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| Dec-13-24 | | Lambda: It wasn't actually an easy defence before the blunder. White to move in this position has no defence: 
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Dec-13-24
 | | Teyss: <OTB after almost five hours> Correction: it's actually four hours before the blunder, still a lot. I counted 30 second increments from move 1 instead of move 41. It's <offramp>'s fault. |
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Dec-13-24
 | | OhioChessFan: I think it's revealing to see the carrying on about Ba8. Yes, it was fine in and of itself. Yes, it took a subsequent blunder for it to matter. Yes, the engines, The Final Judge for too many kibitzers, thought it was fine. But in the real world, even GM's blunder . There was absolutely no good reason to make such a pointless move. Why even take the chance of a future mistake when choosing a square to park the Bishop? It was such a basic, fundamental error in human terms that I can't believe it happened. I'm more surprised at Ba8 than Rf2. Rf2 was simply an oversight. Ba8 was an astoundingly bad choice with no benefits to recommend it. Ding might as well have purposely moved his Queen to a file facing an opposing Rook. And 20 moves later, disaster strikes. The basic principles of chess exist for a reason. They guide you through the endless maze of move choices so that <you don't have to anguish over every move>. I see this a lot in GM games. Take 15 minutes to consider a move, an obvious choice on the board, and instead they move the f Pawn and lose thereby. I just don't get it. |
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| Dec-13-24 | | Petrosianic: <There was absolutely no good reason to make such a pointless move.> The point, clearly, was to keep it on a safe square, where it couldn't be harassed or picked off by the Rook. 53. Bc6 leaves it kind of dangling, while 53. Bg2 leaves a possible future pin that White has to keep on the alert for. At the time he played Bd8, Black's King was two moves away from being able to support Bd5, and White would be perfectly happy for either Rooks or Bishops to come off, just not both. |
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Dec-13-24
 | | dheilke: <OhioChessFan> I heartily agree, the engine only says Ba8 is fine because it sees 1 draw in 5758905738905789578987534275043920 nodes analyzed. Which is exactly the problem with using engines for analysis instead of brains. Ba8 was the real mistake. As <Petrosianic> states, it has some logic to it, but that's what calculation is for! you look at Bc6 and Ba8 and maybe conclude that both are fine, but Bc6 is safer, because you don't self-trap in the corner with only 1 axis of motion. I could see why some GMs were suggesting Rf2; piece trapping is usually a difficult tactic, and it isn't often that a piece is trapped by its mirror! But once somebody says "but the B is trapped in the corner" then any GM will see that Rf2 is a blunder. |
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| Dec-13-24 | | N0B0DY: <"Nobody Puts Bishop in the Corner"> <N0B0DY> is supposed to complain here. |
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Dec-13-24
 | | fredthebear: FWIW: Yesterday I saw a fellow maneuver his white knight next door into the near corner of his rook. I certainly don't ever recall putting a knight in one's own corner (requires three moves from the knight's original square). He lost, as one might expect. |
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Dec-13-24
| | fredthebear: That Ba8? and Rf2??? were rather big blunders given the simpleness of the position, but it could be chalked up to fatigue, time trouble, and wanting to reduce material to make a draw more likely as White could do nothing but wait, wait, wait on Black who dragged out a drawn position. The piece exchanges just happened in the exact wrong position, creating a King & Pawn endgame where the Opposition of the Kings reigns supreme. White should have kept his rook on the 4th rank restricting the Black king's advance, and play for the 50-move rule draw. Chess Vibes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQn... |
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Dec-13-24
 | | perfidious: But perhaps <Everyone> should. |
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Dec-13-24
| | fredthebear: Ah, my every day, every hour cyberstalker with another useless post that we don't need to read. Al sure misses FTB when FTB is elsewhere watching chess streamers. |
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Dec-13-24
 | | saffuna: <Wow. The #5 player in the world beats the #22 player in the world. I couldn't be happier. Gukesh now joins the likes of Ponomariov and Khalifman.> Ignoring the fact that Gukesh won through via the traditional path, while Ponomariov and Khalifman won gimmicky two-game single-elimination tournaments. |
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| Dec-13-24 | | Petrosianic: <HaydenB>: <Wow. The #5 player in the world beats the #22 player in the world. I couldn't be happier. Gukesh now joins the likes of Ponomariov and Khalifman. Pretty heady company if you ask me! The new FIDE champion only has 4 players who are better than he is. They better watch out!> It seems that way because you're mistaking the rating system for a measure of absolute playing strength, rather than what it is, a measure of recent results. The designers of the rating system have said that until they were blue in the face but people just don't listen. It's one thing to object to a world champion out of the top 20, but when you're upset that the world champion is 20 points lower than someone else (Carlsen is retired fromworld championship play and doesn't count here), that makes you look silly, not the title. You're using the rating system for something it was never designed for. If you watched the match for it to tell you who had the highest rating, on any particular day, you were wasting your time. You could have looked at the rating list to see that. Ponomariov and Khalifman were never world champion. They won disputed titles. Gukesh is officially the best player in the world, like it or not. |
