JCC The JCC plays chess ?

I'd argue Nepo being way up on time was part of his problem in the last 5 games. After game 6, where Carlsen dragged Nepo along for a world of pain and pressure, Carlsen never did put himself at an actual disadvantage there, but Nepo played a lot faster. And if he intended to avoid another grinder, it worked against him: three blunders costing him games while he was theoretically in a much more comfortable situation on the clock.

 

@Lordban
The problem is that if a position is winning, at those levels, they really don't need more than a bunch of seconds, and there is a 30 seconds increment after every move.

 

Indeed, they don't need too long to analyze a position (although there were a few oversights by Nepo regarding pawn moves that cost him...) Pondering more lines and trying to exhaust the opponent, however? There, the much longer time available matters.

Rules for this one were 2 hours for the first 40 moves, +1 hour for the next 40 moves (didn't come into play fully); +30 seconds per move after that (only really important in game 6). Carlsen played around that a lot better - he consistently used the two hours he had for the first forty moves and made few mistakes. In game 10, Nepo drew without even having used a third of the clock he had for the first 40 moves - despite really needing something at that point.

 

@Lordban
Exactly, For example once Nepo blundered by playing b5 and losing a pawn after Qa3, or the other game in which he had his bishop trapped, for some amateur player like me the game would be still very uncertain, it could go either way and time would be a huge factor, but for any super GM it's already game over, even with less than 5 minutes on the clock.

 

Carlsen will not be playing the next world championship match. It will rather be Ding Liren vs Nepo.
It's interesting that he wouldn't be interested in what is considered to be the most prestigious tournament of the game.

 

Has anyone followed this huge chess cheating controversy? People in the chess community are going crazy over it.

 

I've actually been following it a bit despite normally not following chess at all, because it's plastered all of the sports sections lately. I'll be honest I don't... I don't know if chess reporters realize how petulant it makes the professional chess world sound. Is it just me? Am I the only one who sees multiple people and organizations dancing around with insinuations but unwilling to formally accuse someone of cheating and just think it's some pro wrestling horse****? I need some editorialist to realize this is WWE grade crap. Please.

Edit: Seriously the whole thing is like some incredible commentary on the pathetic state of the sports media. "Elon Musk says he must have used anal beads? Better take that ****post from the mastermind behind legally binding himself to overbidding for Twitter seriously!"

 

I guess that does make the choice of a Mourinho clip fitting, though.

 

Honestly, Niemann is an unbearable jerk, so there is a part of me that really struggles to stay unbiased.
That said, I think the sad truth is we can't really know either way. And perhaps we never will.

 

Sounds like a pain in the ass.

 

magnus vs. hikaru in the cct finals in about an hour.

places to watch:

hikaru's twitch channel -
chess. com coverage -
not sure if magnus will stream it but his channel is here -

 

linking to twitch is weird but if you click the broken embeds they should work.

 

Game 1 of 4 is LIVE. Queens have been exchanged.


EDIT:
Results of Game 1

Spoiler

Draw

 

game 2 is super interesting so far, even if this level is a bit over my head.

 

great match

Spoiler

magnus won by holding a draw with the black pieces in an armageddon tiebreaker

 

Spoiler

World Champ beats Twitch Streamer

 

naka needed to find a way to win the third game. had to play desperate in the last game, and that's never good against the goat.

 

I appreciated how respectful each player was in their interviews when speaking about the other player. It's classy.

 

An amazing game today. Ding won after a nice exchange sacrifice and it's now 2-2, with 10 games remaining.

He appeared to be depressed and emotionally fragile just few days ago, but instead he seemed extremely confident today.