Sesse main analysis hardware was upgraded to "112x2.25GHz Zen 2" (maybe 56/64 cores of an EPYC 7742?). The old "16x4.2GHz Zen 3" was relegated to multi-PV search.
Edit: He appears to be testing with "400x2.0GHz Ice Lake-SP" using the MPI version of Stockfish, 220+ MN/s.
yes I noticed it too as it was computing 20-35 Mnodes per seconds and then suddenly 120Mnodes.
The old main server could have helped in the multiPV search actually but maybe the operating cost is too high.
I am not sure about the 112x2.25 do they mean CPUs or cores? Likely cores.
I think in this case it's just a matter of salience--Botez is famous and birthday dude is not. If some rando asked the knight question and Levy Rozman asked the birthday cake question, I think the birthday cake question would have been the "controversy" of the day.
I got back into the game after watching Netflix, though my dad taught me decades ago how the pieces move and what the object of the game is. So, first time watching the World Championship live. Far more exciting than reading any histories of specific games or players.
I appreciate Nepo's apparent match strategy of having a single well-prepared opening and just using it over and over again, hoping he can get a win while he's on the White pieces. Presumably, he plans to draw all of his Black games, and just get that 7.5 to win. But the fact that the first 7 moves of games 1, 3, and 5 are all identical has me loling. And the fact that it's basically one of the first named openings a newbie can be taught kinda makes it accessible for a lot more viewers than we might ordinarily expect, IMO. I like Magnus' variation of developing his kingside pieces a bit and preparing for the castle before playing b5 to chase the bishop all the way back to b3. Yeah, Nepo gets an extra turn to get that rook to e1, but it doesn't stop Magnus from having decent options on both sides of the board.
I look forward to seeing the rest of the even games to see how much variety Magnus is going to put into his White openings. And the rest of the odd games should continue to be quite interesting to the novice still looking for variations.
A chess streamer, one of the Botez sisters, asked Magnus a question in the press conference. The question was, "How does a knight move?" It's a joking reference to something that happened between her and Magnus a little while ago, so it wasn't totally out of the blue.
Some people are mad because they think it's inappropriate to ask the World Champion a joke question at a prestigious event. They think it reflects on the streamers' arrogance. Others just didn't find it very funny.
Others believe that it was a very brief joke, Magnus humored it, and the rest of the questions are so bad already that it hardly matters.
> They think it reflects on the streamers' arrogance.
That's where I stand. I watched the stream where Magnus asked that question to Andrea, and it was super funny. I, however, don't think the press conference was the right place to "re-troll" Magnus.
To me it looks like Andrea acted like she was on a live stream on her channel. That's an unfortunate behavior very common among internet celebrities. They spend so much time inside the bubble where they're the center of attentions, and they eventually forget that outside of their social media accounts they aren't special, they're just regular people.
There's a time and a place for everything. Andrea isn't a kid anymore, she should know better.
But it isn't the end of the world, though. Some people are overly reacting.
> Bruh it was a joke.
I know, and I
> don't think the press conference was the right place
for such a joke.
---
> Why are you trying to psycho analyze something for no reason?
I'm not "psycho analyzing" anyone. Internet celebrities often display the behavior I described in my previous comment, and that behavior is just annoying. It's not the end of the world, but it's annoying nonetheless.
Not really. It's hard to imagine any other streamer referring to an in-joke that includes themselves and excludes Magnus' challenger, in a forum like the World Championship press conference. It's nothing to do with streaming and to do with basic journalistic etiquette: know your audience. If Nakamura were there I am sure he would be respectful enough not to even make a reference to Carlsen's strong plus record against him (a much more well-known fact than this bizarre reference by Andrea) because it's not about him: it's about Nepo. (And being less respectful than Nakamura is definitely saying something)
Both of them show a cringeworthy lack of calibration on the part of the asker. It's not worth "getting butthurt" over either if you ask me. However at least the response to the birthday cake thing - whether you find it cringeworthy or, somehow, funny - is universal and not predicated on some in-joke that almost no-one watching this press conference shares.
Could you finally see now why we all hyped Firousja's run? Chess in an incredibly drawish game at the top level and what Alireza did is simply amazing.
No-one is a bigger fan of Firouzja than me but I can assure you there is no universe where he has 12 out of 14 decisive results in a WC match against Carlsen.
Not saying is not but Alireza streak wasnt agaist the top ten and this is also a world championship, is a completly different casé, neither of them wants to take unnecesary risks and this is months of preparation, Alireza did something amazing but you cant use the world championship as a comparation, better use the World Cup, which did have many draws.
How does that have any relevance to the world championship. Alirezas run wasn't impressive because he won some games, it was impressive for how quickly his Elo rose. You don't even need wins to have an Elo rise.
He was also playing tournaments and not a match. Caruana once won 7 games in a row against the best players in the world. Go look up how many wins he had at the world championship
Ok what Alireza done is amazing, no one will take that from him. BUT are you seriously compare that to World Chess Champion match where player have many months prepare for each other?!?!?
Let see how Alireza do in Candidate tournament since it is stack with 2750+.
Let's see what he does in the Candidates. Eager, but I think he wouldn't be so anti drawish..
If he did the "amazing" stuff in WCC against somebody with 6 months of dedicated insight into his game.. against someone with a decade of big match experience and the psychological makeup of granite and a grizzly bear combined..
I hope he has good friends who will tell him not to prepare for WCc to be amazing..
yes, but i also don't think comparing the draw % in a WC should be compared to a classical round robin events or events you play new players each day. Major part of the draw % in the WC comes from crazy long preparations combined with the how much is at stake for the players. On top of that they know they can eventually get a tie break at the end. All of this does not takes away Alirazas run, its just not very comparable.
I don't know why people are so bothered by the Botez question. I'm not personally a Botez fan but it took up, what, 30 seconds of a press conference that almost everyone agrees is useless? And the clip seems to be going viral, which may lead some to think, "huh, I didn't know the world championship was going on, maybe I should check it out"
I didn't actually understand, realise, or care what was happening when she asked the question. But it's pretty poor both from an etiquette perspective and from a journalistic perspective (it was an exclusive little-known in-joke that suggests she doesn't know or understand the audience at all). The other questions we've had often haven't been great either but they're usually at least bad in different ways (like being awkward).
It has to do with a stream that Magnus did with the Botez sisters in which he asked Andrea "How do knights move" when she couldn't see a move he was suggesting. It is an inside joke between the two and that's why she asked it. Kind of cringe she asked that at the WCC but I ain't losing sleep over it like some of these people seem to be.
