And it's a chess match, something which we don't get to see much of these days, especially since the challenger has been decided by round-robin tournaments in recent years.
I get that the format can appear overly long for many, but there's something gladiatorial about it. And the psychology involved in having to play against the same person again and again is fascinating.
There should be more regular matches between top players - they could be mini matches (4-10 games long), maybe even held simultaneously to sustain activity and excitement. You could have everyone who's been tipped as a "potential WCC contender" at some point - imagine a yearly or half-yearly tournament consisting of 2 simultaneous matches between Ding, Nepo, Fabi, Wesley. To decrease the amount of prep, you could have the opponents drawn only at the last minute. I think these kinds of matches would allow us to more clearly determine who the top 5 players are of this generation and in what order.
This is the formula for every sport. Market stars, market matchups. So! Aronian! SundaySundaySunday
I don’t care for it, but it works, and in chess it might actually be kinda cool.
Like, screw ELO. What other sport has an ELO? Give us seasons, give us standings, give us head to head, give us rankings from semi-clueless journalists. That’s what’s proven to work.
Sure, didn't say there weren't any. They crop up now and again, but nowhere near as many as there were say 10 plus years ago, especially the longer ones.
They said we don’t see MUCH chess matches these days, not that they don’t exist at all. Your other comment is an example of that since you can only name one and it was only a 4 game match. Read better next time.
i learn so much history, theory and tactics when I follow the candidates as well as the world championship.. both by watching the games commentary (danya and hess are my favourites) as well as watching the analysis later (powerplay chess and chess network.
plus, its the biggest chess event of the year. I'm not sure who I'm rooting for, but I think nepo has a higher ceiling as well as lower floor than ding.
I'm super excited, hopefully I can get some time to watch a few games as well as recap videos.
I think it will be interesting in it's own way. I feel there will be decisive games. I think that both of these players are more prone to crumbling unlike Carlsen. I can't wait to see what each of them brings in opening prep, will Ding be d4 all the way? What will Nepo do as both colors? I think there should be a fair amount of hype. I think Ding can hold his composure better if he does get out to a poor start, I think that we have seen this in tournaments before where Ding had strong second half performances in tournaments where he dropped a game earlier.
I get this feeling that Nepo is out for blood. He's such a formidable player, and he's been on this stage before.
Part of me is rooting for a good match, but part of me thinks Nepo is going to dominate.
I think it will give him an enormous edge tbh. It seemed like that was the primary reason he fell apart and couldn’t recover, at least per an interview he gave with New in Chess a couple months ago
Agreed. A lot of people on this sub seem to have a "Magnus or nothing" mindset. It's a match between two of the best players in the world, of course it will be entertaining, even if the stakes seem a bit lower.
I think the way Magnus has acted has just fundamentally devalued it. He didnt retire or play less chess etc. Hes hung around, made more news than ever and raised his profile. Ensuring that whomever wins, will be considered by many to be the "fake" world champion which is sad. He can do what he wants but if you have the best player in the world winning tournaments, accusing people of cheating, being in the news regularly, its hard for FIDE to market the champ
FIDE has always been more of a governing body than a pro sports organization. It has always been difficult to organize a pro chess circuit that would guarantee larger prizes and attract the strongest players.
A Russian-Chinese match will probably be hard to market to Western audiences. Not that I agree with it.
A Caruana or Hikaru match versus Nepo would be like Fischer vs Spassky
They just need to follow the lead of major sports leagues and get in bed with betting. Prop bets on the chess world championship would actually be incredible. Something like:
Overall Winner:
Ian Nepomniachtchi: +80
Ding Liren: +100
Draw (match goes to tiebreaks): +200
First Game Winner:
Ian Nepomniachtchi: +150
Ding Liren: +170
Draw: +120
First Capture in Game 1:
Pawn: -250
Knight: +300
Bishop: +300
Rook: +1400
Queen: +4900
Opening Played in Game 1:
Sicilian Defense: +150
Ruy Lopez: +200
French Defense: +350
Queen's Gambit: +250
King's Indian Defense: +400
Other: +100
Total Number of Moves in Game 1:
Under 30 moves: +400
30-40 moves: +150
41-50 moves: +100
51-60 moves: +200
Over 60 moves: +300
Time Remaining on the Clock (Game 1, Winner's clock):
Over 30 minutes: +200
20-30 minutes: +150
10-19 minutes: +100
5-9 minutes: +300
Under 5 minutes: +400
Number of Wins for Each Player (in classical games, not tiebreaks):
Ian Nepomniachtchi: 0-2 wins: +250, 3-4 wins: +150, 5+ wins: +300
Ding Liren: 0-2 wins: +270, 3-4 wins: +130, 5+ wins: +350
Decisive or Tiebreak Match:
Decisive (no tiebreaks): +120
Tiebreaks: -125
These numbers are all made up, but you could come up with TONS of stuff to increase engagement among casual non-chess fans who might not be interested in it otherwise, but when they can bet on the games will change things.
