Wijk aan Zee 2021

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JustinHorton
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Re: Wijk aan Zee 2021

Post by JustinHorton » Sun Jan 24, 2021 4:56 pm

"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

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Jonathan Rogers
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Re: Wijk aan Zee 2021

Post by Jonathan Rogers » Sun Jan 24, 2021 5:22 pm

perhaps this is the sort of thing that happens after a long unbeaten runs ends: one quickly loses a few more games, the likes of which one should also have lost during that long run but somehow didn't. When Carlsen has another 30 game unbeaten run going though, watch out ....

Strange opening choice, though. I can understand MVL playing Poisoned pawn line and losing twice, and Caruana playing around with 1 d4 and 2 Nc3, etc because they are still in the candidates and needing to hide their preparation. But why does Carlsen play the Najdorf? I thought the Dragon and Sveshnikov were his only (only!) sicilian lines?

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Matt Mackenzie
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Re: Wijk aan Zee 2021

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Sun Jan 24, 2021 5:47 pm

His opening game aside (and he rode his luck there, a bit) Carlsen's play in this tournament has been consistently underwhelming.

The claim that a constant diet of rapid online chess has dulled his reflexes might just have something to it.
"Set up your attacks so that when the fire is out, it isn't out!" (H N Pillsbury)

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JustinHorton
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Re: Wijk aan Zee 2021

Post by JustinHorton » Sun Jan 24, 2021 6:41 pm

Oh, did Harikrishna overlook that he couldn't put his king on d3?
"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Wijk aan Zee 2021

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Sun Jan 24, 2021 6:44 pm

I thought he only lost that other game recently and had forgotten who it was against, so Googled "Carlsen lost chess game" because it would be easy to find that way, and it was back in October now (something funny happens to time in a lockdown). Anyway, it was the loss to Duda in the Norway Chess event, and it was reported on by CNN of all news organisations:

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/12/spor ... index.html

Carlsen might be getting worried now about his number 1 status:

https://2700chess.com/

Caruana is only 23 rating points behind now.

I agree with Matt, maybe there is something to the idea that Carlsen is playing too much online chess.

Carlsen really does hate losing, doesn't he? Go and watch his comment on being a bad loser in the video where he talks about his favorite scene from 'The Queen's Gambit'. The video is on YouTube here.

From the YouTube transcript function:
Magnus Carlsen wrote:[...] i'm somebody who has never been great at dealing with uh with defeats if you take a survey of the best player to ask them who the worst loser is my name is gonna come up [...] it's very very relatable um the despair she feels towards the end of the game where you know you've been outplayed uh you know there are no chances you just um you're you're just desperately looking for something anything any any chance that you can you can possibly find whenever you lose like you start questioning everything basically is it's really so so unpleasant uh it's such an unpleasant feeling to to lose especially like if um if you feel like you made mistakes that you could have you could have avoided um for me personally i just try to channel that anger into into the next game i do like the fact for her that losing is not normal it's not something that just happens like you you accept it and then you move on when you lose you have to make sure that it doesn't happen again because it's it's it's an awful feeling and the motivation has to be to avoid feeling that again [...]
I haven't tidied up the punctuation, and the transcript doesn't really do justice to Carlsen's facial expressions while talking about this, so you really have to watch the video (timestamps: 5:48-7:28). The video captions look to have been edited to be better than the automated one (which I really appreciate, I wonder why and who did that, is it Carlsen's PR people so that everyone worldwide can access the dialogue - maybe Carlsen's Norwegian accent isn't picked up well by automated subtitles?).

Anyway, Carlsen tweeted after his loss today (it is ironic that his reaction here appears on his Twitter feed just above a retweet of a tweet by CBS showing Carlsen in his suit in that swimming pool after he became World Champion 7 years ago):

https://twitter.com/MagnusCarlsen/statu ... 67522?s=20
Had a very unpleasant experience at the playing hall today, felt like a swab was being shoved into my nostril and all the way inside my brain, causing a lot of pain. Covid test after the game was not that bad though
:D

The game:

Esipenko, Andrey (RUS) - Carlsen, Magnus (NOR)
Tata Steel Masters 2021 round 08
24.01.2021
1-0


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JustinHorton
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Re: Wijk aan Zee 2021

