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Well, That Ended Abruptly: The World Chess Championship 2021
It started out like the previous couple of world chess championships: Game 1 — draw, Game 2 — draw, Game 3 — draw, Game 4 — draw, and Game 5 — draw. The players Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi were so evenly balanced. Computer analysis showed that one of these five games was the most accurate in chess history. Nepo had an average centipawn loss of three while Magnus had an average centipawn loss of two.
What is average centipawn loss? It’s a new idea, really, since computers can now beat the pants off of us humans easily now (yes, even Carlsen and Nepo). It is the measure of how much material the person playing is losing on average per turn in centipawns. Is this a metric measurement? No, I wouldn’t say that it is. Rather, it is a borrowed prefix from the metric system that means hundredths. So, a centipawn is a hundredth of a pawn. So, Nepo was losing three centipawns on average per turn against the perfect computer play. Carlsen was losing two.
That’s all good and well, you say. But, what are you even saying? Ok. Let’s back up. Back in the 1990’s I believe, Karpov played a computer. It might have been Deep Thought (before Deep Blue and Deeper Blue). Karpov won the game, but their was an ugly rook move the computer made (if memory serves, it was a8-a7, but I would have to look it up). The audience laughed at…
