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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 09:16
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| # ¿ Dec 14, 2024 17:24 |
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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 12:19
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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 13:56
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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 14:56 on Mar 10, 2018 |
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Mar 10, 2018 14:45
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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 16:39
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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 16:48
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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 17:06
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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 17:16
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 This might not be a drill Fabiano Caruana might be going to win
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Mar 10, 2018 17:39
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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 17:45
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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 17:52
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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 17:55
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Hikaru trolling Jan in chat  e: 
algebra testes fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Mar 10, 2018 |
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Mar 10, 2018 18:36
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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 03:08 on Mar 11, 2018 |
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Mar 11, 2018 02:24
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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 02:36
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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 03:08 on Mar 11, 2018 |
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Mar 11, 2018 02:57
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Loving Africa Chaps posted:Less decisive this round with Sasha defeating So and kramnik rather poetically being unable to crack open 'his' opening in the city it's named after. I was going to post something pithy about Closed Ruy v Berlin Defense as if I know anything about it but then, lo and behold Berlin Wall Holds and the Closed Ruy does not.
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Mar 12, 2018 00:22
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Day 2 Results: So's terrible start continues and the rest of the games end in draws. Grischuk 1 - So 0 Mamedyarov 1/2 - Aronian 1/2 Kramnik 1/2 - Karjakin 1/2 Ling 1/2 - Caruana 1/2 Chess.com write up with anotated games Dan King wraps Grischuck/So. Sopiko Guramishvili looks at yesterday's Aronian/Liren game for Chess24 Pepe Cuenca looks at yesterday's Aronian/Liren game for Chess24 ChessNetwork looks at yesterday's Caruana/So game. As Mentioned he explains things for beginners more which is great for dumbasses like me. PGNs Final bits of news: * Surprise surprise the AGON website is a total poo poo show still.  * Chess.com mentions that they don't mention Chess24 because they mad that Chess24 had the nerve to beat them in court. Lmao loving morons. * Speaking of the players making GBS threads on the event, the players can now poo poo at the event because they have running water in the toilets. Yes the toilets having running water is news at this event * It's apparently a bit quieter now though. * They still only have one toilet. * I can spell Mamedyarov without looking now. Mamedyarov. Mamedyarov. Openings through round 2: Seriously who cares about this stuff aside from me? * English Opening, * Catalan x 2 * King's Indian * Ruy Lopez (Fianchetto), Ruy Lopez (Berlin), Ruy Lopez (Closed) * Nimzo Indian Standings:  Kramnik first on tiebreaker. I think that's because he beat Grischuck who is above Karjakin in the standings, who Mamedyarov beat. Today/Tonight's Games  algebra testes fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Mar 12, 2018 |
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Mar 12, 2018 00:31
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So I guess the Sicilian is going to be a wild as it looks to the naked eye? e: Hand Knit posted:1.e4 in every game. I wonder when the last time that happened. We have one Berlin (not the endgame line, though), one Italian, one Najdorf, and one Wesley So deciding how to answer 1...e5. I love when we get the classical and the berlin at the same time. ~variety~ algebra testes fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Mar 12, 2018 |
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Mar 12, 2018 14:47
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"Very good apm" "Is that a.... star craft thing?" "Yes" - An actual honest to god exchange I just heard on the chess24 stream between 2 Grandmasters.
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Mar 12, 2018 15:11
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Oh god Levon
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Mar 12, 2018 15:57
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Hand Knit posted:Might be regretting some choices right now.  I hate seeing chess dad getting beaten up like this 
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Mar 12, 2018 16:37
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28.Kh2 g=Q+ 29.Kxg1 f2+ 30.Kh1 Rh3+ 31.Kg2 f=Q# is the stuff of my worst nightmares
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Mar 12, 2018 17:07
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Fabi might have missed it, the computers have swung back to even and now he has 4 minutes for 9 moves or whatever.
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Mar 12, 2018 17:30
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Shak says gently caress your draw we're playing 4 min blitz with a 30 second increment.
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Mar 12, 2018 17:49
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Oh god tick tock
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Mar 12, 2018 17:52
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Petroff??
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Mar 14, 2018 14:03
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Chucky sac'd a piece.
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Mar 14, 2018 14:28
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What the gently caress even is this tournament https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nth6BkF3Bcg 50 minutes of breakdown(!) algebra testes fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Mar 14, 2018 |
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Mar 14, 2018 22:04
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e: fell for dodgy pgns! algebra testes fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Mar 15, 2018 |
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Mar 15, 2018 14:14
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Results were 4 draws but Aronian/Grischuck was wild as hell.
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Mar 16, 2018 00:19
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bigfoot again posted:Things not going well for Levon Peter said in a banter blitz he learned English playing Leisure Suit Larry. Hand Knit posted:Really good technical game by Mamedyarov to move into a tie for first. drat I had such a long week as soon as the games started I just fell asleep on the couch and woke up after it was all over. I think we can say "Shak - Bad Beater" may no longer be a thing. He'd be such an exciting competitor for Magnus. e: the worst part about the Aronian thing is if he takes the bishop with check yesterday he probably wins, and if he wins he's only half a point from the leaders even with a loss. It's kinda amazing how razor thin the margins are. algebra testes fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Mar 17, 2018 |
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Mar 16, 2018 23:40
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In case you needed Peter Svidler talking about turn based games on the internet on your day off... https://twitter.com/polborta/status/974935771517018112
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Mar 17, 2018 17:07
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Levon is trying to create something, and has given up two pawns. Here is hoping.Hand Knit posted:Mamedyarov forces this quick draw with black. This means he's +2 for the first time through the RR, where he had more blacks than whites. He's in pretty good shape, I think. I really like the kind of chess he plays. It's the sort of fundamental chess that makes you believe you could be better yourself if you just believed in yourself a bit more. Agreed. Also I took the time to look out, of curiosity at his results against Carlsen. In classical in the last 5 years or so he's like -5 and 2 =. Which is interesting that they haven't played much classical chess. But the caveats are that that some of that period might have been that period when Carlsen was just loving crushing fools, and also that Shak has improved greatly (the narrative was after seconding Karjakin he turned a corner) in the last few years. edit: Literally, them playing today would be two completely different players.
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Mar 18, 2018 15:56
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grah posted:rip Lev Aronian, went for broke today with the white pieces against Caruana but couldn't convert on his attack. Ugh RIP Lev.
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Mar 18, 2018 22:09
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All I can figure is one of the following a) He sees his pawn as a weakness and destined to fall regardless so doesn't fight for it. b) he wanted simplification because either he thought he could draw/win the end game. c) After Bg6 you have to move the rook again to avoid the discovered attack, so dare I say Karjakin sees that and probably then prunes it from his decision tree because it doesn't feel natural to move a piece twice when Bg6 is such an obvious move in response. You also lose the initiative after Rc2 Bg6 Rc6 Nxb2 I think because Black scoops up the pawn regardless and you've just shuffled your rook around.
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Mar 19, 2018 12:56
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I will die if Ding and Levon play Jan's Thai Draw (tm)
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Mar 19, 2018 14:18
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=solm5PNby0g Dan King video up
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Mar 20, 2018 02:32
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Hand Knit posted:Yeah he cut out the long middle and just lost immediately. 
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Mar 20, 2018 22:32
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| # ¿ Dec 14, 2024 17:24 |
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For the first time, dissent amongst the Youtube recappers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-c9_hLFsqY Svidler on the Kramnik loss. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TDIaCJedJM King on the Fabi squeeze. also, https://twitter.com/agadmator/status/976211670245826560
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Mar 21, 2018 00:10
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