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 https://twitter.com/MagnusCarlsen/status/971422253073207296 https://twitter.com/MagnusCarlsen/status/971776864846041088 Howdy podner, I'm here to talk you through the exciting* Chess Chandidates Tournament starting today/this evening to decide who will face Magnus Carlsen in the World Championships later this year! This field is nuts, there are no gimmies this time around and you can make a case for everybody winning it. THE WILD BUNCH Levon Aronian   Cowboy Persona: Clint Eastwood in the Man With No Name films. Rating: 2794 Number #4 Levon for a while was seen as the number two player. He then suffered a massive slump before slowly and surely rebuilding himself as one of the best players in the world. He could have qualified a few ways, but officially it was via the extremely exciting Chess World Cup last year. He is a brilliant attacker and a creative mind, but is also solid when he needs to be. He is at the sweet spot of age versus experience and has a plus score against the field. This time he is presumed to be favorite. The question is, can he handle the pressure? Shakhriyar Mamedyarov   Cowboy Persona: Val Kilmer in Tombstone (aka “Shak”) Rating: 2809 Number #3 I love my chubby chess son. I’m in awe of the size of this lad, absolute unit. You wanna talk about wild do or die then we’re talking about Shak. He’s as capable of winning 3 in a row as he is losing 3 in a row. If Shak qualifies it’d be wild and amazing so, pray 4 shak. ~Serious Chess People~ wonder if he is a flat track bully and if he can repeat his success at the super-gm level. Alexander Grischuk   Fey Valentine from “Cowboy Bebop” (aka “Chucky”) Rating: 2767 Number #12 Been in many candidates tournaments, one of the better Blitz players around. He actually kinda hates classical chess and maybe likes poker more? On his day can be brilliant, but doesn’t play that many classical tournaments. Qualified via FIDE’s extremely lame Grand Prix series that nobody watched. He gets some poo poo because if there are rapid playoffs he just draws to try and take it to tiebreakers. Which he did last time, but lost to Karjakin. A unique and exciting player, who would be a fascinating contender. People often consider that had he “fully committed himself” he would be one of the best ever. THE “AMERICANS” Fabiano Caruana   Jon Voight in “Midnight Cowboy” Rating 2784 Number #8 One of the two Americans in the field (Nothing but facts ITT). For a while people were wondering if he was actually the best player in the world especially after he won a tournament with seven wins in a row!! Formly another attacking player he’s now developed into a very solid all around player known for his deep calculation. Has suffered a bit of a slump recently but that can all change with a few wins. Wesley So   John Travolta in “Urban Cowboy” (I really kinda ran out of goofs with this cowboy thing huh) Rating 2799 Number #4 Like his counterpart Caruana, he was considered one of the best players in the world for a time but cooled off slightly. People describe him as very very solid and technically sound, if you make a mistake he will know exactly how to convert that into a win. With his extreme solidity comes the caveat that maybe he can’t manufacture something from nothing like some of the other players. He has recently changed coaches so maybe his slump will be over? THE OUTSIDERS Ding Liren   Alan Ladd as Shane Rating 2769 Number #11 One of the rising stars of Chinese chess. In somewhat of an surprise he finished runner up in the World Cup to Levon. He often gets overshadowed by his compatriot Wei Yi but the Chinese are trying hard to develop their chess players and Ding Liren might just be for real. If he qualifies then the World Championship would be a Big Deal in Asia so that’s exciting. Vladimir Kramnik   Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven Rating 2800 Number #3 Another fan favorite. Former World Champ after he dethroned Kasaparov to become world champion before losing to Anand a few years later. Easily one of the greatest players and one of the most influential opening theoreticians of the last generation. Age is a factor, but with age comes experience and he ran Carlsen very close in a similar format in 2013. Do not count him out. THE GROUP OF PLAYERS CONSISTING SOLELY OF SERJEY KARJAKIN WHO I COULDN’T THINK OF A FUNNY GROUP TO PUT IN Serjey Karjakin   Robert Redford from “Butch cassidy and the sundance kid” “The Minister of Defense” Rating 2763 Number #13 Karjakin got here after facing and losing to Magnus in the 2016 World Championships. While the results show that he lost in tie breaks, the match was more exciting than the score suggests with a bunch of fascinating struggles. He is renowned for his amazing defensive abilities, as shown by surviving by the skin of his teeth against