He said some interesting things about the time control, but what I found notable was his view that it might mark the beginning of a rejuvenation of the world championship.
According to him, and I suppose he should know, many top players were just not that interested in the championship cycle, for three reasons. First, the financial and opportunity cost of preparing seriously; second, the randomness of the qualification process; and third, and perhaps most of all, the fact that at the end of it you were mostly likely only going to get beaten by Carlsen.
Now that Carlsen is out of the picture, Dubov thought that quite a few people would be thinking about the championship more earnestly. He half seriously thought that even Anand might make a comeback!
"At least when the game isn’t settled by the players’ homework with the computer - which is, frankly, one of the big reasons why faster time controls have become increasingly popular."
It's a common take that homework with the computer (and also knowing "established opening theory") matters more at classical time controls, but why would this be the case? With less time, you really need to know opening theory as you cannot figure it out over the board (or monitor). Also, it's harder to deal with surprises - even if you can neutralize them you may end up well behind on the clock: spending 10 minutes obviously matters more when you have, say, 15 minutes for the entire game plus some increment than when you have plenty of time remaining nonetheless.
Maybe deep topical lines are less common in rapid/blitz, while offbeat openings are more playable - Smith-Morra Gambit very recently in Nakamura-Caruana, even King's Gambit (I know Dennis doesn't like it). More playable because the surprise factor matters more than when the opponent can adjust.
Quoting me seems to indicate that you're in some way responding to what I said, but I can't for the life of me figure out how what you've written is any sort of reply. Just to point out two false assumptions - if your comment is a reply to me - I said nothing about "established opening theory" (top players are spending thousands of hours trying to find new ideas to catch their opponents out), nor did I say anything about the computer being less important in one time control rather than another. What I did say, or at least imply, is that computer-aided prep is likelier to result in one player (generally Black) managing to kill the game in classical chess than in rapid (or faster time controls). (I'm also referring primarily to chess at the elite level, though the increasing popularity of rapid time controls is probably occurring at all levels.)
As I wrote, "it's a common take", so I wasn't (only) responding to you. But I was interested in what you implied, or why you wrote this.
"computer-aided prep is likelier to result in one player (generally Black) managing to kill the game in classical chess than in rapid (or faster time controls)" - is this because the position at the end of home analysis may still be a bit tricky and maybe a little worse at least from a human perspective, requiring some accuracy to really 'kill the game', which isn't that easy with little time on the clock? Annotators might then say "he had to suffer for the draw", but only players themselves know whether they did or didn't suffer. If it's an obvious draw, that's the case at any time control.
In a long time control, there's time to (a) remember and reconstruct one's analysis of obscure lines, and/or (b) to figure out what to do if one can't (fully) remember and/or reconstruct, and/or (c) hold a somewhat inferior position if one can't find/remember the perfect antidote, because they've still got plenty of time left.
In a g/15, Super-GM A might choose Stockfish's fifth choice on move 9 followed by its third choice on the following move because there's something tricky enough to take 10 minutes to solve. If you're Super-GM B, you see that it's a mess, and you may not be sure that it's worth taking a long time (you're not sure how long it will take, for starters), and so you spend several minutes looking for a comparatively safe option that gives your opponent a comfy but non-decisive advantage. (You satisfice.) The result is that you've lost some time on the clock, maybe a bit of confidence, and you're worse. You may still hold the game, but maybe not.
Obviously, using the engine is just as important here as in a slow time control - enterprising players (and that's certainly everyone over 2700) are going to look for these tricky one-off ideas - but as I said in the prior comment, I didn't deny the importance of engines at faster time controls. Rather, the point was that engines are more likely to help players kill games at slower time controls (because the diligent player with Black will already know the solutions to what are presumably the best plans), which makes shorter time controls more attractive.
Reportedly, Richard Rapport is a second of Ding Liren, not Nepo.
Some Chinese players have worked closely before with non-Chinese players.
Wang Hao was a second of Levon Aronian.
