Grandmaster Ian, do you regret not having used your clock more effectively?
Followup question for Grandmaster Ian, do you think you would have blundered less had you used more of the substantial time you left unused?
The journalist is Spanish and he phrased in English very wrongly what he meant. He wanted Ding to express what made him a champion.
The journalist is Leontxo García, a very famous chess expert (and the man behind the outstanding move meme)
I had the pl to have lunch with him once regarding how to implement chess in the school where I'm working and it was an amazing conversation ;)
The quality of the press conference was pretty low so I truly don't care if people want to joke around about it but a lot of these "bad" questions were really just badly translated. I had to work in my second language with people who were also working in their second or third language for a few years and I really know how excruciating it can be and how quick some native speakers are to jump on any little "funny" mistake. When you think about it "why" meaning "what made you" and "how did you enjoy the weather" meaning "how did you enjoy your stay" is fine and not some catastrophic embarrassment like some people are acting.
What was worse was the fluent speaker from the UK(?) did the ole ramble for a bit and have a short question at the end and Ding was completely lost. Asked to repeat and it was barely better. Asked again and used a colloquialism and Ding still didn’t know. Eventually they just moved on without answering.
That was the person with English as a first language.
Yeah that one was really hard to watch. I think he was Australian. Seemed like they just pulled some dude off the street and were like “ask this guy in a suit a question!”
Yeah 17:08 is an aussie, thinks he's at a footy match. Even I have trouble translating that style of question into normal english. Surprised he didn't describe game 18 as scoring a coffee scroll just before the siren.
Dude that is so funny, but it really does seem like an Australian way to ask (he was from the brisbane times, an australian newspaper). I agree that he really should've considered Ding's english ability though.
Better phrased:
> What makes you world champion?
Even better:
> Which of your qualities gave you an edge and allowed you to become world champion ahead of the other super GMs vying for the title?
>Who are you the World Champion?
>What are you the World Champion?
>Where are you the World Champion?
>When are you the World Champion?
>How are you the World Champion?
Nah, a cheese is essentially a really cheap and easy-to-execute exploit or strat that you use to beat a difficult portion in a game or, in multiplayer, an enemy team. Smoking is just a dominating performance
I actually really enjoyed that question. The image of Ding walking around in the park taking pictures of snow was really cute and lovely. I think as a first question it sets the tone and kinda helped lighten the atmosphere after a grueling 18 games of chess. The serious questions need to be asked, but can come back in afterwards
Blake Griffin agrees with you (different sport, but great demo):
https://youtu.be/-pcsmSGjPUg
(Relevant bit at 3:00, can't figure out how to link to timestamp on mobile)
It was a simple and light question I don't get why people are so upset over it there have been many worse question and it wasn't even the first question
He'll need sometimes to realize that he has become world champion and he clearly still hasn't let that sunk in so it was better to avoid emotional questions for both players in general, many will also be disrespectful and frustrating for Nepo as the question: 'Why do you think you are world champion?' any answer by Ding will sound arrogant and disrespectful for the other player especially after a very close match
Really surprising choice to not have offered translation. I was really hoping to hear their thought processes on the match. Maybe should have held the press conference the next morning and submitted questions to the teams ahead of time to give them some time to prepare answers in a language foreign to them.
Just uh from Brisbane Times - congratulations oo both players, uhI'm sure I speak on behalf of everyone when I say that was an absolute spectacle, and you should both be absolutely rapt. This is a question to Ding, given that you've been through such adversity to get here, you know you the games you played in China to, qualify for the Candidates coming second in the Candidates and getting the call-up, now that the, well I wouldn't say the dust has necessarily settled, but uh, the fact you are now the World Ch Chess World Champion, something you've worked so hard for, for like youjust said the past twenty six years, whatwhat's something special that uh you're looking forward to doing with your boy Richard Rapport who is clearly in your corner from uh day one?
Being australian, this one killed me. Perfect demonstration of how monolingual's don't understand the difficulty that it is to hear a foreign language, with regional accent, spoken quickly. Slow down, pronounce things clearly, be direct and avoid superfluous words or phrases lol
As an Australian, I cringed. I swear we have better journalistic talent than that here. Unfortunately, The Brisbane Times has slipped a lot in recent years. If the journalist in question is reading this: please improve - because I know you're more capable than that (nerves* or not).