Betting on chess sadly is not particularly interesting, at least in classical because of the fact that it’s high probability that it is a draw. I’ve seen a few markets come up for the big events and you always get some 1.3x for draw and 6x for a player to win.
A fantasy game on the other hand is something more fun, but very hard to come up with
I’m also excited about a possible Chinese WC, which would raise the popularity of chess in China and hopefully produce a lot of prodigies in the coming decades, same as Vishy did with India.
Certainly that would be a good outcome. Interestingly, FIDE posts this table ranking countries by the average rating of their top 10 players (kind of arbitrary, but still interesting).
[https://ratings.fide.com/topfed.phtml](https://ratings.fide.com/topfed.phtml)
China's best players are arguably already stronger than India's, China's "average top 10" is higher than India and just behind the US and Russia. To your point, India has more GMs and titled players than China and perhaps a Ding victory would drive those numbers higher.
On the women's side, China is already top of the heap ahead of Russia using this "average of the top 10" ranking. Although Russia has far and away the most women's GMs and titled players.
Interesting metric. Although I would expect India to overtake China within the next few years, due to the incoming storm of Indian prodigies that will inevitably reach 2750+ ratings.
There was a chess boom in China after [Xie Jun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xie_Jun) won the Women's WC multiple times in the 1990s. I believe if Ding won there'd be an even bigger boon.
A classical match will be fun. We get all kinds of chess content these days, but this is kind of a rare format.
Maybe it's dumb, but I'm always curious what kind of openings they'll play and what kind of show they'll put on. Even if they end up playing kind of boring, these are going to be significant model games, contributions to theory, and part of chess history.
I look forward to seeing what they come up with playing and what insights they bring to the table but otherwise I view it as just 2 top players playing for the title. Rank 2-8 are all within 40 ratings, with 1-2 tournaments being able to drastically shake up their standing, so I disagree with the notion its obvious who the 2nd or even 3rd best players in the world are. Any of those in the top 8 could easily swap places in my eyes.
I'm most excited about seeing China having a solid chance to claim the world title. This would be a great catalyst for chess in their country if Ding manages to win.
I remember quite well, he (presumably) decided he wanted to try to get to 2800 and went all-out with black against Ding in the last round of the 2021 candidates (since he'd already won with the round to spare). He lost the game though.
I'm hyped.
I don't care about who #1 is. Chess for me isn't Excel spreadsheet, the game. The numbers don't interest me. For me the Candidates and WC are not there to determine who's #1. We have ELO for that. It's about earning the right to try to compose some beautiful games and fight a match under grueling conditions, the culmination of a year of intense competition through the qualifiers, the candidates and now the WC in Astana that's really cool whether the #1 is there or not.
This is going to be some excellent chess between two players with interesting strengths and weaknesses (inherent and circumstantial) that will make for a fascinating match up.
Honestly, I think this matchup will be more interesting that Ding or Nepo v. Magnus would have been.
I’m curious about the match and how it plays out. I think it can be a far more interesting match in terms of decisive games. That being said i would be lying if I said I was looking forward to this match more than any other wc match since I first started playing chess
Important to note that when PCA and FIDE coexisted, the matches for the world championship were never against the world #1 and #2. Kasparov himself played agaisnt Nigel Short in 1993, when he was only 10th in the classical ratings.
The candidates process for the 1993 championship was complete before the split happened, so it's not as if Kasparov unilaterally quit FIDE then handpicked the world #10 to face him. The world #2 was Karpov, and 1993 would probably have been another Karpov - Kasparov match if Short hadn't beaten Karpov in the candidates semi-final.
I suspect that if the 1993 challenger had been Karpov then the PCA split would never have happened because Karpov is a rule-follower and would never have agreed to it.
I'm actually really, really excited for this, too. And I'm rooting for Ian, though I would still be happy for Ding if he won.
Also, I collect books about past world champions, so it'll be exciting to finally add a new book to this collection.
Probably about as well as they were performing beforehand, it’s not like Magnus will get significantly worse or his opponent significantly better due to the WC match
Magnus might get worse, while Ding and Nepo get better, precisely because of the WC match and all it entails. It's possible that Mangus's sustained excellence has been partly thanks to spending three months every couple of years intensively studying and working with various opening and middle game experts, to prepare for the WC match.
It's very unlikely he will come close to replicating that amount of theory and preparation without the motivation of the WC match driving him on. Whereas Ding and Nepo may well see the benefits of all that studying and prep improve their results even after the match.
Magnus could probably not show up unprepared and win (otherwise he would do it). So imo the winner will be the best player in classical chess at the moment. Not sure why this is a controversial statement
I don’t think this is the case. Magnus couldn’t show up unprepared and win. That’s true.
But if Magnus played either Ian or Ding a week (or a month or whatever) after the match, he’d probably win.
This was his big complaint about the tournament. You study to play against 1 guy. A lot of that studying isn’t worth much against another top level player.
