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Chess Life - FIDE Grand Swiss: 25/10 to 5/11
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and pragg takes down fabi after 4 rounds of tiebreaks
Magnus vs Pragg for the championship
Huge achievement for Pragg to even be here for a player who is just starting to break 2700 and of course Magnus has never won this tournament before and is ostensibly 2 rounds away from finally doing so
Meaningful match for both these players
However, if Magnus shows up with a man-bun and in sandals, Pragg's family will need to make arrangements, as he will be facing an avatar of Vishnu disguised as The Dude.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/18/1194593562/chess-transgender-fide-pushback
with added extra discrimination?
At least a bunch of national associations are pushing back against it
https://www.outsports.com/2023/8/22/23840225/chess-transgender-women-ban-fide-backlash-jennifer-shahade-yosha-iglesias
Get out of my chess Russia.
Seriously though, that is a bonkers decision.
I'll be fine, just give me a minute, a man's got a limit, I can't get a life if my heart's not in it.
And Magnus and Pragg drew.
He drew magnus as white in the first game so we'll see what happens tomorrow
oh and here is Hikaru's breakdown of the first game
Magnus and Pragg drew with Magnus as white in the 2nd round and we'll be going into tie breaks which according to Hikaru, Magnus seems to have played for immediately
for the 3rd place game, fabi won as white putting them into tiebreaks as well tomorrow
according to Hikaru, Magnus has been struggling with foodpoisoning and not feeling well which may of contributed to basically playing for a draw from the get go
He probably feels more confident against Pragg if he can get some rest and also in the Rapid or Blitz tiebreaks
looks like fabi dominated the tiebreaks and wins 3rd place as well
here is Hikaru's breakdown as usual
Daniel Nardoitsky (Danya to those of us in the know) has a speed run series and he goes -deep- into chess principals here as well as giving you some good Opening Theory lessons.
White to move, mate in 2.
There are three possible checkmating solutions, I'm only giving out candy to the person that finds the prettiest solution.
Qe5 is the prettiest one.
That would be the old BBC sketch of Short vs Kasparov "World New Chess Championship" .
Mate in 2, white to move. Answer in spoilers please.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
No. That is indeed mate. The pawn is protected by the queen. The knight by the bishop.
Edit: scratch that theory, wrong side
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I know, I had a different solution that was incorrect
Long story short, Hans can play on chess.com again and Magnus will play him if he gets paired OTB. What's not said is "we were wrong about Hans cheating." Which is telling.
The downside of all this is that it shows you can be a high level player in chess, cheat, get caught cheating multiple times in events where there is a money pool, and nothing at all will really happen.
There needs to be a venue where you can air your suspicion about other players without being worried about being sued for defamation.
Regardless since he has cheated online before, he is a cheater. I don’t watch much chess, or play for that matter, so I don’t have any stake in this world. But cheating in any sport seems to me like it should be a once-and-you’re-out kind of thing. Since it’s so hard to prove. If you’ve done it once it shows what kind of person you are.
That's my thoughts exactly, especially when you're a titled player.
It is so hard to prove someone cheated OTB though. FIDE basically requires video evidence before they'll even consider it.
Same idea as the last two puzzles, white to move and mate in 2.
This one is trickier than the others. Answer in spoilers please.
I feel like knowing that the mate is possible leads me to find things I never would in game. Fun puzzles, though.
That's the idea behind doing puzzles like this.
Also end game theory and patterns.
US Chess needs to get its fucking house in order.
Books! Infact it's almost a necessity to actually sit down and do some studying if you want to be able to play chess and aim for a four figure elo.
So with that said I'm going to recommend one of my favorite opening books for the beginner and intermediate level players around here that want understand the logic behind openings. It's written in an easy to understand way and if you actually want to start selection a repertoire of openings then this is the best book to start with.
https://www.amazon.com/FCO-Fundamental-Paul-Van-Sterren/dp/1906454132
Praggnanandhaa and Duda playing bullet chess without a chessboard.
https://lichess.org/study/mruZ0Jwo/RG98AyDj
The O'Kelly variation of the Sicilian Defense is a wonderful opening for a beginner looking to learn.
If you will permit me to respectfully disagree, I think beginners should learn to fight for the centre, develop rapidly and castle and the open games are ideal for this. Italian game, two knights defence, Mueller attack, Evan's Gambit, Danish Gambit, Scotch gambit, Ruy Lopez this sort of classical logical chess.
Yes there is a ton of theory but this doesn't really matter as their games will be decided by massive tactical oversights on both sides in any case and they will learn a lot about the logic of opening principles from playing these lines.
I don't think trying to understand subtle sidelines of a sicilian trying to get an improved version of a variation they also have no clue about is a logical place to start. As well as if they keep playing it as they improve and face stronger opponents, they're eventually going to play against a lot of Alapins a tempo down, which is not joyful.
Teaching children I think classical logical chess is particularly important, but I accept adult beginners have more agency in their learning and may want to study random stuff. And why not, if they are enjoying it and curious after all.
( I am an FM and chess coach who was self taught, got to 2300 FIDE playing absolute rubbish openings like the London snd Modern, struggling the whole time and wish I had a chess teacher who pushed me to learn logical openings fighting for an advantage. I feel playing only sidelines harmed my development.)
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I’m still pretty bad at the game but found that variation to be a pretty interesting read. I tend to use the Sicilian since (as was said) at the level I’m at a lot of players are either unable to exploit the development advantage or handle the pressure or complexity of the closed variation without blundering.
Never really considered pushing a6 that early.
But yeah for a true beginner it might just be frustrating.
I mean there's a reason a 'main line' is called such. But I also subscribe to the Mikhail Tal philosophy about playing chess. I play it because I love it and I think it's fun to play. So yeah you're not wrong. I just think the O'Kelly variation is fun and wanted to share it. It's an opening a beginner can use because there's not much to it and it gets the idea of a6 into their heads and it doesn't exactly lock a player into any one plan.
https://www.reddit.com/gallery/16ii7yd
I expect this will pick up a bit of steam in the coming days.
Absolutely and fair enough. My point is maybe just particularly kids could probably benefit from learning the Italian Game/ Two Knights with both colours as a first opening. The importance of development, quick castling, how to target the weakness on f7 are probably good early lessons and the moves themselves are very clear in purpose and easy to understand.
When I was a kid, literally half of the junior tournaments were us immediately trying to kill each other on f7/f2!
Oh yeah if it's a kid then that's a whole different thing entirely.