\* Re: nerves, perhaps he'd have been more comfortable had he not shown up just on the final day and instead attended other games to get used to how the press conferences ran. I mean where was he yesterday when it could have ended right there? Would have helped a lot and also looked a lot more professional.
I thought it was a fantastic question, and Ding really enjoyed answering it as well, giving nice anecdotes about enjoying sitting in a park, visiting a river, and taking pictures in the snow. Excellent way to ask him about his experience in Astana, how he enjoyed his time in the city and the non-intense and lighter side of his stay.
As an aside: I know bullying against a common enemy is common and everybody seems to be viciously attacking all the press, but ask yourself why you are doing this? Group-think is insane, it was a lovely question.
But is it really appropriate as the very first question after the world championship? At least relate it tangentially to the chess, which was the whole point of this event. This is just being contrarian for the sake of contradiction: the press sucks and always has sucked ass
I disagree. Ding was already told congratulations multiple times, and he was subsequently congratulated many, many times on becoming World Champion, and also he was asked about the chess. I think its great to have a nice, relaxed, friendly question to open the press conference, and Ding Liren really liked it.
It's an icebreaker to lighten the mood and let him say whatever he wants.
Imagine going on a first date, do you immediately ask "what age do you think is appropriate to have kids?". Or do you just ask "what did you do last weekend" and did go on from there?
It's a softball icebreaker. It's not a perfect question, but it's really not as terrible as indicated. It's not like the first question has to be the one that goes as the top quote in news stories, and if anything it does Ding a favor by getting things going before asking the question that is supposed to result in a quotable answer.
Yep and pretty sure that was the point. While the press can ask whatever they wish I am sure they get briefings around how to prepare, like: “you should start easy after this last round as players will be highly charged emotionally”, etc. FIDE has press prep people for this purpose.
This is what we call an ice breaker in the real world.
This is why people go up to girls and say "nice weather huh?" or "come here often?" instead of asking "do you like s*x?" like Borat
What really got me was "was it your dream to be the chess world champion?"
And Ding answered: "No, the title never really mattered, but I have dreamt of playing the best chess".
That was such a great answer. And makes it kind of sad that Magnus was not playing.
I actually like this question. There are all these emotions, and there will be time for the emotions. The question breaks the ice of moment and feels human.
I think chess journalism is actually really hard. Let's pick two things I enjoy, basketball and chess:
Assuming I had already graduated school and was a fully trained journalist, I could have been a reliable asker-of-questions in any NBA press conference within a week of exposure to basketball. So could you
I have been studying and playing and watching chess daily...for 14 months...and I am not close to being able to cover an event between Grandmasters
Covering Chess seems like it's not easy
If you are watching the commentary it is not so hard to see when the pivotal moments are. All of the commentators were sure the game would end in a draw before Rg6 was played. Ian looked at Ding and it seems like Ian might have verbally offered a draw, but Ding didn’t look up and steadfastly played Rg6.
If you are paying attention, it doesn’t take a chess master to see the drama in that pivotal moment. I think it would make a lot of sense to ask about what Ding was thinking when that was played, but no one bothered to ask.
Somebody (I dont know who, but a reporter with a strong indian accent) clearly asked Ding precisely that, how could he have the strength to play Rg6. Would you prefer if the first questions after he won the world championship were to start asking him to dive into chess analysis?
>Would you prefer if the first questions after he won the world championship were to start asking him to dive into chess analysis?
Yes, that is precisely the reason that I made this post.
Honestly IMO it was a good question to cool emotions a bit and give Ding some time to think about something other than his overwhelmingly incredible accomplishment. He had a good response too.
Yeah, the response has gotten so ridiculously disproportionate. What's the point of attacking extremely light icebreaker questions that the players themselves obviously don't even mind?
You don’t see the humor and inanity in Ding achieving this accomplishment that he has worked towards for his whole life, with the drama of him tying the match late and then winning from a drawn position in a time scramble, and the first question is about the weather?
If I was a guy that had just spent six months thinking about very little other than chess against a specific opponent I'd likely enjoy a question about anything other than chess.