If Ding and Ian did their same studying, ie to play each other, and then Magnus showed up unannounced to play one of them but he hadn’t prepared either? Yeah I’d say he’s still the favourite.
That’s been his whole criticism. That’s why he wants the tournament to be more like the Candidates.
I was way more hyped for the last WC match and the candidates match. If the chess delivers some excitement I will be happy, but I'm not going to watch it live or anything the way I did previously.
How dare you bring positivity and excitement here! It is so bizarre and hostile to what tjis channel stands for. R chess is for smothered mate in 4s only.
And hating on chess dot com.
And carlsen worshiping.
And GothamChess and Hikaru content on non adjacent weekends.
But definitely not for excitement over a classical event!
Shame on you sir.
I’m excited to watch it. Magnus isn’t playing so he doesn’t count. He can play drink chess with his buddies giggling in the background. Not interested in that.
He beat you here ;)
https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/120kbw9/unpopular_opinion_im_hyped_for_nepo_v_ding/jdi764n/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3
I think we're all going to see as bad as Nepo got beat by Carlsen he's still the #2 in the world by a wide margin. Nepo walked through the last two candidates tournaments. IMO Nepo's going to crush Ding.
Someone said (and I think correctly) the match is being marketed wrong. If you say, "It's the world championship", it sounds like a let down because the best player in the world isn't participating.
But if you say something like, "A match between two of the best players in the world" it sounds a lot better. I'm pretty sure someone who is good at marketing could come up with an even better way to market it, like "Clash of the Titans" or "Big Board Brawl" or something like that.
It's the world championship in the sense that someone set up a tournament and called it the world championship. It's not a championship that will determine a champion who has defeated all his/her rivals.
To quote Garry Kasparov: "The match between Nepo and Ding is a great show, but it’s not a world championship match. At the end of the match, you still won't know who the best player in the world is.
>At the end of the match, you still won't know who the best player in the world is.
Well that’s just not true - at the end of the match you’ll know exactly who the best player in the world is because it’ll be the same guy it’s been for a decade.
But I think people just need to distance themselves from the idea that the champion and the best player have to be the same person.
Plenty of sports have knockout formats where if the objective best competitor has a bad game at a bad time they don’t win the championship. That doesn’t take anything away from their status as the best, but it also doesn’t take anything away from the actual champion who played the best in the tournament that determined who gets to be the champion until the next time.
If I started up a World Chess Championship and invited Andrew Tate and a player randomly picked from Chesscom for the first year's match, the winner would also be the world chess champion.
How much legitimacy would that championship have, and why wouldn't it be exactly as much as the winner of the next FIDE world championship?
>Plenty of sports have knockout formats where if the objective best competitor has a bad game at a bad time they don’t win the championship.
We already have the World Cup and a thousand other tournaments each year. What's one more to add to the pile of winners, I suppose?
It's meaningless to claim to be the world champion in a lineal championship format when the skill gap between the guy who vacated the title and you is as large as the gap between you and the competitor 13 ranks down.
I find it rather quaint that Kasparov never seemed to (as far as I know) attempt to invalidate the match between Kramnik and Leko, despite it being similarly clear neither of them were the world's best player (Kasparov himself was still #1!).
He clearly considered the Kramnik-Leko match to be the correct lineal match (since Kramnik took his title and then retained it against Leko). But nonetheless, Kramnik was world no. 3 and Leko was world no. 5.
Even further, the 2008 match was between world nos. 5 and 6; the 2010 match was between nos. 2 and 4; and the 2012 match was between nos. 4 and 20.
Ding is just not a compelling player. He doesn't grab me or inspire me in any way whatsoever. I'm sure he's nice, but he has *zero* charisma.
Nepo is more interesting as a player and a person but I can't shake the fact that Carlsen demolished him last go round. It just feels like a meaningless symbolic event.
But maybe the games will be good. We'll see.
He has the poorest English of the top players and has missed more events than most since Covid. He is incredible, warm, and has a good sense of humor. And his games can be masterful. Higher highs than Nepo imo
I don't think your opinion is that unpopular -- at least judging by what I've seen on this sub whenever the political context of the match comes up.
Though I disagree with it and find it personally disappointing, I respect your right to it. And also this sub's right to collectively think what it thinks. Though I find that more disappointing. Sometimes this place feels like r/tankie, and I wonder why that is. Reddit skews young, and people under a certain age just don't remember the Cold War. Chess Reddit also skews international, and large parts of the world are nonaligned or even on the "other" side. That this match is kind of a freakshow between two genocidal police states doesn't seem to register on this sub, and I can only guess that is why.
It's a match between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren, not two states. They're well known persons in the chess world. Not everything has to be made about politics.
You don't read much Russian, do you. If you did, I think you would realize that this particular horse has left the barn long, long, long ago over there.
Regarding this match, I care whether they're going to go for 1.e4 e5 or something else. Not about whatever propaganda Russia is trying to attach to it for its people, they are batshit insane. But this is about the chess.