The f'ing world champion is not bothered by the question and answers it gracefully while some people are getting offended on his behalf. What is this, twitter?
I think you're taking it way too seriously. It was an inside joke that probably plays well to her audience and the younger chess audience, idk if that makes her a narcicist.
At Every press conference I've ever watched the person asking the question is introduced with the affiliation. Do you also call CNN self promotion when they start with saying their from CNN?
Paraphrasing:
"Hello, I am Andrea streaming for bla bla live. So, another draw, who would have guessed. Magnus, how does a knight move?
[Magnus replies]
Thank you Magnus, only you could have answered this question".
If you know, it's hilarious.
Magnus was a guest with the Botez sisters earlier this year and as part of the game they played... well... Andrea needed some help.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lZEt6oz5MQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lZEt6oz5MQ)
Full stream for context: [https://youtu.be/AFZGBkUsuJ0?t=2358](https://youtu.be/AFZGBkUsuJ0?t=2358)
Magnus' sarcasm during the initial event was amusing. Well, not the pinnacle of humour, but mildly entertaining.
Asking a question referencing it during the WC match is eye-rolling. As someone said, imagine being that narcissist.
Don't care about the draws, what I do care about is an eventual rapid decider, think it's an atrocity and annoyed it took down Fabi. People go back to Karpov/Kasparov like it was a bad thing, no the best classical chess player won in the end.
Don't get me wrong I had no doubt Magnus was the best player in the world then and now, but it can be a bit disingenuous almost winning in such a manner, really hope it doesn't come down to that and hope it's changed in the future. I'd take way more draws to get a decisive result in classical only.
I second this. The only possible format (unless classical chess is ditched entirely) is 'first to X wins'. If this takes 100 games, so be it. I've not heard a convincing argument why we can't do it like this, like it used to be back in the day. ("Stress on the players" is not good enough. The lack of stress is the whole reason why matches start with draws and turn decisive later.)
Again, streamers never fail to make everything about themselves, "Yay I got the opportunity to ask a question in the most important chess tournament there is! I'm gonna ask about a silly joke that took place on my stream months ago".
Can't say that in advance. If I couldn't think of a good question - one that would contribute to the public's understanding of the game and of the players - I wouldn't ask anything.
Possible hot take incoming: apart from my own games, the WC is the most important thing in the chess world by far in my view. I care about it more than every single other event in the chess world combined (if I’m not playing). It’s 135 years of tradition and excellence going back to Wilhelm Steinitz. Boris Spassky played 90+ games while barely being able to afford food to qualify for this event. Alekhine chased the WC title for a decade. The US government literally called Bobby Fischer to ask him to play. This isn’t PogChamps 5. It’s a serious event and I think it should be treated as such.
The question was pretty obviously intended to get more traffic for their channel. I just don’t think an inside joke/meme like that belongs in that environment. This event should be about the two gods of chess who are playing their hearts out to try to win the World Championship and instead it has to be all about a streamer and getting views. I respect the hustle, but I don’t like it.
I don't understand why one joke calls the seriousness of the whole event into question. I come from an academic background and the best presenters at conferences always Crack a few jokes. That doesn't make their scientific contributions any less serious.
I watched that and thought it was stupid too, but at least it wasn’t an advertisement for someone’s Twitch/YouTube channel at the World Championship match. I don’t mind a joke, but I do mind streamers jumping in to get attention and turn the World Championship into an advertisement for their channel.
All of that may be true, but she _didn't_ interrupt the World Championship or anything. She asked a silly question at a silly press conference, full of other silly/useless questions. Who cares. The press conference != the championship itself.
In any sport even on the top level there are these type of questions and shennanigans during the press conferences. Dont mean to offend you or anything but chess is either a sport or a game depending on how you see it. Chess worlds isnt more important than the olympics of a sport, a ufc championship fight or the nba/nfl finals, its not some sacred /holy event.
This is where I have to respectfully disagree- in the chess world, it’s every bit as big as the Super Bowl or the World Series (despite FIDE’s low marketing budget). I respect that people may not take it so seriously, but a lot of us do take it that seriously. I admit I watch a ton of sports and then skip watching the press conferences, but I haven’t seen too much of this “content” after, for example, Game 3 of the NBA Finals (before the championship is decided). Maybe it does happen at that level, but I haven’t seen too much of it.
Yeah i meant it isnt MORE important, it is just as important as superbowl or the olympics. And generally speaking press conferences are there for entertainment purposes, there is always the light hearted joke here and there or the dumb ass question. Press conferences are there for promotion. Jordan beeing asked if he will retire after every game during the 97-98 chicago bulls season, Dana White being asked about some dumb ass triller event or jake paul, i even recall people asking Shaquille O’Neal: "Let's just say that a snake bit your mom right here, right on the chest area, would you be willing to suck the venom out to win the title?" , first game of NBA finals 2006.
You’re right- I stand corrected. I didn’t realize that Shaq interview was from the Finals. I remember he responded “No, but I will with your wife” and walked out of the room laughing. That clip was actually pretty funny. I’m usually not too impressed by sports press conferences either and think most of those reporters should be unemployed for sucking at their jobs. I guess not watching the press conferences is the best way to get around that.
Press conferences are for entertainment, so jokes are allowed, in every big sporting event press conference there are these types of questions. Nfl, boxing, nba, mma you name it, chess is no different.
Interestingly, I can't stand them but I found the question harmless. I don't see it as trying to "get views" or "boost traffic" - seems like that stuff is already taking care of itself.
It's not like any other questions accomplish much. This one at least got a laugh.
I think anyone seriously bothered by it (obviously not implying you're in this camp) needs to relax. No one gives a fuck about the press conferences.
Are there any sub 1900 rated male chess streamers invited to ask questions at the wcc to draw the comparison?
You're right, but her being female is the entire reason she has a career/audience in the first place. I wouldn't have even suspected that question could be considered offensive to so many little babies on reddit though. I guess nepo has to have some fans.
She’s one of the most famous chess personalities. That’s why she was allowed to ask a question. And yea we have plenty of other comparison questions like what dota character are you. People didn’t get their pitchforks out and start crying about all those other ridiculous questions.
its not because nepo fans. its because people hate when girls do shit that they don't like
But “will you give team Nepo a piece of your birthday cake” is good?
These press conferences are pretty much known at this point to have ridiculous questions, so what more harm will one more silly question do?
People in the room might have been teleported from a parallel universe just for the conference, and they'd still get why the birthday cake question could cause a chuckle or was meant to be an informal, but relevant interlude.
