Grand Chess Tour - Sinquefield Cup 2019

[JustinHorton]

Chunky early advantage for Anand, again

[Alex Holowczak]

Ever since clocks were introduced, the efficient use of the time allotted has been a potentially limiting factor on performance. But at most sensible classical time controls, I would say that limiting factor is fairly minor, except for those who don’t take serious steps to manage their time effectively. And that should not, in general, require much compromise with seeking to play the best moves. That is not true at much faster time limits, where playing practical (and basically sub optimal) chess quickly gains far greater value.

Isn't a factor of most sports the ability to have to make decisions based on the time available, and thus sometimes you make sub-optimal decisions? For example, when Stokes slipped going for 2 runs yesterday, the Australian fielder threw to the end Leach was running to rather than Stokes. Given more time to think, he would throw to the end Stokes was running to. In an NFL game, you'll see teams rushing at the end because they're losing, and so they have to get sub-optimal plays off more quickly than they would do if they were playing "normally".

So a sporting analogy is that FIFA is quite good at harmonising the rules of football.

A technical point ... but FIFA don't write the Laws of Football. IFAB do. The reason FIFA doesn't experiment with "quicker" versions of the game is that all the money they could ever want is in the current format of the game; and actually, the games are short enough. Games like cricket think they are too long. Even MLB/NFL, whose game lengths are something like 3 hours, are having a pace of play drive recently due to ever-increasing game lengths.

I enjoy a rapid tournament too, but only live. Whereas I play through the games of a top classical tournament if I'm not watching live.

Which actually, I think is quite close to agreeing with my point. When I think of sport, I think of large crowds turning up to watch at stadiums. When it comes to viewing highlights, particularly on the Internet, you see what happened in the game with no analysis from any commentators or pundits. (OK, you'll get the commentary that went out on the live broadcast.) There are undoubtedly people who then go looking for that pundit analysis video, but not in as many numbers as the highlights video. If chess is meant to be a sport, then you want people watching it live, not poring through the games in great detail afterwards - particularly given the sponsorship is most likely to be attached to the broadcast, and not the PGN file you download.

[JustinHorton]

. If chess is meant to be a sport, then you want people watching it live, not poring through the games in great detail afterwards

Because people who like sport just follow it live, they don't pore over the games in great detail afterwards, it's unheard of

[Alex Holowczak]

. If chess is meant to be a sport, then you want people watching it live, not poring through the games in great detail afterwards

Because people who like sport just follow it live, they don't pore over the games in great detail afterwards, it's unheard of

My point is that if you go to any given sports package, you'll find the highlights of the game are more widely viewed than the pundits talking about the technical aspects.

In the context of chess, that should mean that more people will watch it live than play through the games afterwards with a view to learning from what they've just played through, using it as education (perhaps rather than art). Very few people will watch the highlights package of what Ben Stokes did yesterday and try to learn from the technical aspect of how to play a ramp over fine leg.

[Paul Cooksey]

unscientifically, looking at my youtube sub to sky sports; 400k for the spurs highlights, 2mm for the discussion by the pundits on the penalty decision

I think chess needs a plan to get to the level of say, fencing, before it thinks about football though

[JustinHorton]

My point is that if you go to any given sports package, you'll find the highlights of the game are more widely viewed than the pundits talking about the technical aspects.

Well very often the second follows on from the first, but whatever

Very few people will watch the highlights package of what Ben Stokes did yesterday and try to learn from the technical aspect of how to play a ramp over fine leg.

Hey, maybe approaches to improving personal performance differ across different sports, and maybe this provides us with yet another reason to consider the differences between different sports as well as what they have in common

[JustinHorton]

Meanwhile Carlsen fails to improve on his previous performances tonight, drawing against Aronian.

[JustinHorton]

Ding beats Caruana and moves to plus two. Entirely possible that Nepo will join him, but I'm too knackered to wait up for it. I wonder if Carlsen will beat So tomorrow.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"You don't see the FA cup deciding to play for 30 minutes halves to make it more exciting for the spectator. "

I thought for a moment you meant 30 minute thirds, but clearly not. When USA staged the World Cup (of what they called "soccer"), the US TV companies said they wanted the games changed to 4 x 22.5 minute quarters, so they could air more of the usual moronic advertising drivel (although they didn't call it that). FIFA told them to f*** off, and quite possibly did say that.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Meanwhile Carlsen fails to improve on his previous performances tonight, drawing against Aronian.

Starting to think I will be a bit disappointed if he doesn't do a Giri now.