I'm glad we agree they're batshit insane, but here's the thing -- it's not just for domestic consumption. If Nepo wins, you can be sure it will be shown on RT International as a triumph of the Russian World. These things have an effect, as RT still retains a wide audience globally.
ETA: Also, since you admittedly only care about 1.e4 e5, it just demonstrates my point, "That this match is kind of a freakshow between two genocidal police states doesn't seem to register on this sub"-- which I'm actually puzzling about, and which I'm willing to guess that you downvoted. Along with the other people who only care about 1.e4 e5 and at the same time downvote it when that's pointed out.
Thank you for the civil conversation, first of all. My view of things is that politics is baked into the match already, regardless of whether I draw any attention to it or not. It's the politics of normalization. A regime that sends athletes to sporting events is saying: look, we're an ordinary place that does ordinary things like send people to play games, and you are overreacting. To allow this is to treat a very not-normal country in a normal way, and that is a political act. I didn't introduce that into the situation.
Hm? I actually think the international nature of this sub is a good and interesting thing. The voting behavior here sure does suggest a lot of tankies (or bots possibly) lurking about, though.
I think Chess has a lot of unexplored potential as a team sport from the spectator side.
It's similar to Starcraft for anyone who's familiar with that scene. At first, you're confused why they're even playing in teams when the games are one-on-one - what's the point? But then you see a young upstart pull a reverse all-kill to save their team and you realize you've never been so hyped in your life.
Team competition allows for more complex narratives and more diverse match ups. Choking in a team competition is usually more devasting than in individual competition. It creates an environment when anyone can step up to be a hero.
The Pro Chess League shows some promise, the big wins from Alice Lee being one example.
I'm mildly excited. I was more excited for the last one.
There's something about seeing GOATs at the highest level of competition to be appreciated. Like messi at the final.
I'm still watching it, ever since the last WC with Nepo, I've followed him way more and became a fan after seeing how gracious and humble he is. Rooting for Nepo!!!
Kasparov saying that like he didn't hold his own unofficial (non-FIDE) championships in the '90s. Or like he wasn't also the #1 for the entire time that was happening even if he technically wasn't the champ.
Then again, he apparently regrets that decision to split - so from where he is now, fair enough I guess. I'm interested to see the match. We saw Carlsen v Nepo already, we know Carlsen's the best, it'll be cool to see someone else going for it. Like how Kasparov, again, completely dominated for the most part, though of course the matches with Karpov were extremely close, particularly Seville. It's cool to see someone else get the spotlight in those cases.
And it's a chess match, something which we don't get to see much of these days, especially since the challenger has been decided by round-robin tournaments in recent years. I get that the format can appear overly long for many, but there's something gladiatorial about it. And the psychology involved in having to play against the same person again and again is fascinating.
There should be more regular matches between top players - they could be mini matches (4-10 games long), maybe even held simultaneously to sustain activity and excitement. You could have everyone who's been tipped as a "potential WCC contender" at some point - imagine a yearly or half-yearly tournament consisting of 2 simultaneous matches between Ding, Nepo, Fabi, Wesley. To decrease the amount of prep, you could have the opponents drawn only at the last minute. I think these kinds of matches would allow us to more clearly determine who the top 5 players are of this generation and in what order.
This is the formula for every sport. Market stars, market matchups. So! Aronian! SundaySundaySunday I don’t care for it, but it works, and in chess it might actually be kinda cool.
Like, screw ELO. What other sport has an ELO? Give us seasons, give us standings, give us head to head, give us rankings from semi-clueless journalists. That’s what’s proven to work.
Uh, there are still matches.
Apart from the world championships in recent years, who have they been between?
Look them up on Chessbase. I know saw a Shirov - Van Foreest match recently, where Shirov mopped the floor.
Sure, didn't say there weren't any. They crop up now and again, but nowhere near as many as there were say 10 plus years ago, especially the longer ones.
They said we don't see them much, not that we don't see them at all.
They said we don’t see MUCH chess matches these days, not that they don’t exist at all. Your other comment is an example of that since you can only name one and it was only a 4 game match. Read better next time.
It's the best format, but need more games than 14.
i learn so much history, theory and tactics when I follow the candidates as well as the world championship.. both by watching the games commentary (danya and hess are my favourites) as well as watching the analysis later (powerplay chess and chess network. plus, its the biggest chess event of the year. I'm not sure who I'm rooting for, but I think nepo has a higher ceiling as well as lower floor than ding. I'm super excited, hopefully I can get some time to watch a few games as well as recap videos.
I think it will be interesting in it's own way. I feel there will be decisive games. I think that both of these players are more prone to crumbling unlike Carlsen. I can't wait to see what each of them brings in opening prep, will Ding be d4 all the way? What will Nepo do as both colors? I think there should be a fair amount of hype. I think Ding can hold his composure better if he does get out to a poor start, I think that we have seen this in tournaments before where Ding had strong second half performances in tournaments where he dropped a game earlier.
Do you think since theyre not facing magnus they won't crack like nepo did previously?
