Written by Karlabos on 17.06.2022 at 21:59

so pretty much I think this year is gonna be Magnus again.

Yeah you're probably right. Magnus is inhumanly skilled.
Did you hear that Magnus said he might not play the final game and just resign the title to whoever wins the Candidates? He seems to be getting tired of having to defend his title, and I can't blame him, although it would be disappointing to not see him play one more time.

Written by F3ynman on 17.06.2022 at 22:30

Did you hear that Magnus said he might not play the final game and just resign the title to whoever wins the Candidates? He seems to be getting tired of having to defend his title, and I can't blame him, although it would be disappointing to not see him play one more time.

Yeah Magnus seems pretty fed off with classical chess, I guess he wants to fully concentrate on blitz and rapid categories. I don't know if he is actually gonna do it if the time comes, tho, lol.
I know I wouldn't...

Everything is pointing out at Nepo again...

If Magnus is ACTUALLY pondering in not playing the world match, then having the same opponent of last year is certainly going to be a pusher. If there is someone Magnus does not want to play against is Nepo, who was pretty much fodder the last year.

Maybe we will see Nepo inherit the title?

Written by Karlabos on 01.07.2022 at 15:02

Everything is pointing out at Nepo again...

If Magnus is ACTUALLY pondering in not playing the world match, then having the same opponent of last year is certainly going to be a pusher. If there is someone Magnus does not want to play against is Nepo, who was pretty much fodder the last year.

Maybe we will see Nepo inherit the title?

Nepo definitely seems like he's going to win the tournament. If Magnus doesn't play, then maybe Nepo will play against 2nd place for the title. At the moment Ding and Nakamura are in 2nd and 3rd place

In other news, my rating on chess.com has plummeted, but here is a nice win:
I was able to checkmate my opponent with only 0.6 seconds left! My heart was pounding
https://chess.com/live/game/50438935427 (I played as white)

It seems to be official: Magnus has come out and said that he won't defend his title. The World Championship match will be between Ian Nepomniatchi and Ding Liren
https://chess.com/news/view/magnus-carlsen-not-to-defend-chess-world-title

Well, as expected, Magnus would not want to demolishplay Nepo again

It would be hella fun if Ding became the champion
What with he only being qualified because Karjakin got banned and then facing the trouble of not having enough norms to join the tournament and having to rush to get those. Imagine if after all of that he became the champion, that would be pretty badass

Nice meme from r/AnarchyChess:
(Make sure to read the whole thing)

"Thought the world championship is open to all players, there are separate categories for women, under 20s and lower agre groups, and seniors, as well as one for computer. This helps segregate the real players from inferior minority groups"

Honestly though, I never understood the need for separate categories in chess. In other sports it makes all sense, since people from different categories have different phyisical properties that may be decisive in their own sport, like weight for boxing or sex for most sports and so on.

But chess...? What is women disadvantage? Their arms are shorter, therefore they take longer to hit the clock and have time disadvantage maybe? It's the only thing I can think about =p

Written by Karlabos on 26.07.2022 at 22:22

But chess...? What is women disadvantage?

Yeah, that's true - I have no idea why they separate them. There are a few tournaments that mix genders. Eric Rosen played in this one: https://www.chess.com/news/view/gibraltar-2022-battle-of-the-sexes. Men played against women. They were fairly evenly matched in rating (IMs and GMs with ratings around 2400) and the men's team only barely won with 53 to 47.

I'm not aware of any women that are at the level of the male super GMs (like those that played in the Candidates), but there definitely shouldn't be this segregation at any level below super GM.

Written by F3ynman on 26.07.2022 at 23:48

They were fairly evenly matched in rating (IMs and GMs with ratings around 2400)

I'm not aware of any women that are at the level of the male super GMs (like those that played in the Candidates), but there definitely shouldn't be this segregation at any level below super GM.

