Do you think Caruana might be Putin? I believe he was once a secret agent and he secretly practices karate and necromancy. I don't know what necromancy is but I was told he is involved in it. Hilary is actually Bin Laden. She was the actor they used for Bin Laden appearances in the innocent pre-Trump days...I wont swing on about Obama. All these things should be clear to anyone. Nor are we watching a chess match. Dont be fooled like those suckers who believe the world is round and so on. No we are not watching the Chess Champs. It is actually the world Cheese* Making Championships...

Now I have gotten this far in this hear ol' rant a mine I forgotted what I was sayin' or why. Who am I? What am I? Where are we'all goin'?

By move 26 the only remaining pieces are opposite-coloured bishops.

Well said.>

Regarding willingness to walk into preparation, I think computers are pretty clearly the difference across the eras rather than plummeting levels of machismo ;). If you run into unfamiliar preparation these days you're most likely going to be playing against AlphaFish by proxy. Ok, maybe the engine in flesh form can't remember it all exactly, but it's a lot easier to play when you know for sure there's going to be an advantage (especially if there's a very narrow path that the opponent has to follow).

You know, when I watched the game live, my first thought after 17...Rxe7 was: is it possible to sac the exchange here with 18.Rxe6, I wonder? After all, when in possession of the bishop pair, it's sometimes a real possibility. Here White would have B+B vs R+N, so it's worth a consideration!

But it turns out that in this particular position, it doesn't work..at all! In fact, it's more or less losing on the spot. The reason is that after something like: 18.Rxe6 Rxe6 19.f3 Nf2, Black will force White to surrender the bishop pair by exchanging his knight for White's light-squared bishop (there is no way to prevent the knight from getting to f2: playing 19.Rf1 only leads to 19...Nxh2 and is even worse). and after that White may just as well resign.

<Sargon: <RookFile: <Once upon a time guys like Tal or Fischer played right into their opponents prep and won the game anyway. Today's players go running to Momma as soon as somebody makes a new move.>

This is a fallacy. Tal once had this against Larsen.

1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. Nf3 d6 4. d4 dxe5 5. Nxe5 and now Larsen played Nd7 which was his new move. Tal thought for a long time and then played another move than the "Tal-like" Nxf7 which is pretty standard.

In my own games no one has played Nd7 much as I yearn for it to be played!

The reason I think was psychological. Tal knew it was preparation. He feared though that if he played the expected move he would be "cooperating" with Larsen (his Nd7 is just playable and typically dubious move by Larsen). In any case he refused the opportunity to be Tal-like. Good psychology by Larsen (who seemed almost the only fearless player to get to that level in relatively recent times).

But Fischer avoided prepared lines or he was confident of his own preparation in the same line. His knowledge of chess was due to intense study of all aspects of chess, particularly the endgame, and of course the opening.

But his 1 c4 against Spassky was to avoid prep and in fact in his "own opening" the Poisoned Pawn var of the Najdorf he lost. (I think they had two Najdorfs and maybe one was a draw. There was at least on Alekhine's Defence by Fischer).

But he won with c4 both times. One game went into Spassky's territory but the latter missed a strong continuation in that Tartakower Def game which did become a great game by Fischer. In fact the prepartion that he knew he didn't follow in the game.

But the player who did go into preparation was Kasparov against Dorfman and one other in a tournament when he played the Black side of the Botvinnik var of the Slav (the very complex one). He even told his opponent that he would definitely repeat the whole line again. They prepared against him but he still won going into the exact line.

But in those days, c. the mid 70s, he was young and hungry.

To make the kind of gains Tal and others made (and even Botvinnik who beat Tal in their next match with his improved approach to the game and good openings, so that Tal praised him saying that he "played like a young man": even Botters had to avoid to obvious prep or find new moves in lines): to play into positions he wanted he had to combine intuition with preparation.

Nowadays it is not only computer preparation it is that for example Caruana has to play openings he feels good playing and he has done well so far.

But I always hope for something "crazy" which avoids preparation. But Carlsen seems to be able to handle almost any opening.

Carlsen tries a few new things but he seems in this match to be coasting a bit and taking his chances in the shoot outs. But both players are of near equal strength. There is always an element of luck also. Kasparov once joked that luck is an essential part of a chess player's repertoire. He was only partly joking.

Anything can happen in chess: we might see something "crazy" tomorrow but it seems unlikely.

Karjakin, going into the shootouts made the mistake of preparing as in the main match. Carlsen played soccer etc and was more alert in those Rapids etc. Karjakin realized his mistake and conceded this after the end of the match.

But nerves do it. But for him to tire himself preparing was a fatal mistake. He needed to be fresh and alert. The key thing is tactical alertness in those games.

A good video. The ending was more tricky than I thought. I saw the last trap of course.

It's interesting because Larsen's 5...Nd7 was obviously provoking Tal to take on f7, thereby implying that Larsen had found defences beforehand. I think the effect on Tal then was to significantly raise the evidence threshold for the sacrifice's acceptability (and being pre-computers it was still wholly human work that one was trusting/distrusting). I remember reading in Attack With Mikhail Tal that he thought for nearly an hour before finally rejecting it. Here's one of the quotes from Mark Weeks' website: https://mark-weeks.com/aboutcom/aa0...

<In the fourth game Larsen had defended with Alekhine's Defense, 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.Nf3 dxe5 5.Nxe5, and then played the unusual 5...Nd7. Tal spent 50 minutes calculating 6.Nxf7, but played 6.Bc4 instead. He wrote, 'I rejected the sacrifice after prolonged thought, and this was a psychological blunder, for even after I had gained the advantage, my thoughts kept returning to the position.' Suddenly he decided that he had overlooked a line where 'White in fact gains a decisive advantage. This I could not endure, and I played the second part of the game aimlessly, which led after 40 moves to a lost ending.'>