He did not fully "win" the championship. Sure, they had to give the title to somebody, so it's him, but splitting half of the prize is not a complete win.
Even if he had fully won, I don't view it as a sportsmanlike strategy to give up a game to put yourself in an advantageous position. That's why we have a rule against agreeing to a draw to early. That's why in hockey stopping trying to score and just passing the puck in circles at center is against the rules (delay of game) - even when it's the best way to win.
The goal of most title holders is to increase their odds at retaining the title, in whatever way match rules allow. This goal made for some horrible championships generations ago under Soviet rules.
I agree the rules should be "biased" toward rewarding maximum skill, not just maximizing winning odds. But as Caruana said “We work with the match that we have... If the powers that be want to change it, then we’ll work with something else.”
- This was part of the metagame.
- This was agreeing to a "semi-draw" in the metagame when he did not need to.
The winner gets 200k in prize money. In the case of a tie the winner gets 150k, the loser gets 50k. That is to say the winner gets 100k, and they split 100k, which is half the prize, which is what I said.
In any case, Carlsen said he wasn't aware of the prize money difference after reaching tie breakers, so it probably didn't factor into his decision making.
this literally makes no sense. In a tie, there is no winner and no loser. There was a winner and loser in this case, so there was no tie. I don't know why you keep insisting there was.
That has to be the least charitable reading ever. Do you seriously need me to spell out "In the case of a tie after the 12 games under the regular time constraints" while defending my math?