Yeah just like they separate in categories of weight in boxing, I think it would make far more sense if they used the very rating to separate categories instead for chess. There should be the super gm category, the gm, the im, etc... That would make more sense for fairness distribution

well, there is Judit Polgar and Hou Yifan who were super gms back then, but as for active chess players, i don't think there are any super gms as of now. I guess it just makes sense that very good women are very rare since there are not many women competing at all to begin with.

https://chess.com/live/game/53143215117
This was an interesting game of mine. Got in a shaky position where my opponent was harassing my king. But after a queen trade I showed the power of the bishop pair by completely shutting down my opponent's rooks, locking the pawn structure. My opponent can't do anything except push some pawns and I deliver a quick checkmate

https://lichess.org/uoVTEjpR/black
This was a funny checkmate. I was able to push the enemy King across the whole board, before checkmating him on the square where my king stood in the opening position

^lol... dude should have taken the draw

This guy shows some really entertaining, creative, and difficult chess puzzles. This one I found especially crazy!

https://lichess.org/YriurKKy/black
This was a funny little game where we both used basically the same tactic to win the opponent's queen

Written by F3ynman on 21.08.2022 at 04:27

https://lichess.org/YriurKKy/black
This was a funny little game where we both used basically the same tactic to win the opponent's queen

Lol at the queen countertactic

also that discovered checkmate was funny too

GJ!

Written by Karlabos on 21.08.2022 at 14:59

You know what they say: "chess if played perfectly ends in a draw"
Well, we can be proud of our latest game - we played practically perfectly! Each of us with only "12 centipawn loss" and only a couple of "inaccuracies" - no mistakes, no blunders - the max difference in evaluation was 0.8 (so it was basically equal the whole game long). Good game, bro!

https://lichess.org/wEVPjceL

Written by F3ynman on 22.08.2022 at 06:30

Written by Karlabos on 21.08.2022 at 14:59

You know what they say: "chess if played perfectly ends in a draw"
Well, we can be proud of our latest game - we played practically perfectly! Each of us with only "12 centipawn loss" and only a couple of "inaccuracies" - no mistakes, no blunders - the max difference in evaluation was 0.8 (so it was basically equal the whole game long). Good game, bro!

https://lichess.org/wEVPjceL

Yeah and I was sure I was losing too, because at move 23 I cannot trade the rook because you have mate, which forces me to place my rook passively while you double on the 7th. I can protect the f pawn with the rook later by becoming even more passive (which I did) but then you threaten my a pawn from the back which in my mind made it very hard to defend. In my calculations I thought I'd surely lose two pawns or so for free

Then when the time came I decided to defend the pawn from the side with the other rook (which also fixes it into a pretty passive row) but it turned out well

Meanwhile stockfish was like: it's a draw, dudes
Just goes to show my flawed understanding of the position lel :#

You've probably heard of this chess drama: Hans Niemann beats Magnus in an over the board tournament. Immediately afterwards, Magnus withdraws from the tournament, and rumors spread that Hans cheated to win.

This here is a great interview where Hans addresses these accusations and gets to defend himself. Seeing his raw emotion and hearing his story, I feel bad for him and I don't think he cheated against Magnus. Hopefully his reputation will be restored.

Start at 8:18 in the video:

Written by F3ynman on 09.09.2022 at 05:38

Hans Niemann

Geez, yeah there are memes all about it!

I think the most prominent meme is the sex toy. I don't know who came up with it, but some big streamer suggested jokingly (or not) a sex toy device that would vibrate whenever you blunder and now this seems to be the big meme now. I for one think there wouldn't be much use because if it only vibrated when you blundered then you would have already blundered when the sensor sensed anything...

In all seriousness though, there is a theory I found quite plausible: it is unlikely that Hans cheated (like... used stockfish during the game somehow) but what Magnus seems to have found strange is that he had prepared an obscure line and Hans magically knew how to deal with it, apparently never having practiced it before according to the database. And this suggest that someone in Hans' team probably was leaking the prep from his side so that he could prepare better. So it wouldn't be Hans but rather a team thing. I don't know if that's the case tho... He could just have played better and Magnus is just tired of playing chess overall and now is finding excuses to quit tournaments. I think that would be it. Because if you pay attention Magnus was never the type to even insinuate people cheated on a game before, e was always the quite humble guy.

Here's a dirty, dirty bullet game of mine. I lost my queen and my opponent sent a smiling troll emoji in the chat ... Let's just say he lived to regret that
I was able to promote one of my pawns to a queen and was able to win both of his queens (he had promoted as well). The beauty of time scrambles and perseverance

(I played with the black pieces):
https://www.chess.com/live/game/56892578349

Oh, Bobby Fischer nailed the truth about the Hans Niemann scandal. Now everything makes total sense!!

Written by Karlabos on 19.09.2022 at 18:05

Oh, Bobby Fischer nailed the truth about the Hans Niemann scandal. Now everything makes total sense!!

