Contrary to the opinions of many, myself included at first, as well as Canada's own GM Kevin Spraggett, the players did not intentionally "phone in" the games or make peace unnecessarily as the high number of short draws might indicate. Accusations ran the gauntlet from the games being purposefully dull to the players willingly making draws to spite the organizers--this is simply not the case. Both Vishy and Boris know each other pretty well and have a good feel for how the other plays chess, approaches the game, and prepares. As a result, they have enormous respect for one another and agreed to draws in positions that most amateurs, even strong ones, were puzzled if not annoyed by. But for players of exceptional strength in all phases of the game, agreeing to draws in the positions they did were mostly motivated by an understanding and respect for the fact that the result would not be in doubt. Granted, in some cases the players agreed to draws in positions that still had play in them, but modern professional chess seems to have undergone a paradigm shift from a mindset of fighting, to meticulous and highly prepared debates, wherein this case, neither player seemed to want to offend the other without very good reason. The level of pre-game preparation was simply astounding on the part of both combatants, and it became clear quite early in the match that neither player wanted to take what they called "unnecessary risk". This meant choosing opening variations that most computers would deem "correct", but unfortunately for us perhaps, it meant seeing games of very little real excitement. This is simply top-class modern chess in a nutshell. Neither player really wanted to "go for it" and instead wanted to play the absolute best chess that was possible but regrettably, this doesn't make for good entertainment.
Perhaps the most principled reason why we like watching sports, and let it stand that chess be considered a sport for a moment, is that we like watching battles. We want conflict--blood sweat and tears. This is especially the case for pro sport playoffs, where we know a team is going to walk away disappointed, and given that the structure of most sports don't allow for ties or some kind of split, save for boxing, chess, soccer and maybe a few others, a decisive result is guaranteed thereby giving the fans at least some modest immediate satisfaction. But in chess, a game of patience, stamina, and perhaps little luck compared to other sports, we as fans often feel cheated when the players seem to not be giving it their absolute best and one team isn't bloodied. Tough, chess isn't Hockey--Chess isn't marketed and promoted in that way. Sure you could change the rules so that draw offers either can't be made, or made before a certain number of moves etc, you could make all sorts of changes to try and "Americanize" it which I probably wouldn't have a problem with, but this years match had no such thing. So I can't really fault the players for simply adopting an approach that they felt would most maximize their chance of winning chess' highest prize, I wouldn't dare.
This morning I watched the live broadcast as well as the post-game press conference and came to realize that championship chess is simply not what it was even 10 years ago. Computers(chess engines, databases, online instruction/training tools etc) as well as having entire teams to support players, have changed the pro chess landscape dramatically, so much so that I can't even really imagine what playing and studying chess would have been like 25 years ago. In some ways perhaps more exciting in the fact that amateurs could open up the latest MCO and find the latest trap in an opening that he could spring on an unsuspecting clubber, and have it work on perhaps more than one occasion, but the rate at which information spreads nowadays, stings like that rarely happen twice. Everyone will go home, pop open their fritz/chessbase/rybka whatever and immediately find out what the best reply was to their moronic play, and hopefully remember it for just long enough to make the offender toss it.
We seem to want to leave every last word to the machine, and in doing so, have lost a part of what used to make chess so engrossing, the discovery- and in this match, the blood and the hunger.
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