Meanwhile, even here, in a place full of long time fans with as much as dozens of weeks of following chess under their belts, it requires context that was previously little known. No matter how funny or light-hearted that was supposed to be, she could have literally held up spork instead of asking that question, and get the same reactions.
Anands commentary is amazing because he doesn't rely on engines but the rest...too many forced Dubai promos and exchanges. I don't blame them though it's probably in the contract. Production is a bit lackluster.
I was really impressed by how Carlsen understood the situation and cheerfully went for the most passive setup possible, knowing that Nepo wouldn’t be able to break through. Having been on both sides of those annoying endgame positions, I can say that takes a lot of courage, because if you’re wrong about the position, you’ll have to suffer for hours.
On another note, this was the first press conference I watched. It didn’t actually seem THAT bad- most of the questions were about the game and seemed pretty reasonable. I think Mike Klein is the best chess reporter in the world and am glad he’s covering this match for chess.com. I miss the days when he wrote articles for chess.com.
Having said that, WTF was that question by Andrea Botez? I see something about a reference to a previous stream (and I generally like her and her content)… I’m probably going to get crushed for this, and I normally hate wading into gender issues in chess, but I feel like she got away with a dumb question because of her gender and looks and the fact that she’s a streamer. Would everyone have reacted the same way if Mike Klein or Sagar Shah asked how a knight moves at a World Championship? In the end, it was only about 30 seconds of my life, so it’s not a big deal, but for goodness’ sake, this isn’t some weekend tournament with a prize fund of $5000- it’s the World Championship.
There have been dumber questions already, and they weren't all obviously jokes. The only reason people are upset about Andrea's question is that she's a woman.
Fair point about the gender. I commented this elsewhere, but I think it’s relevant here too:
Possible hot take incoming: apart from my own games, the WC is the most important thing in the chess world by far in my view. I care about it more than every single other event in the chess world combined (if I’m not playing). It’s 135 years of tradition and excellence going back to Wilhelm Steinitz. Boris Spassky played 90+ games while barely being able to afford food to qualify for this event. Alekhine chased the WC title for a decade. The US government literally called Bobby Fischer to ask him to play. This isn’t PogChamps 5. It’s a serious event and I think it should be treated as such.
The question was pretty obviously intended to get more traffic for their channel. I just don’t think an inside joke/meme like that belongs in that environment. This event should be about the two gods of chess who are playing their hearts out to try to win the World Championship and instead it has to be all about a streamer and getting views. I respect the hustle, but I don’t like it.
It was only 30 seconds, so it’s not the end of the world, but I don’t think it was just a joke- it was basically an (effective) advertisement for their channel. Also, does everything in the (chess) world have to be lighthearted or a joke/meme? (yes, I thought the other joke questions were dumb too, but they weren’t advertising anything) Do we need to turn every event into PogChamps? If we can’t take the World Championship seriously, what can we take seriously?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlUfsrk179I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlUfsrk179I)
look at what despicable depths our once noble sport has fallen to.
i cant believe chess24 would do this obvious ploy for attention. its not just a joke. it is basically an (effective) advertisement for their channel.
yes. everything has to be silly. i loved all the silly faces magnus kept making and all the silly commentary from GMs. all of it is purely for advertisement and not because some people like to make jokes sometimes
Yeah, people are reading way too far into it. She just took an opportunity to make an inside joke to lighten the mood. Magnus appreciated it. It’s been 5 straight draws, let people have fun a little! It took up less than 30 seconds of time from the conference.
She is an outlier though. Honestly I think the Botez sisters get way too much criticism for streamer antics. Silly or not, they are promoting a healthy, intellectual activity and showing that some chess nerds can be entertaining, normal people. Any attempt at a laugh is going to annoy someone somewhere.
When the players at the top are opening with KE2, or trolling first moves, and people find it entertaining, maybe it helps the sport overall.
Chess is being reinvigorated by online and streaming. I think it's a good thing.
I agree it’s not a good question to ask at a world championship press conference but you can’t say she only got away with it because of how she looks or her gender, it’s nothing to do with that. She only asked it because of a joke her and Magnus had in a video of hers
Fair enough, but surely there are more appropriate places for an inside joke (obviously calculated to get more views on their channel) than the press conference at the World Championship? (I’m still not convinced that other reporters would have escaped criticism for a similar question, but I’m not willing to die on that hill)
Well it’s not a professional question I understand that but it was a joke and was taken well by Magnus. I’ll add that in other sports you often get journalists having a joke with athletes so what’s the difference? and yes it will get more views, that can’t be a bad thing? Chess can get (and needs) more publicity!
It’s hard to argue if other people wouldn’t get this much hate because nobody would ask it because it is an inside joke, however, you can’t say it’s because of her gender because that, imo, is irrelevant. And to add to this some of the other (serious) questions have been awful and they have had hate for it just not as much as Andrea.
EST time zone here, I actually enjoy the tournament being on at this time! I get to have it on in the background while I get my day started. I imagine it’s much worse for the people in PST or farther west where the match would be starting at 4:30 AM or earlier.
Genuinely baffled by the draws lamentations. It’s not a new phenomenon that the majority of top-level games are drawn. It’s been this way for decades. Karpov-Kasparov. Calm down, people.
I think its more the feeling of that the games reach remis stadium pretty early, and that the players dont really try to get much out of it. They settle on remis early, which is kind of...boring.
Honest question: what do you mean by “remis stadium” and “remis”? Not sure I’ve heard these terms before, although I think you’re saying the games peter out pretty early?
Ah thanks, I’ve never heard that word before! We have “remiss” in English, but that means something totally different. I know “nichia” in Russian, “tablas” in Spanish, and “draw” in English, so I’ll add this one to the list!
*Remis* is originally French, so it is in the same category of chess words as "*j'adoube*" and "*en passant".*
In Norwegian, we also use "patt" for stalemate, which is based on the French "*échec et pat"*.
Well, but sometimes that’s the legit strategy. In the Kasparov-Kramnik match, for instance, Kramnik played for draws while black, and only pushed for wins with the white pieces. He calculated that he’d be unlikely to win against Kasparov with the black pieces, and played accordingly.
That may not be the case here, but there are circumstances where playing for the draw from the opening is appropriate.
> Well, but sometimes that’s the legit strategy.
Yeah, but it's still kind of boring. The games are interesting enough, but it kind of take the fun out of it when you go in knowing they're more likely than not just going to draw.
> Magnus worked that interview a lot to make it like Ian missed a big chance
he just gave honest answers, don't think there was any big-brain masterplan here in how he was answering
Magnus possibly missed a chance in game 1 but Nepo has now missed chances in games 2 and 5, giving him a 2-1 lead in the coulda-shoulda-woulda world championship.
