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After nearly a decade, and just in time for the 2021 World Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi, it's time for the brand new chess thread. The pandemic and corresponding lockdowns have seen a massive increase in the popularity of chess. More people are playing online than ever before, twitch has created a host of new broadcasting (and watching) opportunities, and the Netflix show The Queen's Gambit was a pop culture phenomenon in its own right. Playing Chess Online The two main websites these days are https://lichess.org/ and https://chess.com. Both allow for live play, correspondence play, and a host of training games like puzzle rush/puzzle storm. I know that lichess has the goon team lljk. Live play ranges from bullet (each player gets 30 seconds per move) to longer games where each player gets 45 minutes per game plus 45 seconds per move. Particularly popular speeds are 3+0 (three minutes per player, no added time), 3+2 (three minutes per player, 2 seconds added per move), and 5+0. These games are fast, chaotic, and often decided by who made the last mistake. Correspondence games give you days per move. Sometimes one day, but more often three or five. These games are good if you want to really slowly think through a position, and consult opening databases when you're starting the game. (Don't worry, the use of opening databases is allowed.) There is one quite prominent correspondence player here who sometimes shares insights into high level play, where the use of computer engines is its own art. Playing Chess Live This still exists! If you feel like your area's safety standards are up to snuff, it's a great idea to find a local club to get some games. The over-the-board (OTB) game is quite different in feel from the online game, and comes with the added benefit of sometimes making real life friends. Slower OTB games are some of the richest, and often the most rewarding to analyze. Professional Chess In the past there's been a separate pro thread in SAS but we'll try keep it in here this time. Between the pandemic and twitch, a number of top chess players have managed to become mini celebrities, greatly expanding the popularity of the game. The current world champion, Magnus Carlsen, is the strongest (and arguably best) player in history. He's held the championship since 2013, and defended it against Viswanathan Anand, Fabiano Caruana, and Sergei Karjakin. Now he defends against the dynamic Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi. Nepo is not the strongest opponent Carlsen has faced, but he's probably the most dynamic. After a few slightly dull defences, with Carlsen seemingly playing for the rapid tiebreaks, this year's promises to be more interesting. Where to Watch Chess There will be a number of options on where to watch people broadcasting the event. -chess24 is my favourite, and tend to have a good balance between accessible and in depth commentary. These days they tend to have one more serious stream and another more aimed to beginners. -chess.com is probably the biggest broadcaster. -FIDE will probably have a very technically-engaged stream for people who want something serious -The chessbrahs are part of the new wave of chess streamers, and tend to go for a more casual vibe. They usually have access to a bunch of very strong players for broadcasting. -Former world #2 Hikaru Nakamura is probably the biggest chess streamer, and will probably have his own cast. His stream is very geared towards casual players who mostly want to watch him move fast while spamming memes. Other players who have their own streams include -Current world #2 Alireza Firouzja -Current challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi -Former world champion Garry Kasparov -Former world champion Ruslan Ponomariov -Cricket fan and degenerate card player Peter Svidler -Maxime Vachier-Lagrave -And in case you're ever interested, there's usually computer chess too
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Nov 26, 2021 04:34
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 17:11 |
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player names will go here
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Nov 26, 2021 04:34
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Here's the schedule for the Carlsen-Nepo match. All games start 7:30 AM Eastern Standard Time, I believe
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Nov 26, 2021 04:36
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Game 1 seems to have finally moved beyond the preparation stage. After Carlsen plays 16…c5. Black has gambitted a pawn. In exchange he’s got a lead in space & development (in particular, white has trouble placing the b1 knight) but doesn’t seem to have much of an attack. Without the attack I kinda like white here. The less immediate black’s threats, the better white’s chances to consolidate eventually.
