Still thinking about that second handshake. Did Ding, in the midst of a waterfall of emotions, forget they already shook hands?
It does seem appropriate: one for the game, and one for the championship!
#NepoDing
Carlsen's total thinking time in this match was 21 hours and 38 minutes vs. 19 hours and 47 minutes for Nepomniachtchi. On average, Carlsen spent two minutes and 17 seconds on a move; Nepo two minutes and five seconds, over a total of 568 moves.
#CarlsenNepo
#FIDEMatch2021
While Arjun is rapidly approaching 2800, he is not the only player playing on a 3000+ level in Budapest. The top 10 sorted by tournament performance rating (TPR) at this point:
In his first Titled Tuesday stream, Vladimir Kramnik draws with an FM and immediately goes: "Something tells me he was a little too strong for his level."
Something tells me that not playing Kb5-a6 here might have influenced the result...
Going through my archives, I found this clip from the 2011 Amber Tournament with Ljubomir Ljubojevic showing Viktor Korchnoi why Bobby Fischer thought Black is better, a tempo, down, in a symmetrical position. Also with Veselin Topalov "refuting" 1.b4.
I think I can honestly say that I introduced online video on demand to the chess world in 2006-2007. I can only applaud
@ChessbaseIndia
for taking it to the next level (and beyond) time and time again. Just wonderful! 👏
If Nakamura loses, he is interviewed, not on the official broadcast but on his own channel, and quite extensively—something almost unknown in the chess world. I've always advocated that losers need to be interviewed as well and I think it's fantastic that
@GMHikaru
is doing this.
What a tremendous player is Nodirbek Abdusattorov. The new world number four! Not seeing him in the FIDE Candidates feels like the cycle could still be improved...
📷 Petr Vrabec/
@PragueChess
According to many,
@Kasparov63
is still the Greatest of All Time (GOAT) in chess. Today, it is exactly 25 years since Kasparov played his most famous and possibly best ever game, against Veselin Topalov in Wijk aan Zee. The story:
“I feel this cycle is not my cycle. I don’t regret to not play in the Candidates this year. I feel like I am not quite there yet. I’ll have more time till the next cycle and I’ll gain more experience. I hope I’ll be ready for the next tournament.” - Nodirbek Abdusattorov today.
In one of the possible variations of his game yesterday,
@SergeyKaryakin
would have needed to grab a third knight somewhere to give checkmate!
#FIDEWorldCup
Congratulations to Faustino Oro 🇦🇷 for achieving all requirements to become the youngest International Master in history, aged 10 years, 8 months, and 16 days!
20 years ago today,
@MagnusCarlsen
brilliantly defeated Dutch GM Sipke Ernst in the
#TataSteelChess
Grandmaster Group C. At the age of 13, Carlsen won the group with 10½/13 and scored his first GM norm. The rest is (damn good) history.
Imagine flying all the way from Chile to Russia and getting to play possibly the game of your career while making your way into the tactics books. Lovely!
Ju Wenjun just drew her game with Ding Liren as the first reigning women's world champion to hold a classical game against the reigning world champion!
📷 Jurriaan Hoefsmit/
@TataSteelChess
.
.
@lachesisq
won deservedly (congrats!) but it's time to speak up. I strongly recommend
@FIDE_chess
to once and for all get rid of the current
#FIDECandidates
tiebreak rules that nobody likes & simply add a tiebreak day (already in the schedule) for all players involved in a tie.
Does 1.Bxh7+ win? Excellent position for advanced players wanting to train deep calculation. Bonus:
@suryachess64
tells a great story involving
@vishy64theking
(who was White) while providing the answer. Highly recommended!
.
@MauriceAshley
goes "blunder, blunder, blunder!" and then says that it is so difficult that even
@MagnusCarlsen
himself might not be able to figure out the reply. Why call it a blunder then, thus approving this behavior from amateurs to engine-criticize top GMs?
#GrandChessTour
Hearing that the one-year-old child of GM Bela Khotenashvili is fighting for his life in a Bordeaux hospital, needing an expensive treatment. Hope the chess community can be of help. Links for donating:
The most remarkable thing to me about Kramnik continuously and openly communicating his suspicions without substantial evidence, thus damaging reputations and ultimately the game itself, is that he doesn’t seem to have learned from Toiletgate at all.
For the first time, a plastic curtain separates the grandmasters from the spectators at
@tatasteelchess
. It could well be related to the climate activist organization Extinction Rebellion’s announcement to organize a protest tomorrow in Wijk aan Zee. Better safe than sorry?
In the
@tepesigeman
tournament they are trying a revolutionary idea: give the players a board and pieces so they can first discuss the game themselves before checking the engine! 😉
After the Grand Swiss in Isle of Man, the same production team also uses these amazing microcameras at
@TataSteelChess
. Such a cool addition to chess broadcasts!
Thank you
@GCLlive
for graciously allowing me to present the English version of THE CHESS REVOLUTION during tonight’s GCL opening ceremony with
@anishgiri
and
@ArjunErigaisi
just hours after I received the first copies from my publisher
@BooksByRobinson
!
Saddened by the huge amount of aggressive comments under the Carlsen & Giri piece. It seems 'racism' has become a tainted word that just serves as a capote the bulls will chase, without reading the article.
#MoveForEquality
Fischer Random or
#Chess960
officially recognized by
@FIDE_chess
is huge. After Steinitz-Zukertort in 1886 we’ll see the first official Fischer Random world championship in 2019!
BREAKING: Announces FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship
The World Fischer Random Chess Championship is now officially recognized by
@FIDE_chess
and will start on
@chesscom
.