Magnus a few times in their World Title match. While the numbers look grim, he comes alive in these tournaments and may come from nowhere to book his rematch with Magnus. HOW TO WATCH Because you can’t copyright chess moves according to Russian courts (lmao) every man with a FIDE title and his dog will be streaming this (shout outs to that dude who streams while his dog sleeps visibly on the couch behind him). Chess24 is streaming with Jan Gustafsson, Sopiko Guramishvili for the first two rounds and Super GM Peter Svidler from then on. Jan and Peter are the best team hands down with great chemistry, really funny, and both really good at chess. Svlider is a cricket loving, hearthstone streaming Soviet Trained super GM. https://www.chess24.com ChessBrahs will be streaming. GM Aman Hambleton, GM Eric Hansen and GM Yasser Seirawan. Yassar is a charismatic, funny dude and excellent at explaining technical positions for idiot dickheads like me. https://www.chessbrah.tv/stream/ FIDE has an official stream but will cost money and probably suck. They will have live footage of the players but also probably some Russian or Eastern European GM who doesn’t speak good english. Or worse Nigel Short. Round 1 Schedule:  MORE CONTENT Jan Gustafsson on the Perpetual Chess podcast giving a preview: https://www.perpetualchesspod.com/new-blog/2018/3/5/episode-62-gm-jan-gustaffson-returns More videos, including one behind a paywall: algebra testes posted:Daniel King's candidates preview: Thread for playing Chess is here Five Thirty Eight Odds:   ~*Never Forget*~ * There will be draws. Also I needed a chess pun name for my cowboy theme so don't think that draws are awful or anything like that.
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Mar 10, 2018 10:16
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 20:51 |
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Nice! To add some basic info... Berlin, Germany. Lasts March 10 - March 28. Games are played 3pm CET / 9am EST.
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Mar 10, 2018 10:50
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Hoping for a levon victory, hype about the chessbrah's having yasser back. Loving magnus dunking on giri, naka was joining in recently so i guess he can't be all that popular on the circuit
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Mar 10, 2018 11:35
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Awesome, thanks for making this. Someone will post some games and analysis for those of us unable to spend the time watching I hope?
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Mar 10, 2018 13:08
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silvergoose posted:Awesome, thanks for making this. Someone will post some games and analysis for those of us unable to spend the time watching I hope? chess.com normally writes up the games, Daniel King will do videos on the games and i'll also post what ever else crops up if I remember.
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Mar 10, 2018 13:19
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Really psyched for this. I think the Chessbrah stream is going to be really good.
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Mar 10, 2018 14:46
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Chess24 is live, ChessBrah about to go live. I'm sure the official fide one (lol) will start soon.
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Mar 10, 2018 14:56
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I thought you had to pay for the FIDE stream, becaues they were selling a package last year that was FIDE Grand Prix + Candidates + World Championship But FIDE are streaming for free I think? With live pictures. https://worldchess.com/berlin/ edit: Sergey 30 min down already on Shak? algebra testes fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Mar 10, 2018 |
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Mar 10, 2018 15:45
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtg4Iajz-WE Jan and Sopiko today, a pretty good team.
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Mar 10, 2018 16:20
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Can FIDE even pay the prizes given their accounts are frozen?
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Mar 10, 2018 17:04
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Lev-Ding is a pretty cool position right now where I don't know exactly what's happening. I also really like Kramnik's position in his game against Grischuk even if the computer isn't giving him an edge yet. Karjakin-Mamedyarov looks like the sort of game where there's too much tension so it has to resolve into a draw, whereas Caruana-So just looks dry as hell but maybe So can win in an endgame if he gets to push his c-pawn? (He probably loses his c-pawn well before then.)