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Nov 26, 2021 14:07
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silvergoose posted:The bishop pair is kinda pointed directly at...nothing. The pressure on g2 is actually pretty tough for white to handle. Right now, both the K on f1 and the N on f3 are dealing with it, meaning that the bishop is pulling more than its weight. Black definitely has compensation for the pawn, which means that what's currently happening on the board is happening roughly in black's favour. It's just that I don't see much active threat for black. But also, as Giri just said on the chess24 stream, Black has a lot of ways to shuffle, and the more he can safely shuffle the more chances he gives to Nepomniachtchi to gently caress up.
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Nov 26, 2021 14:48
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Carlsen is having to go backwards and reorganize, and it starts to feel like consolidation might be coming. A few exchanges and white can start thinking about solving the doubled b pawns. e: And Nepo decides he's had enough and tries to simplify into a drawish endgame.
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Nov 26, 2021 15:16
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This game is getting into some very strange manoeuvring. It kinda feels like Nepo is trying to consolidate but hasn't figure out how to reconcile (1) placing his knight defensively and (2) placing his knight actively.
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Nov 26, 2021 16:17
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Carlsen gives the draw once Nepo fixes his knight. The more I think on it, the more I really like the move h4 by Nepo. The pawns are still weak, but the move makes it so that only Carlsen's king can get at them. And since Carlsen's queenside pawns are both isolated, the king will never have time to make the long journey through g7 and h6.
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Nov 26, 2021 17:39
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algebra testes posted:Is Jan still part of Magnus' team so he isn't commentating? The teams will be secret until the end of the tournament, but the absence of Jan on chess24 might also just be from them breaking out the big guns for the finals. He's an accessible commentator, but that's maybe less important when they've split the commentary teams into a beginners cast (Howell and Houska) and a serious cast (Polgar and Giri).
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Nov 27, 2021 03:08
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tanglewood1420 posted:I would be scared stiff playing black here. Where the hell am I going to put my b8 knight and light square bishop? The bishop usually goes to b7, and then you activate it by preparing to play c5. The knight can go anywhere, including a6=>b4. The Catalan is an opening that white can play to reliably get a very, very slight advantage. And often you get to do it while keeping a lot of pieces on the board, meaning there's a lot of play left. However, the advantage is slight enough that it's not always a great way to try to win. It's also not a very Carlsen opening. I played this for a while with white (and still play it in some lines) and I've never really felt comfortable in these gambit lines. I know that black's pawns are really shaky but I've never been able to reliably find enough play for white to compensate.
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Nov 27, 2021 14:29
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I really like Giri's comments here about how this is a sensible position for a computer but not for a human. The pawn and piece set up may objectively "work" but it doesn't correspond to usual human patterns, which means there's a huge burden on Nepo to actively figure out the position move to move.
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Nov 27, 2021 14:30
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D34THROW posted:How the gently caress do their brains move so fast? Dude is rattling off seventeen moves for black to gain a third of a pawn and I can barely see the forest for the trees enough to prevent a bishop forking my rook and queen The key is chunking, so you're stringing together a couple of ideas which are 5/6 moves each, and your intuition is good enough that you're not missing obvious blunders. (1) X is weak, (2) you normally exploit this weakness with Y, (3) this is how Y would play out here. In other news, looks like Carlsen has played himself into some trouble. This is part of why I have trouble in these Catalan gambit positions as white: even if Carlsen finds a way to recoup the exchange he's about to lose, he's still down a pawn. Which means he has to play for activity/advantage down the exchange.
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Nov 27, 2021 15:43
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dhamster posted:What is the go-to stream to follow the championship? There are a bunch in the thread OP. I also just found this one with Svidler, Kramnik, and Miroschnichenko. Though this comes with the risk of Kramnik deciding to talk about politics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rpqQ1Q8kHY
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Nov 27, 2021 16:26
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rollick posted:
Black's pieces are very passive so it's not completely unbelievable that an engine would offer an equal eval. Black's idea is probably to force bxc3 and clear the path for the a-pawn. But in doing so, black's queenside pawns become all isolated, which may make it easier for white to play against. e: As the queenside starts to liquidate, something to keep in mind is that when all the pieces are on the same side of the board, quantity of pieces is almost as important as quality of pieces. Get rid of the a and c pawns, and Carlsen's R+N should hold easily. (Of course, who knows how much he's thinking of trying to win. Black's king is shaky.)