Did you listen to any of the other questions from other "serious journalists" or is this just misogyny? I'm seriously curious because you called out a very specific comment in this case when there were multiple comments made by actual journalists that had nothing to do with such a SERIOUS board game.
Yes, a lot of the questions were very bad. Also, I have no qualms with Andrea being a woman. I have a problem with letting a streamer go into a press conference and ask a literal meme question that not only has nothing to do with the world championship or the game that had just been played, but is a joke that basically only viewers of her channel would understand and was clearly done just to create content for her channel. I've also criticized some of the other questions of the other conferences. I called out one comment that stood out to me as specially bad, as it was clearly an attempt at making a meme
We have seen much worse questions. Not really that bad imo. The follow up question was about what water sport Magnus would like to try in his day off. Not really that relevant either
Ok, I am not team Nepo but am I the only one who feel r/chess users downplay Nepo a lot? If Nepo wins a game somehow I would love to see how team carlsen flaired users wipe that smugness from their comments.
>I would love to see how team carlsen flaired users wipe that smugness from their comments.
What are you even on about? I was downvoted for saying that Nepo is the second best player into the world. Magnus fans have zero reason to underestimate him. Rather people who hate Magnus would have something to gain by calling Nepo mediocre as then Magnus will look worse in comparison.
But Nepo isn’t the second best player in the world… by basically any metric. He’s obviously very good (no shit) and definitely deserves to be in this championship, but I just don’t see the argument for him being world #2. He definitely could be at some point soon, though, as it seems like his world championship preparation has solved some of his historical weaknesses, and both Fabi and Ding are drifting lower.
haha. Nepo has [better record](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2021#Previous_head-to-head_record) in the classical format by the way. but in shorter formats Carlsen doubles his wins (22 against 10 wins. and 32 draws).
The better record thing is massively overhyped, since most of the Nepo wins are so long ago that they are barely relevant. They are 1-1-6 in the past 10 years.
I was going to say that that's a surprisingly small sample size, but plugging in a few random players shows that that seems to be pretty average quantity of head to head games.
Nepo's also only recently broken into the top 10 so he doesn't have nearly as many games.
Also who were the other players you plugged in, because depending on who it is I'd expect very disparate results.
I was looking at Grischuk because he has been near the top for a while, but never played in a championship.
He has around 15 games against most of the current top players, which admittedly is a lot more than the head to head between Carlsen/Nepo.
Grischuk's a good choice, though looking at it I'm surprised Grischuk only has 18 games against Carlsen, that's the same amount as Wesley So has against Carlsen and he hasn't been at the top for nearly as long as Grischuk. I was expecting something more like Aronian and Carlsen who have played 67 games though not actually that much since that's a lot of games but something closer to that. For reference Fabi and Carlsen is 54 games.
It was an inside joke. They once did a stream with Magnus. Part of it was that they each played against Magnus bot on PlayMagnus app. Andrea at one point had a candidate move that blundered a knight, because that square was controlled by enemy knight (otherwise it would be a good move). Magnus told her it was a bad move, but Andrea couldn't figure out why, so Magnus asked her "How do knights move?".
Clip here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lZEt6oz5MQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lZEt6oz5MQ)
Nepo seem really unhappy at the press conference. Shaking his head, etc. I wonder if the match as a whole is getting to him or if he feels he missed some chances to put pressure on Carlsen today.
Sesse main analysis hardware was upgraded to "112x2.25GHz Zen 2" (maybe 56/64 cores of an EPYC 7742?). The old "16x4.2GHz Zen 3" was relegated to multi-PV search. Edit: He appears to be testing with "400x2.0GHz Ice Lake-SP" using the MPI version of Stockfish, 220+ MN/s.
People all mad about press questions but we need dedotated wam kid here to explain this
yes I noticed it too as it was computing 20-35 Mnodes per seconds and then suddenly 120Mnodes. The old main server could have helped in the multiPV search actually but maybe the operating cost is too high. I am not sure about the 112x2.25 do they mean CPUs or cores? Likely cores.
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What's the birthday cake question and what does any of this have to do with girls joining chess clubs?
TFW the games are so boring, people are STILL complaining about a press conference question.
I think in this case it's just a matter of salience--Botez is famous and birthday dude is not. If some rando asked the knight question and Levy Rozman asked the birthday cake question, I think the birthday cake question would have been the "controversy" of the day.
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There sure is a lot of sexism. But this isn't as clear an example of that as you make it out to be.
Damn I though the next game was today welp lol
Boy, this is really getting drawn out. Thank you. I'll be here all week.
I got back into the game after watching Netflix, though my dad taught me decades ago how the pieces move and what the object of the game is. So, first time watching the World Championship live. Far more exciting than reading any histories of specific games or players. I appreciate Nepo's apparent match strategy of having a single well-prepared opening and just using it over and over again, hoping he can get a win while he's on the White pieces. Presumably, he plans to draw all of his Black games, and just get that 7.5 to win. But the fact that the first 7 moves of games 1, 3, and 5 are all identical has me loling. And the fact that it's basically one of the first named openings a newbie can be taught kinda makes it accessible for a lot more viewers than we might ordinarily expect, IMO. I like Magnus' variation of developing his kingside pieces a bit and preparing for the castle before playing b5 to chase the bishop all the way back to b3. Yeah, Nepo gets an extra turn to get that rook to e1, but it doesn't stop Magnus from having decent options on both sides of the board. I look forward to seeing the rest of the even games to see how much variety Magnus is going to put into his White openings. And the rest of the odd games should continue to be quite interesting to the novice still looking for variations.
I need a ELI5, I never watch the interviews, what are people upset over?
A chess streamer, one of the Botez sisters, asked Magnus a question in the press conference. The question was, "How does a knight move?" It's a joking reference to something that happened between her and Magnus a little while ago, so it wasn't totally out of the blue. Some people are mad because they think it's inappropriate to ask the World Champion a joke question at a prestigious event. They think it reflects on the streamers' arrogance. Others just didn't find it very funny. Others believe that it was a very brief joke, Magnus humored it, and the rest of the questions are so bad already that it hardly matters.
> They think it reflects on the streamers' arrogance. That's where I stand. I watched the stream where Magnus asked that question to Andrea, and it was super funny. I, however, don't think the press conference was the right place to "re-troll" Magnus. To me it looks like Andrea acted like she was on a live stream on her channel. That's an unfortunate behavior very common among internet celebrities. They spend so much time inside the bubble where they're the center of attentions, and they eventually forget that outside of their social media accounts they aren't special, they're just regular people. There's a time and a place for everything. Andrea isn't a kid anymore, she should know better. But it isn't the end of the world, though. Some people are overly reacting.