Find all info on this historic event here:
Last year
@MagnusCarlsen
and
@anishgiri
joined forces in a video as part of a
@UN
campaign against racism. "Frankly, with all the real problems in the world, I find it irritating that people try to find ones where they don't exist," was one comment. 🙈
How rare is it to see a checkmate on the board at the highest level? In 2018, among players rated higher than 2700, it happened only 3 times, and only once in a classical game: Duda-Nakamura in Gibraltar. One other game was Carlsen-Svidler (!) at the World Blitz.
#GRENKEChess
The FIDE
#GrandSwiss2021
starts tomorrow in Riga, Latvia. The playing hall is the Hanzas Perons building, a nicely restored former cargo railway warehouse located almost alongside Mikhail Tal Street.
Three games in world championship history saw Q vs. RR. Two draws, one win for the two rooks: Kramnik's win in game 1 vs. Leko in 2004. Draws in Spassky-Petrosian, 1966 and Anand-Topalov, 2010.
#CarlsenNepo
Eight times before in world chess championship history the score was equal with one game to go. Only twice, there was a decisive game in this situation:
- Karpov won game 32 in 1978
vs Korchnoi;
- Anand won game 12 in 2010 vs. Topalov.
#NepoDing
I love the casual atmosphere at
@PragueChess
with Sagar and Amruta as commentators, radiating such joy for chess, and absolute top GMs joining them after their game as if they're just going to hang out a bit with friends and have fun. Which is probably what they're doing.
Look how deep
@MagnusCarlsen
calculated vs
@anishgiri
. He took on b4 based on 21.cxb4 Bxd4 22.bxa5 Bxf2+ 23.Kf1 Qd4 24.Qxc6 Bh4 25.g3! Bxg3 26.Qf3 Bxe1 27.Bxe1 Qxb2 28.Bc3 Qc2 29.Bc4 Ra7 30.Qf6 Re5 31.Qd8+! Kg7 32.Bxe5+ dxe5 33.Qd3 and wins. But he missed 24...Bxe1! 25.Bxe1 Qxb2.
At an online press conference currently underway,
@DGukesh
revealed that
@GajuChess
will be his trainer for the upcoming
@FIDE_chess
World Chess Championship. The challenger didn’t want to share other names of his team just yet.
It was a pleasure to work with the fantastic
@thelittlehat
and
@DavidHowellGM
, who give each other so much space and confidence to excel at the commentary booth. One of my favorite bits of the show was the moment leading to Bxh6 by Hikaru.
The main differences between the women's world ch match and the 'regular' one:
- lower prizes;
- 12 games instead of 14;
- faster time control;
- no rule against offering a draw before move 30.
I'm curious why,
@FIDE_chess
?
#WomenChessMatch
#genderequality
Adolf Andersen (1818-1879) was born on this day. The winner of the first international chess tournament (London 1851), he was the strongest player in the world before and after Morphy. His "Immortal" and "Evergreen" games keep impressing 150 years past. A symbol of romantic chess
Getting a loss for offering a draw in a completely drawn position: 👎
A lack of coherent, generic, and logical regulations at different chess tournaments: 👎
Chess players being famously bad in actually reading the regulations: 👎
#CSL
#ChessSuperLeague
Ten years ago, chess broadcasting was still a fairly new phenomenon. I believe it was the first year when
@lennartootes
and I got involved, and it looked like this. Things have improved in quality significantly since then, but somehow, I still like the clean look of it. :-)
"...you’re playing a player like Magnus, one of the greatest players in the history of chess, and you know that he won’t make a single moment in any game easy for you, so you’ll always have to work for everything."
Read our full interview w/ Caruana ⬇️
Arjun Erigaisi played the Grenke Open and the Menorca Open back-to-back and didn't lose a single game! Here's my report on Menorca which also includes a brilliant novelty by Daniel Dardha:
What a crazy
#TataSteelChess
this year. Shoutout to
@LennartOotes
for an amazing job combining photography and interviews among other tasks. Hoping Dubov tests negative and that
@rpragchess
and
@FabianoCaruana
can soon socialize with their coaches again.
The Dutch Chess Federation just issued a statement saying
@FIDE_chess
and
@ECUonline
didn't go far enough and urges them to:
- ban national teams of Russia & Belarus from FIDE team events;
- ban individual players from Russia & Belarus from FIDE & ECU events.
"FIDE wanted to change the entire [Candidates] format at short notice to encourage Carlsen to take part. They wanted to alternate one day with a classic game and the next day with two quick games. (...) Everything was in limbo until Magnus officially canceled." -
@GMHikaru
Streamer und Großmeister: Hikaru Nakamura spricht im Interview mit
@StefanLoeffler
über boomende Schachunterhaltung, die Beschleunigung des Sports – und darüber, warum mancher Profi Geheimnisse lieber für sich behält.
At the end of the day it's just very impressive for
@lachesisq
to have reached 8.5 points seven minutes into the 12th round, the winning score in four of the last five
#FIDECandidates
after 14 rounds. 👏
The FIDE General Assembly has voted 108:27 in favor of allowing the FIDE President to stay in power indefinitely. In 2018 Arkady Dvorkovich campaigned on a 2-term limit (which would end in 2 years) being essential. More details:
We will see the fifth tiebreak in world chess championship history after 2006 (Kramnik-Topalov), 2012 (Anand-Gelfand), 2016 (Carlsen-Karjakin), and 2018 (Carlsen-Caruana). I used to be strongly against rapid/blitz to decide a classical title but now only mildly!
#NepoDing
Besides this being the most silly claim ever, what mostly surprises me in such situations is that the arbiter starts a whole conversation while another game is taking place right next to them. Step one is to take them aside and discuss properly, I'd say.
#rapidblitz
Been going through the
@NewInChess
archives in the past few months for research. Gotta say this cover with
@GMJuditPolgar
is still my favorite after all those years!