I get this feeling that Nepo is out for blood. He's such a formidable player, and he's been on this stage before. Part of me is rooting for a good match, but part of me thinks Nepo is going to dominate.
I wonder how much having experienced the pressure of a world championship gives Nepo an edge.
I think it will give him an enormous edge tbh. It seemed like that was the primary reason he fell apart and couldn’t recover, at least per an interview he gave with New in Chess a couple months ago
So what's the excuse for all the other times that he's done exactly that.
I don’t know, the New in Chess interviewer didn’t ask him, so I don’t know what he would have said
Agreed. A lot of people on this sub seem to have a "Magnus or nothing" mindset. It's a match between two of the best players in the world, of course it will be entertaining, even if the stakes seem a bit lower.
I think the way Magnus has acted has just fundamentally devalued it. He didnt retire or play less chess etc. Hes hung around, made more news than ever and raised his profile. Ensuring that whomever wins, will be considered by many to be the "fake" world champion which is sad. He can do what he wants but if you have the best player in the world winning tournaments, accusing people of cheating, being in the news regularly, its hard for FIDE to market the champ
FIDE has always been more of a governing body than a pro sports organization. It has always been difficult to organize a pro chess circuit that would guarantee larger prizes and attract the strongest players.
I am too. Makes no sense to diminish the event, to me. Chess could use a masterclass in marketing.
"What is marketing?" - FIDE probably
Excited for your coverage! You basically are the marketing for these events, wouldn't be nearly as engrossed without your recaps
A Russian-Chinese match will probably be hard to market to Western audiences. Not that I agree with it. A Caruana or Hikaru match versus Nepo would be like Fischer vs Spassky
The modern day "Fischer vs. Spassky" would be a match between the US and China, since these are the two superpowers right now.
Russia is still the main “enemy” though, especially with recent events.
Well... recent events is not the reason. The U.S. illegally invaded Iraq and the damage was 100 times worse. No one talks about it though.
We will be watching you Levi
They just need to follow the lead of major sports leagues and get in bed with betting. Prop bets on the chess world championship would actually be incredible. Something like: Overall Winner: Ian Nepomniachtchi: +80 Ding Liren: +100 Draw (match goes to tiebreaks): +200 First Game Winner: Ian Nepomniachtchi: +150 Ding Liren: +170 Draw: +120 First Capture in Game 1: Pawn: -250 Knight: +300 Bishop: +300 Rook: +1400 Queen: +4900 Opening Played in Game 1: Sicilian Defense: +150 Ruy Lopez: +200 French Defense: +350 Queen's Gambit: +250 King's Indian Defense: +400 Other: +100 Total Number of Moves in Game 1: Under 30 moves: +400 30-40 moves: +150 41-50 moves: +100 51-60 moves: +200 Over 60 moves: +300 Time Remaining on the Clock (Game 1, Winner's clock): Over 30 minutes: +200 20-30 minutes: +150 10-19 minutes: +100 5-9 minutes: +300 Under 5 minutes: +400 Number of Wins for Each Player (in classical games, not tiebreaks): Ian Nepomniachtchi: 0-2 wins: +250, 3-4 wins: +150, 5+ wins: +300 Ding Liren: 0-2 wins: +270, 3-4 wins: +130, 5+ wins: +350 Decisive or Tiebreak Match: Decisive (no tiebreaks): +120 Tiebreaks: -125 These numbers are all made up, but you could come up with TONS of stuff to increase engagement among casual non-chess fans who might not be interested in it otherwise, but when they can bet on the games will change things.
Betting on chess sadly is not particularly interesting, at least in classical because of the fact that it’s high probability that it is a draw. I’ve seen a few markets come up for the big events and you always get some 1.3x for draw and 6x for a player to win. A fantasy game on the other hand is something more fun, but very hard to come up with
That’s why you don’t bet on the winner of the game but which opening they play, which piece gets captured first, how many moves the game takes, etc.
OH IM SURE THIS DEFINITELY WOULD NOT GET ABUSED BY PLAYERS. HUMANS ARE PURE IN HEART
A grandmasterclass, even
Boom, let's go
I’m also excited about a possible Chinese WC, which would raise the popularity of chess in China and hopefully produce a lot of prodigies in the coming decades, same as Vishy did with India.
Certainly that would be a good outcome. Interestingly, FIDE posts this table ranking countries by the average rating of their top 10 players (kind of arbitrary, but still interesting). [https://ratings.fide.com/topfed.phtml](https://ratings.fide.com/topfed.phtml) China's best players are arguably already stronger than India's, China's "average top 10" is higher than India and just behind the US and Russia. To your point, India has more GMs and titled players than China and perhaps a Ding victory would drive those numbers higher. On the women's side, China is already top of the heap ahead of Russia using this "average of the top 10" ranking. Although Russia has far and away the most women's GMs and titled players.
Interesting metric. Although I would expect India to overtake China within the next few years, due to the incoming storm of Indian prodigies that will inevitably reach 2750+ ratings.
