I keep thinking of chess-y news things I want to post, but they’re not necessarily going to be thread-worthy. So, we’ll give this a try, we’ll see how it goes.
Up first: the Tata Steel tournament is ongoing in the Netherlands. I’ve wanted to play there for a long time, since it has an open section for anyone with an FIDE rating (which I don’t have, but it’s moderately easy to get one). In any case, this is the most illustrious regulation-time tournament each year, and it often has great games. Plus, the second section (the non-Masters section often has interesting games as well).
The big news lately is that Magnus Carlsen lost two games in a row for the first time in eight years, putting a tournament win in jeopardy right after he abdicated the Championship title. That said, he’s been on a charge since that happened, and has pulled into 3rd place, 1 pt out of first, behind the two players he lost to (Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Uzbek GM, and Anish Giri, the Twitter-omnipresent Dutch GM). He still has three matches left to catch them, but those two haven’t played each other yet, so that will help.
All of this is live-streaming on multiple channels on YouTube, if that interests you (and now that I’m retired, it’s easy to put it on the background and then dip in occasionally for analysis).
I just watched Carlsen versus Nakamura in the bullet chess championship final, and I have to say it was hair-raising. Nakamura held onto his title, but it was intense as Nakamura took a big lead at one point, but then Carlsen closed on him to push it all the way to the last game.
I am watching the FIDE world championship livestream, and Carlsen is in a must win game where he was in an inferior position, to the point that his opponent missed a winning (but wildly unusual) tactic, and now he has eked out the slightest of computer advantages, and is attempting to grind down his opponent in an endgame. It’s fascinating to watch.
Carlsen saw the move that his opponent missed, and visibly reacted with annoyance after saving the position, shaking his head and walking away from the table.
Nakamura also squeezed out a draw from an inferior, must at least draw position.
And Carlsen grinds it out, beating the 34th ranked grandmaster in the world (Vincent Keymer) from a lost position.
The two GM commentators are trying to puzzle out what the losing moves were, and haven’t identified them yet. What they did point out was that in a drawn position but with a significant time advantage, Carlsen made a move that the computer thought was just OK, but it blew up both pawn structures and left isolated pawns all over the board, substantially increasing the need for calculation.
Interesting. That would make it a move that was just OK vs. a computer, but which would lead to significant advantage versus another human.
I wonder how much market there is for a computer that plays like a human grandmaster, including with the same limitations of ability and speed. All serious human players nowadays, of course, practice extensively against computers, but there might be more value in practicing against an opponent similar to the opponents you’ll compete against, rather than an opponent that’s far ahead of your competitors.
His post game interview was interesting. It’s clear his head is not in this tournament, and he said, “I found myself wondering why am I even here playing classical chess, it’s boring” and went on to imply that his main goal was to avoid being humiliated.
What do you do when you’ve achieved everything in your early 30s?
This isn’t the FIDE World Championship. That was played recently between Ding Liren and Ian Nepomniachtchi. This event is the FIDE World Cup, which is a very large tournament that serves as one of the avenues for qualifying for the FIDE Candidates Tournament, which in turn is the only way to qualify to be the challenger in the two-person head-to-head FIDE World Championship.
These two happen to be in my top list of favorite live chess commentators (Leko and Naroditsky). Robert Hess is also on my S-tier list.
No serious player routinely practices against computers in the sense of playing games to train. Computers are used extensively, of course, but they’re used as tools in analyzing positions and exploring ideas (and mistakes). At the elite level, players have teams of other grandmasters that they scrimmage against to trial new ideas or find problems. At the club (but still serious player) level, people look to play humans stronger than themselves and (ideally) discuss the key ideas from the game afterward.
(Of course, if you could clone a human chess player with a computer, that opens up new opportunities.)
People have tried to do this at a range of simulated player skill levels, but no one has come anywhere close to mimicking human play yet. The sources of errors in human play are just so… well… human. Failure to recognize a subtle but important change immediately, failure to pivot to or recognize newly available ideas in a position, failure to prioritize/prune calculations in the right way, failure to make a good evaluation of the objective or practical pros/cons of a position (especially deep in a calculation), failure to optimize when to calculate vs. when to save time and play more instinctively, failure to even have the right instincts regarding the position in the first place… Despite chess being such an objective game in principle, heuristics are just so very central, and so very human.
Another interesting aspect of the problem is that serious players at any level (club, international, or elite) come in all shapes and sizes in terms of strengths and weaknesses. There isn’t a representative “average” player at a given skill level.
This is naturally where “prep” – opposition research – comes in. At master level, your opponent isn’t “random international master at FIDE rating 2403”, but rather specifically IM Joe Schmoe, and the choices you make in the game, most notably in the opening but even throughout, will likely be guided by the history you have on that specific player. At club level it is harder to find past games, but you do often get to play (or watch) the same opponents over and over, and at these lower levels there is much wider variation in style to try to exploit. I certainly have meta strategies that vary based on the opponent I’m facing. Have they completely botched rook endgames before? Do they play too fast in sharp positions? Are they still a kid and (usually) have a sharper tactical eye than their rating suggests? Are they a retiree that trades at every possible opportunity in the hopes of not losing?
All three of these are great, plus I get a kick out of Peter Svidler.
On a side note, I saw Judit Polgar analyzing on a livestream a few months ago with another GM, and the speed with which she spotted and worked through (or dismissed) variations was really fun to watch.
This is good because we need fresh material on a steady basis. “Thread worthy” is pretty much in the eye of the beholder, so I don’t think it is something you should be concerned about.
It seems to me that you would have to be so absorbed in the prep, play, and analysis that goes with a tournament that you really wouldn’t have time to enjoy the venue which, in this case, is the Netherlands. Or, is it not the venue but the quality of play that attracts you?
tbh I think I’d be less focused on doing well and more on just watching super GMs and taking it all in, so it would be mainly play with minimal prep or analysis.
Carlsen has made his way into the semi finals, but he just said just now on the livestream that he has no intention to use his resulting qualification for the Candidate cycle… so once again, he won’t be playing in the traditional world championship matches.
Chess.com is cutting ties with the St. Louis Chess Club over the club’s handling of sexual misconduct claims against coach and club employee Alejandro Ramirez. A local billionaire has poured tons of money into the St. Louis chess scene, convincing the World Chess Hall of Fame and U.S. Chess Federation to move there, with an increase in top matches and tournaments. Chess.com says it will no longer provide broadcast or even cover events hosted by the club.
Meanwhile, another grandmaster has a crushing winning move available against Carlsen, misses it, and then Carlsen grinds him down from an evaluated draw.