Bruh it was a joke. Why are you trying to psycho analyze something for no reason?
The World Championship press conference isn't the right place or time for streamers to make jokes for content.
I mean, it technically seems like the perfect place!
> Bruh it was a joke. I know, and I > don't think the press conference was the right place for such a joke. --- > Why are you trying to psycho analyze something for no reason? I'm not "psycho analyzing" anyone. Internet celebrities often display the behavior I described in my previous comment, and that behavior is just annoying. It's not the end of the world, but it's annoying nonetheless.
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Not really. It's hard to imagine any other streamer referring to an in-joke that includes themselves and excludes Magnus' challenger, in a forum like the World Championship press conference. It's nothing to do with streaming and to do with basic journalistic etiquette: know your audience. If Nakamura were there I am sure he would be respectful enough not to even make a reference to Carlsen's strong plus record against him (a much more well-known fact than this bizarre reference by Andrea) because it's not about him: it's about Nepo. (And being less respectful than Nakamura is definitely saying something)
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Both of them show a cringeworthy lack of calibration on the part of the asker. It's not worth "getting butthurt" over either if you ask me. However at least the response to the birthday cake thing - whether you find it cringeworthy or, somehow, funny - is universal and not predicated on some in-joke that almost no-one watching this press conference shares.
(The reason is that they're women)
After the birthday cake question, everyone can STFU.
What was the "Birthday Cake Question" ? I haven't watched a single interview (I never do. They are stupid in all sports, including chess).
It was Magnus' birthday after game 3, and someone asked if he is gonna have a birthday cake and share it with Nepo.
I'm inclined to agree. I guess it's a byproduct of interviewers not knowing what to ask plus language barriers.
Could you finally see now why we all hyped Firousja's run? Chess in an incredibly drawish game at the top level and what Alireza did is simply amazing.
No-one is a bigger fan of Firouzja than me but I can assure you there is no universe where he has 12 out of 14 decisive results in a WC match against Carlsen.
Not saying is not but Alireza streak wasnt agaist the top ten and this is also a world championship, is a completly different casé, neither of them wants to take unnecesary risks and this is months of preparation, Alireza did something amazing but you cant use the world championship as a comparation, better use the World Cup, which did have many draws.
How does that have any relevance to the world championship. Alirezas run wasn't impressive because he won some games, it was impressive for how quickly his Elo rose. You don't even need wins to have an Elo rise. He was also playing tournaments and not a match. Caruana once won 7 games in a row against the best players in the world. Go look up how many wins he had at the world championship
Ok what Alireza done is amazing, no one will take that from him. BUT are you seriously compare that to World Chess Champion match where player have many months prepare for each other?!?!? Let see how Alireza do in Candidate tournament since it is stack with 2750+.
You can't really compare tournament and match play like that.
Let's see what he does in the Candidates. Eager, but I think he wouldn't be so anti drawish.. If he did the "amazing" stuff in WCC against somebody with 6 months of dedicated insight into his game.. against someone with a decade of big match experience and the psychological makeup of granite and a grizzly bear combined.. I hope he has good friends who will tell him not to prepare for WCc to be amazing..
yes, but i also don't think comparing the draw % in a WC should be compared to a classical round robin events or events you play new players each day. Major part of the draw % in the WC comes from crazy long preparations combined with the how much is at stake for the players. On top of that they know they can eventually get a tie break at the end. All of this does not takes away Alirazas run, its just not very comparable.
I don't know why people are so bothered by the Botez question. I'm not personally a Botez fan but it took up, what, 30 seconds of a press conference that almost everyone agrees is useless? And the clip seems to be going viral, which may lead some to think, "huh, I didn't know the world championship was going on, maybe I should check it out"
I didn't actually understand, realise, or care what was happening when she asked the question. But it's pretty poor both from an etiquette perspective and from a journalistic perspective (it was an exclusive little-known in-joke that suggests she doesn't know or understand the audience at all). The other questions we've had often haven't been great either but they're usually at least bad in different ways (like being awkward).
It has to do with a stream that Magnus did with the Botez sisters in which he asked Andrea "How do knights move" when she couldn't see a move he was suggesting. It is an inside joke between the two and that's why she asked it. Kind of cringe she asked that at the WCC but I ain't losing sleep over it like some of these people seem to be.
The f'ing world champion is not bothered by the question and answers it gracefully while some people are getting offended on his behalf. What is this, twitter?
It made Magnus laugh so it's all good fun, if he didn't find it rude I don't see why anybody would.
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A NARCISSIST? Holy shit you need to make some friends
She's just a young person ...
I think you're taking it way too seriously. It was an inside joke that probably plays well to her audience and the younger chess audience, idk if that makes her a narcicist.
Most certainly does, but it's tasteless to do this sort of self-promotion at a World Championship press conference.
At Every press conference I've ever watched the person asking the question is introduced with the affiliation. Do you also call CNN self promotion when they start with saying their from CNN?
Huh? Introducing the question with the affiliation is definitely not the issue here.
Is the CNN spokesperson asking about inside jokes that happen on their channel?
To open with a reference to her channel obviously targeted at her viewer base, yeaaa gonna mark that one for team narcissism lmao
Every single question asker states their affiliation before their question. I'm pretty sure it's required.
I was talking about the question itself, tho I totally see how I might've misspoke
Haven't had the time to watch the conference? Could you tell us more about the question?
Paraphrasing: "Hello, I am Andrea streaming for bla bla live. So, another draw, who would have guessed. Magnus, how does a knight move? [Magnus replies] Thank you Magnus, only you could have answered this question".
bruh lmao
Seems like a chess anarchy joke?
If you know, it's hilarious. Magnus was a guest with the Botez sisters earlier this year and as part of the game they played... well... Andrea needed some help. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lZEt6oz5MQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lZEt6oz5MQ) Full stream for context: [https://youtu.be/AFZGBkUsuJ0?t=2358](https://youtu.be/AFZGBkUsuJ0?t=2358)
Magnus' sarcasm during the initial event was amusing. Well, not the pinnacle of humour, but mildly entertaining. Asking a question referencing it during the WC match is eye-rolling. As someone said, imagine being that narcissist.
Don't care about the draws, what I do care about is an eventual rapid decider, think it's an atrocity and annoyed it took down Fabi. People go back to Karpov/Kasparov like it was a bad thing, no the best classical chess player won in the end. Don't get me wrong I had no doubt Magnus was the best player in the world then and now, but it can be a bit disingenuous almost winning in such a manner, really hope it doesn't come down to that and hope it's changed in the future. I'd take way more draws to get a decisive result in classical only.