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Nov 27, 2021 16:36
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Carlsen creates another sharp position, accepting a small minus but putting pressure on Nepo to figure it out. I'm curious what his long term plan is for defending a5/counterplay on the queenside, because that is absolutely a way that black loses these positions.
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Nov 28, 2021 15:16
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silvergoose posted:Ooh d5 e5 this is a very sharp position Ironically, this is where it stops being a sharp position because it becomes very forced. Everything comes off. Now we probably have a bishop endgame where we balance Nepo's weak a4 pawn against Carlsen's isolated pawn structure.
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Nov 28, 2021 15:52
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Captain von Trapp posted:What blows my ~1100 mind is how they're so good tactically that there's no tactics. All of my games have Benny Hill level tactics, wild swings of the eval, etc. There's also a question of, for when they do gently caress up, how bad the mistakes are. As Giri pointed out in the Chess24 stream, c6 by Carlsen was likely played because he missed that white would have e5, and he missed that white would have e5 because there's a sub-line where white is playing Nd6 and Nd6 is something you can miss because it's not possible before you play c6. The consequence of all this isn't that the position changes its mathematical evaluation, but rather an already-equalish position is quickly reduced from one where there is play to one where the draw is confirmed.
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Nov 28, 2021 16:36
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“Touch-move” doesn’t actually exist, it’s just a reductive way of describing the actual state of the rules, which is that a move begins when you touch the piece. The reason you have to move the piece, then, is because you’ve already begun to move it. Touching a piece with no legal moves, then, comes with the penalty for making an illegal move, which if I remember correctly is two minutes added to your opponent’s clock the first time and disqualification the second. This is actually relevant when you are claiming a draw. If you want to claim a draw for triple repetition, you have to do it in the following way: write your move, stop the clock, and announce you’re calling an arbiter to declare a draw. If you’ve touched a piece you’ve begun your move and so can no longer call for a draw. This can be quite important if the repetition is not forced/sequential, and I’ve seen someone lose after having a claim denied precisely for having touched a piece.
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Nov 29, 2021 12:18
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Bharatrocity posted:Eh, what the gently caress is that g4 move? Fairly modern. The most basic ideas are quite simple: takes more space than g3 and challenges the f5 square. What modern computers have allowed is for players to practice defending these structures, so they know that g4 is stable even if it looks ugly by classical principles.
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Nov 30, 2021 14:29
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Also, Carlsen is playing yet another position I wouldn't be comfortable playing in a thousand years. Black's solidified a-pawn isn't exactly immediately threatening, but it seems like a permanent concern stopping you from doing anything.
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Nov 30, 2021 14:44
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Baronash posted:Is it unusual to burn this amount of time on a move? Would you still be going through possible lines, or is this just indecision? If I had to guess, he has a draw in his pocket so it's safe for him to run his clock, so he's looking to see if he has a good way to play for a win. dupersaurus posted:As a fairly high-ranked player, what lessons do you get from high-level play like this? Are you still picking up fundamentals, or is it more like getting a preview of the meta for the next few years? If you want to look at the games that way, there's usually something you can take out of most games. The demonstration of some idea or plan. That said, I'm not exactly looking at these games as an academic exercise.
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Nov 30, 2021 15:58
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Thematic tournaments do happen, though I generally don't find them very interesting. I suspect what happened today is that Carlsen hosed something up (maybe missed a5), because if his preparation showed this game happening he would not have played it. e: And there are definitely top level players who get wild with openings. Both Daniil Dubov and Richard Rapport are extremely creative.
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Dec 1, 2021 02:58
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Spokes posted:oh yeah, i should have just posted little screenshots. once you click on it you'll see the other side make their first move (in this case it's 1. Bd3) Okay that makes sense. I was staring at the third, baffled on how black was supposed to win after 1...f5 2.Kg5.