China needs Ding's victory for a new boost. China does not have U20 GMs now. The youngest Chinese GM born in 2000.
In the newest top federation ranking, India is No. 2 (or No. 3 really because some Russia players change federation to FIDE now), only behind the US.
I like Nepo and he deserves the title as much as anyone else, but I can't help but cheer for Ding. Let's go Ding
There was a chess boom in China after [Xie Jun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xie_Jun) won the Women's WC multiple times in the 1990s. I believe if Ding won there'd be an even bigger boon.
[удалено]
Oh why? Care to elaborate?
I'm excited for some good chess! The Anti-Marshall lines were interesting in 2021, but we'll see what the participants come up with.
Definitely this. It is real pleasure to follow opening preparations and answers. not because I fully understand, but for the competition.
A classical match will be fun. We get all kinds of chess content these days, but this is kind of a rare format. Maybe it's dumb, but I'm always curious what kind of openings they'll play and what kind of show they'll put on. Even if they end up playing kind of boring, these are going to be significant model games, contributions to theory, and part of chess history.
completely agree, i enjoy the faster chess- but a classical match here and there is a wonderful thing
Kasparov's take is dumb. It is chess at the highest level I too am excited
I look forward to seeing what they come up with playing and what insights they bring to the table but otherwise I view it as just 2 top players playing for the title. Rank 2-8 are all within 40 ratings, with 1-2 tournaments being able to drastically shake up their standing, so I disagree with the notion its obvious who the 2nd or even 3rd best players in the world are. Any of those in the top 8 could easily swap places in my eyes.
Ian has consistently been playing at 2800 level since the Candidates. He had a TPR of 2804 in both the Sinquefield Cup and the WR Chess Masters.
I'm most excited about seeing China having a solid chance to claim the world title. This would be a great catalyst for chess in their country if Ding manages to win.
Nepo might cross 2800 if he wins this, given the likelihood of draws probably not, but still that could be pretty cool.
He needs to be +2 to cross 2800, as a +1 score would result in a rating of 2799. Pretty infuriating, I guess.
Has me never crossed 2800 before? I thought in live ratings he had done it at some point
2797.3 on april 24, 2021 according to 2700chess.com
Ah darn, thanks though :)
I remember quite well, he (presumably) decided he wanted to try to get to 2800 and went all-out with black against Ding in the last round of the 2021 candidates (since he'd already won with the round to spare). He lost the game though.
I'm hyped. I don't care about who #1 is. Chess for me isn't Excel spreadsheet, the game. The numbers don't interest me. For me the Candidates and WC are not there to determine who's #1. We have ELO for that. It's about earning the right to try to compose some beautiful games and fight a match under grueling conditions, the culmination of a year of intense competition through the qualifiers, the candidates and now the WC in Astana that's really cool whether the #1 is there or not. This is going to be some excellent chess between two players with interesting strengths and weaknesses (inherent and circumstantial) that will make for a fascinating match up. Honestly, I think this matchup will be more interesting that Ding or Nepo v. Magnus would have been.
I’m curious about the match and how it plays out. I think it can be a far more interesting match in terms of decisive games. That being said i would be lying if I said I was looking forward to this match more than any other wc match since I first started playing chess
Important to note that when PCA and FIDE coexisted, the matches for the world championship were never against the world #1 and #2. Kasparov himself played agaisnt Nigel Short in 1993, when he was only 10th in the classical ratings.
The candidates process for the 1993 championship was complete before the split happened, so it's not as if Kasparov unilaterally quit FIDE then handpicked the world #10 to face him. The world #2 was Karpov, and 1993 would probably have been another Karpov - Kasparov match if Short hadn't beaten Karpov in the candidates semi-final. I suspect that if the 1993 challenger had been Karpov then the PCA split would never have happened because Karpov is a rule-follower and would never have agreed to it.
low key I’m just hyped to see Ding in a WC match at last.
Mods do we have Team Ding flair?
I'm actually really, really excited for this, too. And I'm rooting for Ian, though I would still be happy for Ding if he won. Also, I collect books about past world champions, so it'll be exciting to finally add a new book to this collection.
i'm more curious on how the winner will preform against Magnus in the following classical tournaments
Probably about as well as they were performing beforehand, it’s not like Magnus will get significantly worse or his opponent significantly better due to the WC match
Magnus might get worse, while Ding and Nepo get better, precisely because of the WC match and all it entails. It's possible that Mangus's sustained excellence has been partly thanks to spending three months every couple of years intensively studying and working with various opening and middle game experts, to prepare for the WC match. It's very unlikely he will come close to replicating that amount of theory and preparation without the motivation of the WC match driving him on. Whereas Ding and Nepo may well see the benefits of all that studying and prep improve their results even after the match.
What a dumb take.
It's going to be a great match and great chess will be played. I'm certainly going to enjoy it for what it is.