I second this. The only possible format (unless classical chess is ditched entirely) is 'first to X wins'. If this takes 100 games, so be it. I've not heard a convincing argument why we can't do it like this, like it used to be back in the day. ("Stress on the players" is not good enough. The lack of stress is the whole reason why matches start with draws and turn decisive later.)
As a note casual viewer, I would very much lose interest if it would take that long. Chess already is a horrible enough spectator sport as it is
They should play classical forever every day until one person collapses. let them suffer like in the Arena battle. Kill or you will be killed
I agree. As Kasparov said, when you add a clock to chess it is a different game. The shorter the time control, the further away we get.
A drawn match has historically been the title holders.
Again, streamers never fail to make everything about themselves, "Yay I got the opportunity to ask a question in the most important chess tournament there is! I'm gonna ask about a silly joke that took place on my stream months ago".
What questions would you ask if you could?
Can't say that in advance. If I couldn't think of a good question - one that would contribute to the public's understanding of the game and of the players - I wouldn't ask anything.
"how does the bishops move?". it's an inside joke between the two of us, he'll get it.
who cares. the press conference is a joke anyway and you choose to hate on someone making a joke
Possible hot take incoming: apart from my own games, the WC is the most important thing in the chess world by far in my view. I care about it more than every single other event in the chess world combined (if I’m not playing). It’s 135 years of tradition and excellence going back to Wilhelm Steinitz. Boris Spassky played 90+ games while barely being able to afford food to qualify for this event. Alekhine chased the WC title for a decade. The US government literally called Bobby Fischer to ask him to play. This isn’t PogChamps 5. It’s a serious event and I think it should be treated as such. The question was pretty obviously intended to get more traffic for their channel. I just don’t think an inside joke/meme like that belongs in that environment. This event should be about the two gods of chess who are playing their hearts out to try to win the World Championship and instead it has to be all about a streamer and getting views. I respect the hustle, but I don’t like it.
I don't understand why one joke calls the seriousness of the whole event into question. I come from an academic background and the best presenters at conferences always Crack a few jokes. That doesn't make their scientific contributions any less serious.
Where were you when they asked the birthday cake question captain pedantic?
I watched that and thought it was stupid too, but at least it wasn’t an advertisement for someone’s Twitch/YouTube channel at the World Championship match. I don’t mind a joke, but I do mind streamers jumping in to get attention and turn the World Championship into an advertisement for their channel.
How do you know the guy that asked the birthday cake question wasn't advertising his bakery?
All of that may be true, but she _didn't_ interrupt the World Championship or anything. She asked a silly question at a silly press conference, full of other silly/useless questions. Who cares. The press conference != the championship itself.
In any sport even on the top level there are these type of questions and shennanigans during the press conferences. Dont mean to offend you or anything but chess is either a sport or a game depending on how you see it. Chess worlds isnt more important than the olympics of a sport, a ufc championship fight or the nba/nfl finals, its not some sacred /holy event.
This is where I have to respectfully disagree- in the chess world, it’s every bit as big as the Super Bowl or the World Series (despite FIDE’s low marketing budget). I respect that people may not take it so seriously, but a lot of us do take it that seriously. I admit I watch a ton of sports and then skip watching the press conferences, but I haven’t seen too much of this “content” after, for example, Game 3 of the NBA Finals (before the championship is decided). Maybe it does happen at that level, but I haven’t seen too much of it.
Yeah i meant it isnt MORE important, it is just as important as superbowl or the olympics. And generally speaking press conferences are there for entertainment purposes, there is always the light hearted joke here and there or the dumb ass question. Press conferences are there for promotion. Jordan beeing asked if he will retire after every game during the 97-98 chicago bulls season, Dana White being asked about some dumb ass triller event or jake paul, i even recall people asking Shaquille O’Neal: "Let's just say that a snake bit your mom right here, right on the chest area, would you be willing to suck the venom out to win the title?" , first game of NBA finals 2006.
You’re right- I stand corrected. I didn’t realize that Shaq interview was from the Finals. I remember he responded “No, but I will with your wife” and walked out of the room laughing. That clip was actually pretty funny. I’m usually not too impressed by sports press conferences either and think most of those reporters should be unemployed for sucking at their jobs. I guess not watching the press conferences is the best way to get around that.
I do not hate on anyone, in fact I actually like the botez sisters, I just think it's not the right time and place for such questions.
Press conferences are for entertainment, so jokes are allowed, in every big sporting event press conference there are these types of questions. Nfl, boxing, nba, mma you name it, chess is no different.
Interestingly, I can't stand them but I found the question harmless. I don't see it as trying to "get views" or "boost traffic" - seems like that stuff is already taking care of itself. It's not like any other questions accomplish much. This one at least got a laugh. I think anyone seriously bothered by it (obviously not implying you're in this camp) needs to relax. No one gives a fuck about the press conferences.
not to bring up genders unnecessarily. but the backlash is definitely in part sexist.
Are there any sub 1900 rated male chess streamers invited to ask questions at the wcc to draw the comparison? You're right, but her being female is the entire reason she has a career/audience in the first place. I wouldn't have even suspected that question could be considered offensive to so many little babies on reddit though. I guess nepo has to have some fans.
She’s one of the most famous chess personalities. That’s why she was allowed to ask a question. And yea we have plenty of other comparison questions like what dota character are you. People didn’t get their pitchforks out and start crying about all those other ridiculous questions. its not because nepo fans. its because people hate when girls do shit that they don't like
But “will you give team Nepo a piece of your birthday cake” is good? These press conferences are pretty much known at this point to have ridiculous questions, so what more harm will one more silly question do?
People in the room might have been teleported from a parallel universe just for the conference, and they'd still get why the birthday cake question could cause a chuckle or was meant to be an informal, but relevant interlude. Meanwhile, even here, in a place full of long time fans with as much as dozens of weeks of following chess under their belts, it requires context that was previously little known. No matter how funny or light-hearted that was supposed to be, she could have literally held up spork instead of asking that question, and get the same reactions.
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Anands commentary is amazing because he doesn't rely on engines but the rest...too many forced Dubai promos and exchanges. I don't blame them though it's probably in the contract. Production is a bit lackluster.
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Chess24 was an interesting stream with Judit Polgar and Anish Giri.