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Mar 10, 2018 17:05
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Hand Knit posted:Lev-Ding is a pretty cool position right now where I don't know exactly what's happening. I also really like Kramnik's position in his game against Grischuk even if the computer isn't giving him an edge yet. Yeah I think Karjakin-Mamedyarov is going to run of out material to fight with and just end up a draw. Unless Shak drags it out and gets Sergey into time trouble. I don't know anything about chess but that's the sharpest drawn position I've ever seen in Aronian-Liren.
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Mar 10, 2018 17:39
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algebra testes posted:I don't know anything about chess but that's the sharpest drawn position I've ever seen in Aronian-Liren. Chess24 just barfed a fart and is now showing Karjakin-Mamedyarov as all games so I don't know exactly what's happening in Lev-Ding, but these sorts of hypercomplicated positions often sort out to close to equal on the computer just because there are so many possibilities both players have some way out of trouble. In practice, however, it's less a drawn equality and more a "dynamic equality," which is to say it's not clear what's going on but both players seem to have roughly equal chances. e: Also, Grischuk's position is going to be insanely hard to hold. So far he's only really suffering from a lack of space, but Kramnik's position is not only super solid but also extremely theoretical, which means that he has a very good idea of all the different things he can do. Hand Knit fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Mar 10, 2018 |
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Mar 10, 2018 17:43
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Computer is giving a slight advantage to Fabi in the boring game... Wouldn't that be a thing if the boring Catalan ended up as the decisive game.
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Mar 10, 2018 17:48
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Hand Knit posted:Chess24 just barfed a fart and is now showing Karjakin-Mamedyarov as all games so I don't know exactly what's happening in Lev-Ding
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Mar 10, 2018 18:01
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Sub Rosa posted:After a very long think Ding played Rd6, which seems a blunder Levon let him off the hook and the queen might be loose now!
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Mar 10, 2018 18:06
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Sub Rosa posted:After a very long think Ding played Rd6, which seems a blunder It's a "computer says he's worse now" move, but the computer optimal move was a pretty fine-grained idea that's not easy to see as optimal (Ba8 so you can make space for your queen on b7). Lev also just didn't play the punish move (Rb2 instead of Rb1), because this isn't the most human-friendly position. Also it's interesting to see what's gone wrong in Caruana—So. I suspect that So decided to go with his plan — which looks like pushing b3 to make space to finish your development — because it was more active and provided better winning chances. However he's in danger of getting punished because it's a mix of too slow and too far from his king, which can get weak quite quickly with the challenges on e6 and f7. Meanwhile, the queen endgame of Karjakin—Mamedyarov will be interesting on a theoretical level. The principle I know about queen endgames is that "whoever has the better passed pawn wins," and since Mamedyarov is the only one with a passed pawn it seems good for him. Karjakin can't hold this position passively, so it's interesting to see what he will try to shake open Mamedyarov's king and create a perpetual.
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Mar 10, 2018 18:08
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Yeah, Jan explained how that because a human instinctively wants to protect his pieces (like, that was an old Russian Grand-master thing - 'step one are all my pieces protected?') he played Rb1 because it's then protected instead of Rb2 which "feels" wrong because it's just sitting there unprotected. Also they could be repeating moves for a draw?
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Mar 10, 2018 18:16
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Yasser found Rb2
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Mar 10, 2018 18:23
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Sub Rosa posted:Yasser found Rb2 Keep in mind that Lev has to answer a lot more questions very concretely, of the sort "how optimistic am I about the endgame in each of the possible variations?" Meanwhile, Kramnik continues to improve his position in a game that looks like it's destined for a textbook.
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Mar 10, 2018 18:26
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Caruana has a concrete win now, though it takes a couple of quiet moves. Let's see if he finds it.
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Mar 10, 2018 18:38
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 This might not be a drill Fabiano Caruana might be going to win
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Mar 10, 2018 18:39
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If Fabi wins i'm going to bed because I'm not staying up for 2 more hours of "Sergey Karjakin and the slightly worse end game" "Harry Potter and the slightly worse end game" was the worst book in the series, imo.
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Mar 10, 2018 18:45
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My stream freaked out and said that Fabi mated him over the board, I'm going to assume he resigned before that right?
