakin 2016 began with 7 draws.

Welcome to modern, boring chess. I wish we still had hyper-aggressive grandmasters like Mikhail Tal.

The computer age has unfortunately sort of crushed that style of play :( It's hard to play sacrificially when the engine refutes your attacks

If Leela and AlphaZero have anything to say, it's that there is such a thing as being overly materialistic.

Sacrificing material for positional compensation is hardly a new concept

We do, they just don't qualify for the world championship.

If Mikhail Tal was alive today, he would play boring chess, too. Otherwise modern GMs would just accept his sacrifices, not make any mistakes, and win.

These games were all but boring. And nowadays there are great games being played, even if they end in a draw. Check out Carlsen-Svidler from earlier this year.

Players like Tal had their share of boring games, it's just that we remember the crazy ones because they're fun.

Late in his career Mikhail Tal put the fireworks away and transformed himself into a supreme technician. He set a record for the longest undefeated streak in chess history. Basically he'd fit right in today.

Interestingly enough, that record was just broken by Chinese GM Ding Liren, who played 100 games before losing to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave at the Shenzhen Masters tournament.

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