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With all due respect, I don't think this is a very interesting analysis. It misses context, and the categories chosen are too arbitrary to carry much insight.

If you gradually misplay a position, but then your opponent makes one suboptimal move, your opponent has an inaccuracy while you don't. Low ACPL can indicate that players played well but also that they chose very safe, boring positions/opennings.

Further, engine evaluations can be misleading or useless in human chess. A position might be objectively winning/defensible, but only if you find a sequence of inhuman engine moves that are practically hard to find. Simply grouping together "evaluation > 1" as winning advantage to get a "conversion rate" is pretty uninformative.

The final blunder did not occur out of nowhere. Ding missed a much safer way to draw the game and went into a position that Nakamura judged as 50/50 between a draw and a Gukesh win [1].

I think it is much more informative to actually watch top players comment on the games and match overall. Keep in mind that Carlsen and Nakamura, who comment on the game in [1], are actually stronger players by ELO than the two finalists of the world championship [2].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXc7Bc3zd0M

[2] https://2700chess.com/



Thanks for sharing your opinion. I actually addressed many of the points you raised in the conclusions section of my article. I acknowledged the limitations of analyzing a chess match purely through numerical metrics. However, I still believe that looking at the match through this analytical lens offers a valuable perspective, complementing other types of analysis, such as commentary from players and bloggers. It provides a unique angle that, while imperfect, can uncover insights that might otherwise be overlooked. Ultimately, I see this as an additional tool in understanding the match, rather than a replacement for more traditional forms of analysis.


What is the added insight though?


I believe it offers a neutral perspective on the game, without any bias that could exist in any analysis that is not data-driven. Sometimes when a chess commentator dislikes a particular player's style, it could be reflected in his commentary. For me personally, analyzing the match this way changed my view on it, but I completely understand if you do not feel that way.




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