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Dec-13-24
| | perfidious: The comparisons between Gukesh and the tinpot FIDE champions are odious, for more than one reason. |
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| Dec-13-24 | | Petrosianic: <perfidious: The comparisons between Gukesh and the tinpot FIDE champions are odious, for more than one reason.> Yeah, as I recall Kasimdzhanov was rated #56 in the world when he won his disputed title. I can maybe see people getting sniffy about Ding's reign, but to argue that the 4th highest-rated player in the title hunt is too weak to be champion is pretty nutty. I think it's a function of today's short attention spans. People don't have the patience for a full cycle or even a full length match. They want a championship that's updated daily, which is why even the rating system is too slow now, and people have put all their stock into unofficial live ratings. |
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| Dec-13-24 | | positionalgenius: <<<HaydenB: Wow. The #5 player in the world beats the #22 player in the world. I couldn't be happier. Gukesh now joins the likes of Ponomariov and Khalifman. Pretty heady company if you ask me! The new FIDE champion only has 4 players who are better than he is. They better watch out!>>> A very common misconception that the rating system is more important and valuable than actually winning tournaments and qualifying. Common mistake nowadays. ELO means less in chess now than it ever has. |
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Dec-13-24
| | fredthebear: So true. ELOs are severely bloated.
On the other hand, India has 6 players rated over 2700. Gukesh is not even the highest rated player in his own country! He may very well be squaring off against one of his fellow countrymen in a future WC of India to be played in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Budapest, or Berlin. |
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Dec-13-24
 | | jnpope: <Petrosianic: Gukesh is officially the best player in the world, like it or not.> "Best player" could mean a number of things depending upon the metrics used. Getting through the candidates cycle and taking the FIDE crown is a big component, with ratings being another component. For "professional" chess, I personally like to factor in prize-money won from events as a third component. I think Gukesh may have jumped into the #1 earnings spot by taking $118,311.57 for his candidates win and $1,350,00.00 for taking the FIDE crown, which in my opinion would help make the case: Winning the FIDE crown, being #5 on the ratings list, and being the top earner is a strong case for him being the <best player in the world> (even if he's not the highest rated player). BTW, does anyone know where to find an up-to-date top 10 list of prize-money winners for 2024 (and for that matter a list of historical earnings year-by-year)? |
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| Dec-13-24 | | stone free or die: <jn> are we including endorsements and streaming revenues in the metric!?!? |
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Dec-14-24
| | jnpope: I don't see why one couldn't factor in endorsements and streaming revenues (as well as book sales, appearance fees, commentator fees, e-sports earnings, etc.) as being part of the income stream for being a professional player. I just think it's just easier to dig up the prize-money earnings as those figures tend to be published and readily available to the public. |
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| Dec-14-24 | | stone free or die: It's a bit of challenge for me to consider Levy in contention for the crown! |
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| Dec-14-24 | | stone free or die: (And yes, I'll grant you that he could clean my clock) |
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Dec-14-24
| | fredthebear: Who couldn't? |
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| Dec-14-24 | | stone free or die: Freddy head's a hoot. |
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Dec-14-24
| | fredthebear: My money is on Hikaru Nakamura as top earner. |
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| Dec-14-24 | | Sheroff: This was, alas, a fairly uninspiring chess world championship. Ding was clearly not at his best (I think he missed the fairly simple 37. Re8! in his game 12 win, for example), and he seemed to be under more-than-normal mental strain during this match. Well-deserved congrats to Gukesh, but neither of these guys are near the Carlsen level. They're just two of nearly a dozen top players who are still below Magnus in ability. World Championships have become much more boring since the Kasparov era - perhaps a rethink of the format needs to happen? Rapid and blitz tie-breaks should be the first 'innovation' to go, I believe. |
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