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Dec 1, 2021 15:32
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If this game doesn't end soon—and white does have the ability to play on here if he has some creativity—Carlsen is starting to get into some slight time pressure. 34 minutes for 12 moves can get tight if he has to solve a couple of problems. Now Carlsen's knights are back on e8 and f8. This game is becoming as much as anything a test of Nepo's willingness/ability to push a slight advantage in an unfamiliar position.
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Dec 1, 2021 15:55
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So I promised I'd say a couple things about the 'Greek gift' sacrifice, using this game as a model. This isn't a deep dive, just pointing out a couple of basic thematic ideas. So let's begin with this position.  In the game, the N on c3 proved important going to e2 and f4. However, the knight usually can't do that. Either black has traded the N off on c3, or white has played the advance and so has a pawn on c3. So what happens when you don't have the knight? White starts with 1.Bxh7+ Kxh7 2.Ng5+. Kg6. There are two lines black didn't play that we can comment on. If black had played 1...Kh8 instead of Kxh7, white will play Qh5. Sometimes you'll have a mating line starting with Bg6 discovered check, Qh7+ and Qh8+. Other times that isn't mate but you win a bunch of material. If black had played 1...Kg8, white starts with 2.Qh5 again. Now black has to play 2...Re8 to avoid mate. After this point, white has options. Usually the first move is to play 3.Qxf7+ and then after Kh8 you find a way to bring your rook to h3. If you have a way to keep control of the e7 square, instead of 3.Qxf7+ you have a win beginning with 3.Qh7+. Something like 3.Qh7+ Kf8 4.Qh8+ Ng8 5.magically Ba3+ Re7 6.Nh7+ and white's going to win all of black's pieces. In both of these lines, the key thing to look for before starting is black having a knight on e7. The knight on e7 is a huge inconvenience to black, as it blocks all of their defensive tries. Without the knight on e7, white is often reduced to taking a perpetual check with 3.Qxf7+ and 4.Qh5+ What about something closer to the game?  Here white played Ne2 but as I said that's not a thematic move because it's not usually available. So what is the thematic move? The key is 4.Qg4. Your immediate threat is the discovered check 5.Nxe6+. The double check threat entails both an attack on black's queen and a mate on white's king starting with 6.Qxg7+. This means that black can't simply move the queen or defend g7. However, black can't move the king out of danger either: 4...Kh6 is met with 5.Qh4+ and 6.Qh7#. Black's one defensive try is playing 4...f5. This attacks the queen and, if white takes en passant, lets the black king out of the check with Kxf6. So instead just keep the pressure on with 5.Qg3. After this point, you have to start paying close attention. Sometimes black has no defence against Nxe6. For example, with black's bishop on c8, black's only moves to get out of the Nxe6 discovered attack are Qd7 and Qe8. Qd7 allows white to play Qh3 and Qh7# because black can no longer meet Qh3 with Rh8. Qe8 allows white to play (if the bishop had traded off) Nxe6+ and Nxc7, with a winning material advantage. However, sometimes black has an immediate defence. For example, if black's bishop were on d7 rather than c8, black could play Qc8. In circumstances like this, you have to work to bring other pieces into the attack. However this happens depends on the position. The key is that it is very hard for black to defend, because black has to somehow untangle with their king incredibly vulnerable on g6. Note that this means that the Bxh7+ sacrifice isn't always winning. If you're playing the black pieces and have this happen to you, try at least starting out with the Kg6 and f5 plan. It's ugly as hell, but as a defence it can work. It still works at my level (in blitz), so it can definitely work on yours.
