George H. Bush:Mikhail Gorbachev :: Magnus Carlsen:Fabiano Caruana

December 15, 2018

Chess for geopolitics is an overworked metaphor. It seems to be capturing the way in which geopolitics is a game played by the people in high towers, combining a war from the tactictal to the operational to the strategic with a staring contest between two equavalently equipped opponents. Leaving aside the many aspects of geopolitics that are emphatically not well reflected in chess, I don’t find even these aspects to be universally available in geopolitics. However, in the specific case of the Cold War, maybe it’s not so bad. In that case, it captures the way in which the two sides peered at each other over the chessboard of Europe, the dichotomy between the two in the white and black pieces. The metaphor takes on a much more direct meaning due to Soviet prowess in the form of Tal, Spassky, Botvinnik, and PetrosianBy no means an exhaustive list, a complete list of Soviet chess legends would be an impressive if boring blog post being challenged by the American At the time Bobby Fischer. The old world legends upstaged by the brash young American. The stories wrote themselves. Of course, Soviets quickly reclaimed the top spot and held onto it for quite a while thanks to Karpov and Kasparov.

One commonality between board games, war games, politics, and relationships is the learned skill of picking your battles. ⊕Not dying on this hill. Living to fight another day. Militaristic aphorisms abound. A number of events in the past few weeks all related to this idea have blended together in my head. When listening to the episode of John Dickerson”s wonderful Whistlestop podcast entitled If a Wall Falls, I thought about the criticism that Magnus Carlsen received for not pressing his .9 centipawn advantage and superior position in Game 12 of the World Chess Championship, and how that compared to George H. Bush”s decision to not crow his victory as the Berlin Wall fell.

The Battle of Cannae in two images. Hannibal presented a weak center to the Romans, who responded with a deep formation to press this advantage. The Carthaginian forces then enveloped the Romans in one of the worst Roman defeats ever. A parable about the value of restraint.

Neither the Berlin Wall falling nor Carlsen’s advantageous position meant guaranteed victory, though we may now see them as inevitable due to the true course of history. As Dickerson notes in his podcast, there were a number of uncertainties surrounding Gorbachev and the trajectory of the Soviet Union under him. No one knew for certain whether he was a good faith reformer, and even if he was, no one knew whether the path to reform would be altered by the “hard-liners in Moscow”. Bush took Gorbachev at his word as a reformer, and purposefully assisted him by not giving fodder to the more conservative Soviet leaders. This ultimately proved to be the right decision, as the dissolution of the USSR occurred without any shots being fired between the two major powers.

Carlsen also elected not to press his advantage in Game 12 against Caruana. There is some very clear strategy behind this choice. Carlsen, the #1 player in the world in all three time constraints of chessClassical, Rapid, and Blitz , has an Elo score of 2835 in Classical format, while Caruana has an Elo score of 2832 in Classical. An insignificant difference. However, Carlsen has an Elo score of 2903 in Rapid format, while Caruana has an Elo score of 2766 in Rapid format. Using this calculation of their win probabilities based on their ratings, Magnus had about a 43% chance of winning in 12 classical games, Caruana had a 39% chance of winning, and there was a 19% chance of a draw after 12. In the Rapid best of 4 tiebreaker, Magnus had a 78% chance of winning, Caruana had a 6% chance of winning, and there was a 15% chance of a draw, based on this calculation. It’s not hard to see why Carlsen elected to draw and move on to the tiebreaker. The wisdom of this choice was born out by Carlsen’s three successive victories under Rapid time constraints. ⊕Also it has come to my attention that Carlsen rapped on a song by Mr. Pimp-Lotion a few days ago, and it is my ethical responsibility to pass the happiness it brought me along

There is no need to raise your risk profileShoutout to Daryl Morey when you have the advantage. This is not to say that sitting on your hands is the best policy, only that perhaps the greatest advantage of having the advantage is the ability to pick your battles.