The shadowy organization run by you-know-who are busy, after all. They don't have time to please Magnus

Newest development in Hans/Magnus cheating scandal:

Hans and Magnus agreed to play again and Magnus resigns after the first move
I find this is so disrespectful from Magnus, stoking the fire, and continuously letting the rumors of cheating run wild - without being brave enough to explicitly say "I think Hans is cheating".

Of course it's possible that Hans is cheating, but this whole situation is hardly very poorly. This is a disaster and I feel bad for Hans if he's innocent.

Written by F3ynman on 20.09.2022 at 10:48

Newest development in Hans/Magnus cheating scandal:

Hans and Magnus agreed to play again and Magnus resigns after the first move

LOL! Can't wait to see Benjamin Finegold's take on this

At this point I just think Magnus is tired from chess, he probably wants to give up and do something else like chess streaming or so, and is doing this to stay relevant so that he starts his career with a lot of audience.

Written by Karlabos on 20.09.2022 at 14:32

At this point I just think Magnus is tired from chess, he probably wants to give up and do something else like chess streaming or so, and is doing this to stay relevant so that he starts his career with a lot of audience.

Yeah you may be right

So Magnus finally comes out with a statement regarding Hans Niemann. Here it is:

Quote:

Dear Chess World,

At the 2022 Sinquefield Cup, I made the unprecedented professional decision to withdraw from the tournament after my round three game against Hans Niemann. A week later during the Champions Chess Tour, I resigned against Hans Niemann after playing only one move.

I know that my actions have frustrated many in the chess community. I’m frustrated. I want to play chess. I want to continue to play chess at the highest level in the best events.

I believe that cheating in chess is a big deal and an existential threat to the game. I also believe that chess organizers and all those who care about the sanctity of the game we love should seriously consider increasing security measures and methods of cheat detection for over the board chess. When Niemann was invited last minute to the 2022 Sinquefield Cup, I strongly considered withdrawing prior to the event. I ultimately chose to play.

I believe that Niemann has cheated more — and more recently — than he has publicly admitted. His over the board progress has been unusual, and throughout our game in the Sinquefield Cup I had the impression that he wasn’t tense or even fully concentrating on the game in critical positions, while outplaying me as black in a way I think only a handful of players can do. This game contributed to changing my perspective.

We must do something about cheating, and for my part going forward, I don’t want to play against people that have cheated repeatedly in the past, because I don’t know what they are capable of doing in the future.

There is more that I would like to say. Unfortunately, at this time I am limited in what I can say without explicit permission from Niemann to speak openly. So far I have only been able to speak with my actions, and those actions have stated clearly that I am not willing to play chess with Niemann. I hope that the truth on this matter comes out, whatever it may be.

Sincerely,
Magnus Carlsen – World Chess Champion

What are your thoughts?

Written by F3ynman on 27.09.2022 at 13:44

So Magnus finally comes out with a statement regarding Hans Niemann.
What are your thoughts?

Quote:

I know that my actions have frustrated many in the chess community. I’m frustrated. I want to play chess. I want to continue to play chess at the highest level in the best events.

Hmm. Interesting. I really thought Magnus was fed off competitive slow chess and wanted to migrate to hyperbullet and/or streaming or something. But it actually looks like he did it because (he thinks) Hans cheated.

Quote:

I believe that cheating in chess is a big deal and an existential threat to the game. I also believe that chess organizers and all those who care about the sanctity of the game we love should seriously consider increasing security measures and methods of cheat detection for over the board chess. When Niemann was invited last minute to the 2022 Sinquefield Cup, I strongly considered withdrawing prior to the event. I ultimately chose to play.

Now this is the fishy part. I don't know exactly what Magnus was thinking, but Ben does bring an interesting point: if Magnus was so unsure of playing Hans, then why did they play chess normally and without any suspicions just 10 days before, in the miami event? You can see the video here with the pondering:


Ben didn't say it out loud but it seems he ultimately believes Magnus just got mad he lost to a 2650 and then started blaming the whole cheating thing. I don't really know what to make of this. I always pegged Magnus for the good guy, it's hard to picture him doing something ike accusing other of cheating a là Hikaru. But these latest events made me feel like Magnus is just a guy who doesn't care too much about the normal etiquette and just acts based on what he feels.

Written by Karlabos on 28.09.2022 at 00:04

Ben does bring an interesting point: if Magnus was so unsure of playing Hans, then why did they play chess normally and without any suspicions just 10 days before, in the miami event?

That is interesting. I didn't know about that