Will he ever get a better chance, after all?

[LawrenceCooper]

Nepo wins in 132 moves to join Ding on +2. A decent recovery after his round 1 blunder.

[Alex Holowczak]

unscientifically, looking at my youtube sub to sky sports; 400k for the spurs highlights, 2mm for the discussion by the pundits on the penalty decision

I think chess needs a plan to get to the level of say, fencing, before it thinks about football though

I looked at YouTube before making that comment!

Highlights of Edgbaston Day 1 are 6.2m. An in depth analysis of Steve Smith's batting technique in that innings by Nasser Hussain is 93k.

Highlights of Liverpool-Arsenal 943k. Neville, Carragher and Redknapp discussing it 82k.

My point is that this will be in common with a number of sports.

[LawrenceCooper]

Remaining pairings:

Round 10 on 2019/08/27 at 13:00
Bo. No. Rtg Name Result Name Rtg No.
1 2 2765 GM Aronian Levon GM Ding Liren 2805 1
2 3 2882 GM Carlsen Magnus GM So Wesley 2776 12
3 4 2774 GM Nepomniachtchi Ian GM Vachier-Lagrave Maxime 2778 11
4 5 2743 GM Nakamura Hikaru GM Giri Anish 2779 10
5 6 2750 GM Karjakin Sergey GM Anand Viswanathan 2756 9
6 7 2764 GM Mamedyarov Shakhriyar GM Caruana Fabiano 2818 8
Round 11 on 2019/08/28 at 13:00
Bo. No. Rtg Name Result Name Rtg No.
1 1 2805 GM Ding Liren GM Mamedyarov Shakhriyar 2764 7
2 8 2818 GM Caruana Fabiano GM Karjakin Sergey 2750 6
3 9 2756 GM Anand Viswanathan GM Nakamura Hikaru 2743 5
4 10 2779 GM Giri Anish GM Nepomniachtchi Ian 2774 4
5 11 2778 GM Vachier-Lagrave Maxime GM Carlsen Magnus 2882 3
6 12 2776 GM So Wesley GM Aronian Levon 2765 2

Rank after Round 9
Rk. SNo Name FED Rtg TB1 Rp w we w-we K rtg+/-
1 1 GM Ding Liren CHN 2805 5,5 2864 5,5 4,77 0,73 10 7,3
4 GM Nepomniachtchi Ian RUS 2774 5,5 2864 5,5 4,37 1,13 10 11,3
3 6 GM Karjakin Sergey RUS 2750 5,0 2828 5 4,06 0,94 10 9,4
9 GM Anand Viswanathan IND 2756 5,0 2836 5 4,03 0,97 10 9,7
5 3 GM Carlsen Magnus NOR 2882 4,5 2773 4,5 5,85 -1,35 10 -13,5
7 GM Mamedyarov Shakhriyar AZE 2764 4,5 2778 4,5 4,33 0,17 10 1,7
8 GM Caruana Fabiano USA 2818 4,5 2784 4,5 4,92 -0,42 10 -4,2
8 5 GM Nakamura Hikaru USA 2743 4,0 2747 4 3,91 0,09 10 0,9
10 GM Giri Anish NED 2779 4,0 2745 4 4,38 -0,38 10 -3,8
11 GM Vachier-Lagrave Maxime FRA 2778 4,0 2730 4 4,56 -0,56 10 -5,6
12 GM So Wesley USA 2776 4,0 2731 4 4,54 -0,54 10 -5,4
12 2 GM Aronian Levon ARM 2765 3,5 2703 3,5 4,28 -0,78 10 -7,8

[JustinHorton]

I think Carlsen will as likely as not beat So tonight, and I also reckon both Ding and Nepo will be thinking in terms of drawing their way to plus two. So maybe Carlsen might have a little chance based on beating MVL with the Black pieces in the last round.

That said, does anybody else think Carlsen's less aggresive approach may be influenced by his awareness that he's sitting on a long unbeaten run?

[Matt Mackenzie]

I think Carlsen will as likely as not beat So tonight, and I also reckon both Ding and Nepo will be thinking in terms of drawing their way to plus two. So maybe Carlsen might have a little chance based on beating MVL with the Black pieces in the last round.

That said, does anybody else think Carlsen's less aggresive approach may be influenced by his awareness that he's sitting on a long unbeaten run?

More to do with his horror show in the preceding event IMO.

He started off distinctly cautiously here as a result, and hasn't really shaken that off.