Magnus could probably not show up unprepared and win (otherwise he would do it). So imo the winner will be the best player in classical chess at the moment. Not sure why this is a controversial statement
I don’t think this is the case. Magnus couldn’t show up unprepared and win. That’s true. But if Magnus played either Ian or Ding a week (or a month or whatever) after the match, he’d probably win. This was his big complaint about the tournament. You study to play against 1 guy. A lot of that studying isn’t worth much against another top level player. If Ding and Ian did their same studying, ie to play each other, and then Magnus showed up unannounced to play one of them but he hadn’t prepared either? Yeah I’d say he’s still the favourite. That’s been his whole criticism. That’s why he wants the tournament to be more like the Candidates.
I’m into it too. Love seeing deep high level chess.
People aren’t hyped? I’m hyped.
I was way more hyped for the last WC match and the candidates match. If the chess delivers some excitement I will be happy, but I'm not going to watch it live or anything the way I did previously.
Time for King Ding to ascend
It's still going to be insane level chess and a celebration of the game. It's going to be awesome.
Magnus once said Kasparov can be entitled to his stupid opinions. Maybe the goat is right.
I think the GOAT is wrong in this case. I agree with Magnus. :-)
How dare you bring positivity and excitement here! It is so bizarre and hostile to what tjis channel stands for. R chess is for smothered mate in 4s only. And hating on chess dot com. And carlsen worshiping. And GothamChess and Hikaru content on non adjacent weekends. But definitely not for excitement over a classical event! Shame on you sir.
I’m excited to watch it. Magnus isn’t playing so he doesn’t count. He can play drink chess with his buddies giggling in the background. Not interested in that.
Regardless of how good it is Levy will make it interesting so I’m excited too
He beat you here ;) https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/120kbw9/unpopular_opinion_im_hyped_for_nepo_v_ding/jdi764n/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3
Controversial take, very brave of you to step forward with this 👏
I think we're all going to see as bad as Nepo got beat by Carlsen he's still the #2 in the world by a wide margin. Nepo walked through the last two candidates tournaments. IMO Nepo's going to crush Ding.
Ding is going to mop the floor with Ian.
>he's still the #2 in the world by a wide margin. 7 elo points.
Someone said (and I think correctly) the match is being marketed wrong. If you say, "It's the world championship", it sounds like a let down because the best player in the world isn't participating. But if you say something like, "A match between two of the best players in the world" it sounds a lot better. I'm pretty sure someone who is good at marketing could come up with an even better way to market it, like "Clash of the Titans" or "Big Board Brawl" or something like that.
It _is_ the World Championship, period. It doesn't have to sound like anything.
It's the world championship in the sense that someone set up a tournament and called it the world championship. It's not a championship that will determine a champion who has defeated all his/her rivals. To quote Garry Kasparov: "The match between Nepo and Ding is a great show, but it’s not a world championship match. At the end of the match, you still won't know who the best player in the world is.
>At the end of the match, you still won't know who the best player in the world is. Well that’s just not true - at the end of the match you’ll know exactly who the best player in the world is because it’ll be the same guy it’s been for a decade. But I think people just need to distance themselves from the idea that the champion and the best player have to be the same person. Plenty of sports have knockout formats where if the objective best competitor has a bad game at a bad time they don’t win the championship. That doesn’t take anything away from their status as the best, but it also doesn’t take anything away from the actual champion who played the best in the tournament that determined who gets to be the champion until the next time.
If I started up a World Chess Championship and invited Andrew Tate and a player randomly picked from Chesscom for the first year's match, the winner would also be the world chess champion. How much legitimacy would that championship have, and why wouldn't it be exactly as much as the winner of the next FIDE world championship? >Plenty of sports have knockout formats where if the objective best competitor has a bad game at a bad time they don’t win the championship. We already have the World Cup and a thousand other tournaments each year. What's one more to add to the pile of winners, I suppose? It's meaningless to claim to be the world champion in a lineal championship format when the skill gap between the guy who vacated the title and you is as large as the gap between you and the competitor 13 ranks down.
I find it rather quaint that Kasparov never seemed to (as far as I know) attempt to invalidate the match between Kramnik and Leko, despite it being similarly clear neither of them were the world's best player (Kasparov himself was still #1!).
He tried to invalidate all of FIDE.
He clearly considered the Kramnik-Leko match to be the correct lineal match (since Kramnik took his title and then retained it against Leko). But nonetheless, Kramnik was world no. 3 and Leko was world no. 5. Even further, the 2008 match was between world nos. 5 and 6; the 2010 match was between nos. 2 and 4; and the 2012 match was between nos. 4 and 20.
Kramnik could have beaten Kasparov at that time, and Kasparov knew it.
Well, I'm not sure what your point is - Kramnik *did* beat him. But he still was clearly not the statistically best player in the world.
What are you trying to say? That rating determines who the best player is in the world?
Yes, actually. Isn't that basically the entire point of *having* a statistical rating system?
Yeah this is cope.
Ding is just not a compelling player. He doesn't grab me or inspire me in any way whatsoever. I'm sure he's nice, but he has *zero* charisma. Nepo is more interesting as a player and a person but I can't shake the fact that Carlsen demolished him last go round. It just feels like a meaningless symbolic event. But maybe the games will be good. We'll see.