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Mar 10, 2018 18:52
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Resigned according to Cressbrah stream
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Mar 10, 2018 18:54
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Sub Rosa posted:Resigned according to Cressbrah stream Yeah makes sense, the PGNs on chess24 have been dodgy all night I think.
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Mar 10, 2018 18:55
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Meanwhile Kramnik returned his exchange for a passed pawn and space control on the queenside.
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Mar 10, 2018 19:11
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Hikaru trolling Jan in chat  e: 
algebra testes fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Mar 10, 2018 |
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Mar 10, 2018 19:36
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algebra testes posted:Hikaru trolling Jan in chat Laughed pretty hard because Naka has said in the past that My System is obsolete.
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Mar 10, 2018 19:38
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Looks like Mamedyarov may have successfully zugged Karjakin (or, rather, Karjakin got himself zugged). e: Tooling around for a bit, Mamedyarov is not winning yet but he picks up a pawn and changes the nature of the defence. That's the first step. Hand Knit fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Mar 10, 2018 |
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Mar 10, 2018 20:02
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Thread title owns, although I haven't really followed professional chess since like the early 2000s.
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Mar 10, 2018 20:30
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Sad levon agreed a draw in such a great game but awesome first day
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Mar 10, 2018 21:26
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Day 1 Results: A wild and fantastic day of chess to start out the tournament. Kramnik 1 - 0 Grischuk Aronian 1/2 - 1/2 Liren Karjakin 0 - Mamedyarov 1 Caruana 1 - So 0 Chess.com write up with anotated games Dan King wraps Caruana/So up on youtube. Jan Gustafsson wraps up Caruana/So on youtube PGNs algebra testes fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Mar 11, 2018 |
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Mar 11, 2018 03:24
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Elyv posted:Thread title owns, although I haven't really followed professional chess since like the early 2000s. the thread title is *checks notes* inaccurate as of round one and i'm very okay with that. Should have gone with "The Mateful Eight"
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Mar 11, 2018 03:36
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Final bits of news: * Surprise surprise the AGON website is a total poo poo show, as I thought you have to pay for the stream after round 3. * Chess.com was trumping up how ChessBrahs got 10 x the amount the official stream did (obviously they're not mentioning their rival Chess24, the youtube video has around 200,000 views but Chess.com was counting concurrent views so the comparison is moot) * The players have been making GBS threads on the event from an organisational standpoint. Playing room is "too loud" and the hotel sucks. * And if you were there in person it apparently sucked too. Expensive, no food, no wifi. Openings through 1 round: * English Opening, * Catalan * King's Indian * Ruy Lopez (Fianchetto) algebra testes fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Mar 11, 2018 |
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Mar 11, 2018 03:57
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Shak also said from his table they could see TV's with judit polgar analysing the position and how best to play against him. According to Grishuk there was no water in the toilets at one point. I was considering flying over to check it out in person, glad i didn't
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Mar 11, 2018 10:11
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What a mess. I love it.
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Mar 11, 2018 13:43
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBbS1FYRYPI Chess network has done an analysis of fabi vs so. His videos are generally pretty fantastic and great at showing exactly why certain moves were played when there's a tendency for commentators to just be like "yep that's obvious"
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Mar 11, 2018 14:04
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Caruana has sacrificed an exchange in the opening against Ding. I hope it's not a case where both players know too much theory so the game just steers towards a draw. Kramnik-Karjakin is probably going to need something pretty significant to happen to not be a draw. Kramnik has a reasonable space advantage, but doesn't have a clear way in. Ironically, his crap queenside pawns actually deny black's standard plan here, so it's also unclear what black can do if he can't just reduce to a rook endgame. Grischuk-So is so far just a Spanish. Mamedyarov has a saucy space advantage against Lev, but Lev knows these positions well and Shak's bishop is ill-positioned to exploit anything.
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Mar 11, 2018 15:50
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I imagine levon will try and get a draw. 1/2 a point against shak with black is reasonable but losing and being 1.5 points behind after 2 games would be pretty disasterous
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Mar 11, 2018 16:20
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