Some Chinese players (such as Li Chao and Wang Yue) are personally close; others are not.
Ding Liren may have chosen his second(s) for reasons other than nationality.
Interesting interview of Dubov concerning the match:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nq9ueqiLKw
He said some interesting things about the time control, but what I found notable was his view that it might mark the beginning of a rejuvenation of the world championship.
According to him, and I suppose he should know, many top players were just not that interested in the championship cycle, for three reasons. First, the financial and opportunity cost of preparing seriously; second, the randomness of the qualification process; and third, and perhaps most of all, the fact that at the end of it you were mostly likely only going to get beaten by Carlsen.
Now that Carlsen is out of the picture, Dubov thought that quite a few people would be thinking about the championship more earnestly. He half seriously thought that even Anand might make a comeback!
"At least when the game isn’t settled by the players’ homework with the computer - which is, frankly, one of the big reasons why faster time controls have become increasingly popular."
It's a common take that homework with the computer (and also knowing "established opening theory") matters more at classical time controls, but why would this be the case? With less time, you really need to know opening theory as you cannot figure it out over the board (or monitor). Also, it's harder to deal with surprises - even if you can neutralize them you may end up well behind on the clock: spending 10 minutes obviously matters more when you have, say, 15 minutes for the entire game plus some increment than when you have plenty of time remaining nonetheless.
Maybe deep topical lines are less common in rapid/blitz, while offbeat openings are more playable - Smith-Morra Gambit very recently in Nakamura-Caruana, even King's Gambit (I know Dennis doesn't like it). More playable because the surprise factor matters more than when the opponent can adjust.
Quoting me seems to indicate that you're in some way responding to what I said, but I can't for the life of me figure out how what you've written is any sort of reply. Just to point out two false assumptions - if your comment is a reply to me - I said nothing about "established opening theory" (top players are spending thousands of hours trying to find new ideas to catch their opponents out), nor did I say anything about the computer being less important in one time control rather than another. What I did say, or at least imply, is that computer-aided prep is likelier to result in one player (generally Black) managing to kill the game in classical chess than in rapid (or faster time controls). (I'm also referring primarily to chess at the elite level, though the increasing popularity of rapid time controls is probably occurring at all levels.)
As I wrote, "it's a common take", so I wasn't (only) responding to you. But I was interested in what you implied, or why you wrote this.
"computer-aided prep is likelier to result in one player (generally Black) managing to kill the game in classical chess than in rapid (or faster time controls)" - is this because the position at the end of home analysis may still be a bit tricky and maybe a little worse at least from a human perspective, requiring some accuracy to really 'kill the game', which isn't that easy with little time on the clock? Annotators might then say "he had to suffer for the draw", but only players themselves know whether they did or didn't suffer. If it's an obvious draw, that's the case at any time control.
In a long time control, there's time to (a) remember and reconstruct one's analysis of obscure lines, and/or (b) to figure out what to do if one can't (fully) remember and/or reconstruct, and/or (c) hold a somewhat inferior position if one can't find/remember the perfect antidote, because they've still got plenty of time left.
In a g/15, Super-GM A might choose Stockfish's fifth choice on move 9 followed by its third choice on the following move because there's something tricky enough to take 10 minutes to solve. If you're Super-GM B, you see that it's a mess, and you may not be sure that it's worth taking a long time (you're not sure how long it will take, for starters), and so you spend several minutes looking for a comparatively safe option that gives your opponent a comfy but non-decisive advantage. (You satisfice.) The result is that you've lost some time on the clock, maybe a bit of confidence, and you're worse. You may still hold the game, but maybe not.
Obviously, using the engine is just as important here as in a slow time control - enterprising players (and that's certainly everyone over 2700) are going to look for these tricky one-off ideas - but as I said in the prior comment, I didn't deny the importance of engines at faster time controls. Rather, the point was that engines are more likely to help players kill games at slower time controls (because the diligent player with Black will already know the solutions to what are presumably the best plans), which makes shorter time controls more attractive.