Wijk aan Zee Tata Steel 13 to 29 January 2023

[Matt Mackenzie]

Q & P endings are hellish both for the attacker and defender tbf, humans almost always make multiple errors in them.

I presume that Carlsen hasn't accused his opponent of cheating yet?

[LawrenceCooper]

Q & P endings are hellish both for the attacker and defender tbf, humans almost always make multiple errors in them.

I presume that Carlsen hasn't accused his opponent of cheating yet?

Why would he? He's lost to him before, ironically another Q&P ending. https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tourn ... 021/10/1/1
https://twitter.com/chess24com/status/1 ... 4439539712

[Kevin Thurlow]

As I'm too idle to look it up, when was the last time Magnus lost two proper games in a row? (He rarely loses one in a row...)

Perhaps he should change his Hans-tribute hair style?

[IM Jack Rudd]

Twitter is suggesting 2015 as the answer.

[NickFaulks]

Twitter is suggesting 2015 as the answer.

Yes, twice in fact.

[LawrenceCooper]

What has Magnus done with his hair?

He had been growing it long, possibly trolling Niemann. Most of the surplus has gone today though.

[Geoff Chandler]

Regarding classical games. Carlsen watchers note that 2015 was also his worst year as world champion. He lost 10 classical games that year.

R Wojtaszek vs Carlsen
Naiditsch vs Carlsen
Carlsen vs Topalov
Caruana vs Carlsen
Anand vs Carlsen
J L Hammer vs Carlsen
Carlsen vs Topalov
Carlsen vs Grischuk
Carlsen vs Aronian
Carlsen vs Pelletier

[IM Jack Rudd]

That was the year of a disastrous tournament by his standards, where he only scored 3½/9.

I think it shows just how good he is that said tournament was still a GM norm performance.

[Mick Norris]

chess 24 report with lots of photos of Ajax’s Johan Cruyff Arena

The playing hall looked awesome, with Parham Maghsoodloo noting it recalled a scene from The Queen’s Gambit Netflix show

(which I actually understand, as I've finally watched it )

[Matt Mackenzie]

Q & P endings are hellish both for the attacker and defender tbf, humans almost always make multiple errors in them.

I presume that Carlsen hasn't accused his opponent of cheating yet?

Why would he? He's lost to him before, ironically another Q&P ending. https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tourn ... 021/10/1/1
https://twitter.com/chess24com/status/1 ... 4439539712

It wasn't an *entirely* serious comment tbh.

Though taking what you say at face value, hadn't he also lost to Niemann at non-classical chess previously?

[LawrenceCooper]

Q & P endings are hellish both for the attacker and defender tbf, humans almost always make multiple errors in them.

I presume that Carlsen hasn't accused his opponent of cheating yet?

Why would he? He's lost to him before, ironically another Q&P ending. https://chess24.com/en/watch/live-tourn ... 021/10/1/1
https://twitter.com/chess24com/status/1 ... 4439539712

It wasn't an *entirely* serious comment tbh.

Though taking what you say at face value, hadn't he also lost to Niemann at non-classical chess previously?

Yes, I think he lost the first game of a Meltwater match but then won the next three. That seemed to be a better reaction to a loss than we saw at the Sinquefeld Cup.

[Kevin Thurlow]

I was pleased to see a group of "Wisdens" on Peter Svidler's book shelves.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Well, obviously Leonard was right, six or so years before everyone else as usual, about Abdusattorov and Praggnanandhaa.

But now the real questions for journalists - how to shorten their names? (Maybe they won't need to. To my surprise, I find it quite easy to remember their spellings, even though I still cannot spell out Nepo's full name. I still wonder whether the Indian superstar might become "Praggers" or something similar in English parlance).

I hope that Ding Liren improves during the event, the world championship match could certainly do with some more credibility with so many strong youngsters around.

[Nick Ivell]

I thought Pragg was already common usage.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Carlsen's rather Jekyll and Hyde performance in this tournament is continuing - he really does seem to own Caruana just now.