Something I wanted to create for a while. A dedicated topic to discuss chess stuff. Thus, we can contain chess to one topic and mute it. After all, many go players are ex-chess players.
I think a worthy start is this news article here.
As you can see, turns out there’s a world championship going on. Though without the actual chess champion so no one cares. And considering the previous attempt by Nepomniachtchi, and Ding Liren seems kinda out of it too… Whoever wins is gonna be chess champion but not really. Interesting parallel to female championship where something similar happened.
I gotta admit that i kinda stopped playing chess after i found go and i’ve now been totally clueless about chess scene for years, but im glad to hear that they are going strong ^___^
The prize money split of 60% to winner, 40% to loser surprises me how little difference there is. Financially both are winners for qualifying for the final, they are mostly just fighting for the prestige of the title now. It’s usually starker in go tournaments, and in the Lee Sedol vs Gu Li match it was 5,000,000 yuan vs 200,000 yuan, which is ~96% to winner, 4% to loser (I believe Lee wanted it to be big difference to motivate him to win).
So far we’ve had 4 decisive games and 2 draws. One might say it’s good attacking chess. But it feels like it’s just the players don’t show top-class chess. It is what it is but top chess is drawish. The cost of losing one game is huge because GMs are so good at drawing you might never get even the single point back.
Today Ding Liren lost connection. Position was fine but he didn’t have much time on the clock so when he finally reconnected he didn’t have time to think at all. He didn’t lose on time but he lost on time in spirit.
A rare over the board disconnection. One of the best illustration of being overwhelmed by possibilities.