Post by JustinHorton » Sun Jan 24, 2021 8:06 pm

When did Carlsen last lose a game at normal time limits to a player rated below 2700, and when to a player rated below Esipenko's present 2677)? (I tried to look it up on Chessgames but there's no way of filtering out the rapid and blitz games.)
"Do you play chess?"
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Mick Norris
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Re: Wijk aan Zee 2021

Post by Mick Norris » Sun Jan 24, 2021 9:00 pm

I think Saric was 2671 when he beat Carlsen at the Tromso Olympiad 2014
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Paul Cooksey
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Re: Wijk aan Zee 2021

Post by Paul Cooksey » Sun Jan 24, 2021 9:50 pm

Of course Magnus losing is the big news of the day, but Firouzja winning again with black and moving into the sole lead also noteworthy. If there is the opportunity to play enough games this year, I would not be shocked to see him reach 2800.

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JustinHorton
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Re: Wijk aan Zee 2021

Post by JustinHorton » Sun Jan 24, 2021 9:57 pm

As far as Magnus In Crisis is concerned

(a) we have heard this before, though
(b) this doesn't mean it's not true, but
(c) I would be most surprised if the world champion after the next world championship match is not Magnus Carlsen.
"Do you play chess?"
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Leonard Barden
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Re: Wijk aan Zee 2021

Post by Leonard Barden » Sun Jan 24, 2021 10:11 pm

JustinHorton wrote:
Sun Jan 24, 2021 8:06 pm
When did Carlsen last lose a game at normal time limits to a player rated below 2700, and when to a player rated below Esipenko's present 2677)? (I tried to look it up on Chessgames but there's no way of filtering out the rapid and blitz games.)
Pelletier 2566 Euroteams Reykjavik 2015.

Eric Gardiner
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Re: Wijk aan Zee 2021

Post by Eric Gardiner » Mon Jan 25, 2021 8:46 am

Bh6/...Bxa3/...Bh3 sacrifices have been played by various players - Shirov should be pleased!

Eric Gardiner
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Re: Wijk aan Zee 2021

Post by Eric Gardiner » Mon Jan 25, 2021 9:54 am

Eric Gardiner wrote:
Mon Jan 25, 2021 8:46 am
Bh6/...Bxa3/...Bh3 sacrifices have been played by various players - Shirov should be pleased!
I realised a few minutes after posting this though that "various" is debatable as two games I was thinking of were played by Duda.

Matthew Turner
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Re: Wijk aan Zee 2021

Post by Matthew Turner » Mon Jan 25, 2021 10:16 am

Paul Cooksey wrote:
Sun Jan 24, 2021 9:50 pm
Of course Magnus losing is the big news of the day, but Firouzja winning again with black and moving into the sole lead also noteworthy. If there is the opportunity to play enough games this year, I would not be shocked to see him reach 2800.
I think there are quite a lot of stories
Van Foreest having great preparation and playing fantastically well
Esipenko having a wonderful tournament
MVL getting continually out-prepared

I don't think Carlsen played at all badly in rounds 1-6, so for me the over-arching story is that the lower rated players are playing much better than expected. Firouzja leading the tournament is a story for now, but I wonder if historically speaking the story might be other players emerging as pretenders to the crown.

Thomas Rendle
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Re: Wijk aan Zee 2021

Post by Thomas Rendle » Mon Jan 25, 2021 10:22 am

Saw last night that Van Foreest has GM elect Max Warmerdam helping with preparation.

MVL may well be keeping stuff back for the Candidates. It certainly doesn't look like Caruana is doing the same, but who knows!?

Mick Norris
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Re: Wijk aan Zee 2021

Post by Mick Norris » Mon Jan 25, 2021 4:47 pm

Thomas Rendle wrote:
Mon Jan 25, 2021 10:22 am
MVL may well be keeping stuff back for the Candidates. It certainly doesn't look like Caruana is doing the same, but who knows!?
Candidates match ups are:

Round 8 Caruana v MVL
Round 10 MVL v Giri
Round 12 Caruana v Giri

At Wijk, we have Giri v MVL tomorrow, but Caruana, and his opponents, may well have been hiding specific prep in their games at Wijk

I assume some of the prep they did for the original dates for the Candidates is no longer useful
Any postings on here represent my personal views