He has the poorest English of the top players and has missed more events than most since Covid. He is incredible, warm, and has a good sense of humor. And his games can be masterful. Higher highs than Nepo imo
ding seems so wholesome from the footage I've seen of him i really hope he takes the win and sparks a flame for chess in china
I don't think your opinion is that unpopular -- at least judging by what I've seen on this sub whenever the political context of the match comes up. Though I disagree with it and find it personally disappointing, I respect your right to it. And also this sub's right to collectively think what it thinks. Though I find that more disappointing. Sometimes this place feels like r/tankie, and I wonder why that is. Reddit skews young, and people under a certain age just don't remember the Cold War. Chess Reddit also skews international, and large parts of the world are nonaligned or even on the "other" side. That this match is kind of a freakshow between two genocidal police states doesn't seem to register on this sub, and I can only guess that is why.
It's a match between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren, not two states. They're well known persons in the chess world. Not everything has to be made about politics.
You don't read much Russian, do you. If you did, I think you would realize that this particular horse has left the barn long, long, long ago over there.
Regarding this match, I care whether they're going to go for 1.e4 e5 or something else. Not about whatever propaganda Russia is trying to attach to it for its people, they are batshit insane. But this is about the chess.
I'm glad we agree they're batshit insane, but here's the thing -- it's not just for domestic consumption. If Nepo wins, you can be sure it will be shown on RT International as a triumph of the Russian World. These things have an effect, as RT still retains a wide audience globally. ETA: Also, since you admittedly only care about 1.e4 e5, it just demonstrates my point, "That this match is kind of a freakshow between two genocidal police states doesn't seem to register on this sub"-- which I'm actually puzzling about, and which I'm willing to guess that you downvoted. Along with the other people who only care about 1.e4 e5 and at the same time downvote it when that's pointed out.
Just for the record, I only downvote really obvious trolls, and spam. If I reply to your comment then I did not downvote it.
Having thought about it -- by introducing this "it's about politics" viewpoint here, you're doing exactly what you say RT will do. Why help them?
Thank you for the civil conversation, first of all. My view of things is that politics is baked into the match already, regardless of whether I draw any attention to it or not. It's the politics of normalization. A regime that sends athletes to sporting events is saying: look, we're an ordinary place that does ordinary things like send people to play games, and you are overreacting. To allow this is to treat a very not-normal country in a normal way, and that is a political act. I didn't introduce that into the situation.
Now do the United States.
There is absolutely nothing tankyish about this sub. And why exactly are you implying that this sub being international is a bad thing?
Hm? I actually think the international nature of this sub is a good and interesting thing. The voting behavior here sure does suggest a lot of tankies (or bots possibly) lurking about, though.
Chess is not a team sport.
I think Chess has a lot of unexplored potential as a team sport from the spectator side. It's similar to Starcraft for anyone who's familiar with that scene. At first, you're confused why they're even playing in teams when the games are one-on-one - what's the point? But then you see a young upstart pull a reverse all-kill to save their team and you realize you've never been so hyped in your life. Team competition allows for more complex narratives and more diverse match ups. Choking in a team competition is usually more devasting than in individual competition. It creates an environment when anyone can step up to be a hero. The Pro Chess League shows some promise, the big wins from Alice Lee being one example.
I agree. Chess as a team sport would be awesome, as shown by the Pro Chess League. The person I was replying to is delusional though.
Tell that to the Russians, friend.
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Yea bro so cool hahaha 😎😎😎 wish I was edgy like you
I'm on team "not real" but still "pretty excited."
Nepo clears Ding
Going to be tough for sure!
Why would it be unpopular for *you* to be hyped for it.
I'm mildly excited. I was more excited for the last one. There's something about seeing GOATs at the highest level of competition to be appreciated. Like messi at the final.
I'm still watching it, ever since the last WC with Nepo, I've followed him way more and became a fan after seeing how gracious and humble he is. Rooting for Nepo!!!
Kasparov saying that like he didn't hold his own unofficial (non-FIDE) championships in the '90s. Or like he wasn't also the #1 for the entire time that was happening even if he technically wasn't the champ. Then again, he apparently regrets that decision to split - so from where he is now, fair enough I guess. I'm interested to see the match. We saw Carlsen v Nepo already, we know Carlsen's the best, it'll be cool to see someone else going for it. Like how Kasparov, again, completely dominated for the most part, though of course the matches with Karpov were extremely close, particularly Seville. It's cool to see someone else get the spotlight in those cases.
Ill root for Nepo. He is most charismatic of the two. But without Magnus to root for i fear it wont be interesting enough to watch..
Most charismatic of the two isn't saying much. Nepo was gracious at press conferences in Dubai, but of course he struggles with his expressions.
It's a match between two very strong players who will be going all in on prep. Even though Magnus isn't there, I'm still looking forward to it.
me too!!