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Dec 3, 2021 01:24
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There's nothing gimmicky about that at all. Some positions just kinda feel right, and that's legitimately a great reason to choose openings that pursue them. I played the Pirc for a bit with black and found that what I really wanted from the opening was to play the e5 break as soon as possible, so I switched to the modern Philidor (1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5) because then you skip the whole 'Pirc' part of the Pirc and just play e5. Also I'm curious to see how the players navigate a good ol' classical Catalan today. It's like the paradigm opening for "get a slight advantage and play forever" but it's not something either player ever really plays from either side. I feel like if this was Ding or Kramnik with the white pieces they would be very happy right now, it's the sort of position a classically-trained Catalan player would really like. But for Carlsen? No idea. It doesn't have that kind of persistent asymmetry that lets him play forever (yet). e: and here comes taking on f6 to create that persistent asymmetry
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Dec 3, 2021 15:04
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oh no computer posted:Speaking of that chessbrah "rules" series, he recommends playing h3/h6 (or a3/a6) after castling to give your king an escape in case of a back rank mate attempt. But I'm also reading Logical Chess by Chernev (as per a recommendation from the previous thread) and like the entire first section of the book is all about how pushing pawns in front of a castled king introduces a weakness that can be exploited and he really drives home how you shouldn't move these pawns. Chernev's advice is objectively better, while the chessbrah advice is very specifically tuned to people shuffling pieces in online blitz and are liable to just kind of accidentally lose to missing a back rank threat.
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Dec 3, 2021 15:55
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This is a really rich position. What I imagine is up is that Carlsen intuitively feels like he should be solidly better, but needs to find a way to navigate through the surprisingly many tactical resources Nepomniachtchi has.
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Dec 3, 2021 16:29
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fart simpson posted:i was surprised how long he spent a couple moves back thinking about kg1, iirc there were only 3 legal moves and 2 of them were obviously bad You mean Nepo playing Kg7? It's a hard move to play because your rooks are still passive so it really feels like you should be doing more. Also the two rooks for a queen is exciting. We just might get a result this game.
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Dec 3, 2021 16:43
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fart simpson posted:i mean when nepo went qb7+, magnus took like 5 minutes to move his king to g1 oh yaeh, that. Sometimes you just need to double check a couple of concrete lines. Even if you're always playing Kg1 you think about what comes next.
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Dec 3, 2021 16:50
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e5 is a very playing for a win move
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Dec 3, 2021 17:26
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Both players make time control and I feel like white is winning.
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Dec 3, 2021 17:32
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VictualSquid posted:Those were some crazy swings right before the time control. Not all equal are equal. Kramnik pegged the QvRR line as "white wins eventually" as soon as he saw it.
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Dec 3, 2021 17:48
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Svidler and Kramnik seem to have decided that white's best way forwards is to sacrifice an exchange to clean up black's queenside pawn, win black's h-pawn in the process, and then try and convert RN4P against Q2P. e: These analysis lines are amazing. Black queens the pawn but white gets a mate threat that black can only parry by sequentially sacrificing all his pieces to force a stalemate.
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Dec 3, 2021 18:18
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Nepo maybe going all in to clear out white's pawns, but it sounds like a lot of the casters think the line is winning for Carlsen.
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Dec 3, 2021 18:51
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Dias posted:d=50 Stockfish says white is winning here by like +0.5 if that line is anything like what someone told Svidler the computer line is, lol if Nepo sees it. Some completely inhuman moves, like playing Bb2 because if white takes it with Rxb2, black has Qe1+ forking the other rook on a4.
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Dec 3, 2021 19:00
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White with the initiative now. Black has to answer some very hard questions.
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Dec 3, 2021 19:42
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I guess Carlsen is very confident in this position, but it kind of feels less winning than the last one. But also this position probably has another 40-50 moves in it. And they have to play again tomorrow. e: I wonder if Carlsen wants to put the N on f3, the R on e2, and just start pushing the e-pawn.
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Dec 3, 2021 20:21
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Helianthus Annuus posted:(as of move 132) this endgame is shaping up really badly for Ian! i don't think he can stop white's pawns There are few enough pieces that you can check it with a tablebase now. And it's a win for white. But, of course, that requires play from both players. e: e6 is a very concrete move by Carlsen. I wonder if he sees the end of the line.
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Dec 3, 2021 21:10
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 17:11 |
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VictualSquid posted:The first championship win in something like 5 years. November 24, 2016 Carlsen-Karjakin game 9.
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Dec 3, 2021 21:20
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