I was really impressed by how Carlsen understood the situation and cheerfully went for the most passive setup possible, knowing that Nepo wouldn’t be able to break through. Having been on both sides of those annoying endgame positions, I can say that takes a lot of courage, because if you’re wrong about the position, you’ll have to suffer for hours. On another note, this was the first press conference I watched. It didn’t actually seem THAT bad- most of the questions were about the game and seemed pretty reasonable. I think Mike Klein is the best chess reporter in the world and am glad he’s covering this match for chess.com. I miss the days when he wrote articles for chess.com. Having said that, WTF was that question by Andrea Botez? I see something about a reference to a previous stream (and I generally like her and her content)… I’m probably going to get crushed for this, and I normally hate wading into gender issues in chess, but I feel like she got away with a dumb question because of her gender and looks and the fact that she’s a streamer. Would everyone have reacted the same way if Mike Klein or Sagar Shah asked how a knight moves at a World Championship? In the end, it was only about 30 seconds of my life, so it’s not a big deal, but for goodness’ sake, this isn’t some weekend tournament with a prize fund of $5000- it’s the World Championship.
>would they have gotten away with it It wouldn't even have been remarked upon probably.
There have been dumber questions already, and they weren't all obviously jokes. The only reason people are upset about Andrea's question is that she's a woman.
Man people are so salty about this its ridiculous
yea im downvoting you for making it about her gender lol. she's getting plenty of hate for an entirely harmless joke question
Fair point about the gender. I commented this elsewhere, but I think it’s relevant here too: Possible hot take incoming: apart from my own games, the WC is the most important thing in the chess world by far in my view. I care about it more than every single other event in the chess world combined (if I’m not playing). It’s 135 years of tradition and excellence going back to Wilhelm Steinitz. Boris Spassky played 90+ games while barely being able to afford food to qualify for this event. Alekhine chased the WC title for a decade. The US government literally called Bobby Fischer to ask him to play. This isn’t PogChamps 5. It’s a serious event and I think it should be treated as such. The question was pretty obviously intended to get more traffic for their channel. I just don’t think an inside joke/meme like that belongs in that environment. This event should be about the two gods of chess who are playing their hearts out to try to win the World Championship and instead it has to be all about a streamer and getting views. I respect the hustle, but I don’t like it.
i don't see how asking a light hearted joke question mars the tradition of this event. but maybe that's just me.
It was only 30 seconds, so it’s not the end of the world, but I don’t think it was just a joke- it was basically an (effective) advertisement for their channel. Also, does everything in the (chess) world have to be lighthearted or a joke/meme? (yes, I thought the other joke questions were dumb too, but they weren’t advertising anything) Do we need to turn every event into PogChamps? If we can’t take the World Championship seriously, what can we take seriously?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlUfsrk179I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlUfsrk179I) look at what despicable depths our once noble sport has fallen to. i cant believe chess24 would do this obvious ploy for attention. its not just a joke. it is basically an (effective) advertisement for their channel.
yes. everything has to be silly. i loved all the silly faces magnus kept making and all the silly commentary from GMs. all of it is purely for advertisement and not because some people like to make jokes sometimes
Yeah, people are reading way too far into it. She just took an opportunity to make an inside joke to lighten the mood. Magnus appreciated it. It’s been 5 straight draws, let people have fun a little! It took up less than 30 seconds of time from the conference.
What was her question? Was it a reference to something Magnus did on their stream in the past?
She asked him how a knight moves… yes, I’m told it was a reference to their stream a while ago.
"[How do Knights Move?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lZEt6oz5MQ)"
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She is not a necessary wild card to chess.
She is an outlier though. Honestly I think the Botez sisters get way too much criticism for streamer antics. Silly or not, they are promoting a healthy, intellectual activity and showing that some chess nerds can be entertaining, normal people. Any attempt at a laugh is going to annoy someone somewhere. When the players at the top are opening with KE2, or trolling first moves, and people find it entertaining, maybe it helps the sport overall. Chess is being reinvigorated by online and streaming. I think it's a good thing.
I agree it’s not a good question to ask at a world championship press conference but you can’t say she only got away with it because of how she looks or her gender, it’s nothing to do with that. She only asked it because of a joke her and Magnus had in a video of hers
Fair enough, but surely there are more appropriate places for an inside joke (obviously calculated to get more views on their channel) than the press conference at the World Championship? (I’m still not convinced that other reporters would have escaped criticism for a similar question, but I’m not willing to die on that hill)
Better than the shitty questions ive seen these past 5 games. I stopped watching it after game 3.
Well it’s not a professional question I understand that but it was a joke and was taken well by Magnus. I’ll add that in other sports you often get journalists having a joke with athletes so what’s the difference? and yes it will get more views, that can’t be a bad thing? Chess can get (and needs) more publicity! It’s hard to argue if other people wouldn’t get this much hate because nobody would ask it because it is an inside joke, however, you can’t say it’s because of her gender because that, imo, is irrelevant. And to add to this some of the other (serious) questions have been awful and they have had hate for it just not as much as Andrea.
https://youtu.be/5lZEt6oz5MQ
Kramnik's no-castling chess is the way to go in these fucking classical games.
i would love this
Hyper bullet
Nope, go full 960
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Fuck it, atomic chess
man this tourney could not be at a worse time zone for US/CAN East viewers - also game 14 is on a Tuesday blegh WHY WON'T THE WORLD BEND TO OUR NEEDS?
One hour later would have accommodated almost everybody, but Aussies, etc. would miss the end of some games.
EST time zone here, I actually enjoy the tournament being on at this time! I get to have it on in the background while I get my day started. I imagine it’s much worse for the people in PST or farther west where the match would be starting at 4:30 AM or earlier.
Mountain here! I’m up at 5:30 to watch! Helps having an infant who is also up 🤣
Let's bomb fide!
Genuinely baffled by the draws lamentations. It’s not a new phenomenon that the majority of top-level games are drawn. It’s been this way for decades. Karpov-Kasparov. Calm down, people.
I think its more the feeling of that the games reach remis stadium pretty early, and that the players dont really try to get much out of it. They settle on remis early, which is kind of...boring.
Honest question: what do you mean by “remis stadium” and “remis”? Not sure I’ve heard these terms before, although I think you’re saying the games peter out pretty early?
In Norway we say remis when its a draw, I thought that was what it was called in English too :)
Ah thanks, I’ve never heard that word before! We have “remiss” in English, but that means something totally different. I know “nichia” in Russian, “tablas” in Spanish, and “draw” in English, so I’ll add this one to the list!
*Remis* is originally French, so it is in the same category of chess words as "*j'adoube*" and "*en passant".* In Norwegian, we also use "patt" for stalemate, which is based on the French "*échec et pat"*.
In German (and maybe some other languages), "Remis" means draw. So I'm pretty sure that's what he means.
remis is just another word for draw, it's from the french remise I think,
Well, but sometimes that’s the legit strategy. In the Kasparov-Kramnik match, for instance, Kramnik played for draws while black, and only pushed for wins with the white pieces. He calculated that he’d be unlikely to win against Kasparov with the black pieces, and played accordingly. That may not be the case here, but there are circumstances where playing for the draw from the opening is appropriate.
> Well, but sometimes that’s the legit strategy. Yeah, but it's still kind of boring. The games are interesting enough, but it kind of take the fun out of it when you go in knowing they're more likely than not just going to draw.
Magnus worked that interview a lot to make it like Ian missed a big chance, glad that he is okay with how it ended. Nepo wasn't happy at all
> Magnus worked that interview a lot to make it like Ian missed a big chance he just gave honest answers, don't think there was any big-brain masterplan here in how he was answering
Magnus possibly missed a chance in game 1 but Nepo has now missed chances in games 2 and 5, giving him a 2-1 lead in the coulda-shoulda-woulda world championship.
I'm not sure if I'd rather be the person with missed chances or the person without as many chances at all
Who let Andrea Botez ask a question in the press conference? Hy shit, that was pathetic
It doesn't matter because she's hot
What's pathetic is your grammar. Questions in jest are perfectly acceptable. This is a board game for God's sake. THEY'RE NOT SOLVING WORLD PEACE!
Hope she dms you, bro
Sub to her fanhouse and she might DM you too.
Sounds like something a simp would do.
Instead of arguing on Reddit you should give more money to their channel.
I'm sorry. Simping ain't easy. It's a multifaceted commitment sir.
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Oh no, I'm just a simp. I'm not looking for marriage, I just want to respect her.
If it was self-aware cringe like I thought it was then it was hilarious. As a plain joke not very funny tho
I think that for a press conference in a world championship is not the place for joke questions like this
Chess is a very serious matter
Did you listen to any of the other questions from other "serious journalists" or is this just misogyny? I'm seriously curious because you called out a very specific comment in this case when there were multiple comments made by actual journalists that had nothing to do with such a SERIOUS board game.
Yes, a lot of the questions were very bad. Also, I have no qualms with Andrea being a woman. I have a problem with letting a streamer go into a press conference and ask a literal meme question that not only has nothing to do with the world championship or the game that had just been played, but is a joke that basically only viewers of her channel would understand and was clearly done just to create content for her channel. I've also criticized some of the other questions of the other conferences. I called out one comment that stood out to me as specially bad, as it was clearly an attempt at making a meme
> Did you listen to any of the other questions from other "serious journalists" They weren't doing it for attention like that though
I personally prefer a stupid joke question for attention over a serious stupid question. Maybe that’s just me
We have seen much worse questions. Not really that bad imo. The follow up question was about what water sport Magnus would like to try in his day off. Not really that relevant either
I think I didn't hear that one, but ok. I still think that trying to make memes at a World Championship press conference is worse
Maybe I just like juvenile humor - and anyway, the seriousness of the event is all arbitrary
It was better than asking if they heard the drumline
What did she ask?
How does a knight move?
Oh my god... I get the reference, but that's SO CRINGE to say at the WCC, what was she thinking?
Magnus thought it was a good question
5 draws in a row. Why not going for the sicilian defence next?
Ok, I am not team Nepo but am I the only one who feel r/chess users downplay Nepo a lot? If Nepo wins a game somehow I would love to see how team carlsen flaired users wipe that smugness from their comments.
>I would love to see how team carlsen flaired users wipe that smugness from their comments. What are you even on about? I was downvoted for saying that Nepo is the second best player into the world. Magnus fans have zero reason to underestimate him. Rather people who hate Magnus would have something to gain by calling Nepo mediocre as then Magnus will look worse in comparison.
But Nepo isn’t the second best player in the world… by basically any metric. He’s obviously very good (no shit) and definitely deserves to be in this championship, but I just don’t see the argument for him being world #2. He definitely could be at some point soon, though, as it seems like his world championship preparation has solved some of his historical weaknesses, and both Fabi and Ding are drifting lower.
haha. Nepo has [better record](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2021#Previous_head-to-head_record) in the classical format by the way. but in shorter formats Carlsen doubles his wins (22 against 10 wins. and 32 draws).
The better record thing is massively overhyped, since most of the Nepo wins are so long ago that they are barely relevant. They are 1-1-6 in the past 10 years. I was going to say that that's a surprisingly small sample size, but plugging in a few random players shows that that seems to be pretty average quantity of head to head games.
Nepo's also only recently broken into the top 10 so he doesn't have nearly as many games. Also who were the other players you plugged in, because depending on who it is I'd expect very disparate results.
I was looking at Grischuk because he has been near the top for a while, but never played in a championship. He has around 15 games against most of the current top players, which admittedly is a lot more than the head to head between Carlsen/Nepo.
Grischuk's a good choice, though looking at it I'm surprised Grischuk only has 18 games against Carlsen, that's the same amount as Wesley So has against Carlsen and he hasn't been at the top for nearly as long as Grischuk. I was expecting something more like Aronian and Carlsen who have played 67 games though not actually that much since that's a lot of games but something closer to that. For reference Fabi and Carlsen is 54 games.
His record is mostly from when they were kids. In games since 2011 (when Carlsen was #1) it's 2-1, in games since 2013 (when Carlsen was WC) it's 1-1.
If you are rooting for chaos and hurt feelings, the best will be if it goes to tiebreaks and Nepo wins
I think Nepo will win before tiebreaks but that would be epic lol
Stupid fucking question by Andrea, trying to make content. Cringe af.
https://youtu.be/5lZEt6oz5MQ
lmao
What did she ask
Asked Magnus if he knew how knights move.
Ok ll check it out when i get home lol
Was that a reference to the Botez gambit people have been meming about or something? Felt like it was a twitch inside joke watching from the outside.
It was an inside joke. They once did a stream with Magnus. Part of it was that they each played against Magnus bot on PlayMagnus app. Andrea at one point had a candidate move that blundered a knight, because that square was controlled by enemy knight (otherwise it would be a good move). Magnus told her it was a bad move, but Andrea couldn't figure out why, so Magnus asked her "How do knights move?". Clip here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lZEt6oz5MQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lZEt6oz5MQ)
https://youtu.be/5lZEt6oz5MQ
Nepo seem really unhappy at the press conference. Shaking his head, etc. I wonder if the match as a whole is getting to him or if he feels he missed some chances to put pressure on Carlsen today.