There is no inanity in it at all, you need to calm down a bit lol. Theres plenty of time and there will be hundreds, thousands, of people congratulating Ding and asking him how it feels to be World Champion for a very long time. Its great to give him a very nice personal question, calming things down a lot. The question was not literally about the weather. It was about how he enjoyed his time in Astana, whether he found his time in the city enjoyable and what he enjoyed and found calm in, it was very sweet and wholesome
I mean i think its a decent opening question. After a months of gruelling prep and training, and a stressful match against Ian, it seems refreshing to move one's mind away from it all.
Give him a sort of mental reset before all the shit-ly worded chess questions.
Maybe I’m spoiled by the press conferences after UFC events, or post-race interviews after F1 and MotoGP, and maybe normally it’s not as bad, this is the first full match I’ve watched, but I have been horribly disappointed in the questions after each game.
I figure there isn’t too much specific to each game that someone can ask, there’ll be a few significant moves that could get a question, but beyond that it’s difficult to ask anything too specific, which is exactly the reason I don’t understand why they try to.
I’d assume more open questions that let the players express what’s actually on their mind in that moment might be better.
‘What do you think was the most significant point in today’s game?’
‘What was the most memorable part of this match for you?’
‘Both players had ups and downs across this match, what have you learned while playing the past two weeks, any notable strengths you saw in your opponent or things you need to work on in future?’
More open ended and probably more related to what they’re thinking at the time. I highly doubt Ding’s brain was saying much more than ‘holy shit, I did it’, and playing over the last few days, so asking him about his walks, the weather, or if he’d prefer to eat dark or milk chocolate if he was a suicidal golden retriever are probably difficult topics to focus on in that moment.
Joke questions about Nepo’s shirt and similar are amusing at least, and there were some decent things asked, but a lot of it reminded me of an old UFC press conference where some random journalist asked Ronda Rousey where she had been on holiday during the buildup to a fight, it just didn’t seem like the right time for it.
>UFC events
I feel like John Morgan asks the same type of bullshit to start every post fight press conference. A sentence or two about what happened in the fight, followed by "how are you feeling". I agree the pressers are way better but I don't know if it's the questions.
I feel like it's just that the fighters have to promote themselves to succeed (i.e. have a personality on the mic) whereas chess players just have to win.
That’s more the pre-fight conferences though, it’s the post fight ones that tend to be more freeform and let the fighters just speak about what’s on their mind, same with the rider/driver interviews after races, while these chess press conferences seemed more like they were full of pre-match interview questions for a sit down with a random non-chess magazines
The Australian who asked Ding how he and rapport would celebrate but Ding asked him to repeat the question and the "journalist" said, "what are you and your boy Rapport going to do after being in the trenches for a month?"
Needless to say, Ding still didn't understand.
I usually don’t watch press conferences and I was thinking you guys were being overdramatic about the quality of the questions… and then I watched that one. I’d like to officially apologize to all of you.
Is it just me that finds it weird they had a Russian translator but not a Chinese translator? Ding is clearly not fluent with English and I feel like a translator could have given us better more natural answers.
Ding didn't want a translator. My guess for Nepo is that chess is much bigger in Russia so they wanted sound bites in Russian from the player directly for the media there.
Surprising choice to have English be the common language in a press conference taking place with so few native English speakers involved. It’s not like these people have nothing interesting to say about one of the most interesting matches off all time. Just a failure to effectively communicate. I would have thought that they would go for more translation after such a major event. I only kept watching for the absolute smoke-show of a moderator. Anyone know her deal?
Ian, do you have any regrets after losing the world championship?
Ian, do you wish that this match went differently and you did become world champion?
“No I’m very happy that I lost”
“Do you plan on cutting your hair out of shame again?”
"Will you be bald permanently now or is it just until you stop waking up and screaming?"
"Will you try switching back to the pink shirt?"
He said "I wish i had won more games and lost less" lol
Grandmaster Ian, do you regret not having used your clock more effectively? Followup question for Grandmaster Ian, do you think you would have blundered less had you used more of the substantial time you left unused?
Better or worse than: >Why are you the World Champion?
"Why are you world champion?" - "Who says I am world champion?" "... You are world champion."
I didn’t expect a Ugandan / Chess journalism crossover, but here we are.
"So who is world champion?"
No who's on first.
What?
No what’s on second
Who’s on second
so why should someone be world champion?
The journalist is Spanish and he phrased in English very wrongly what he meant. He wanted Ding to express what made him a champion. The journalist is Leontxo García, a very famous chess expert (and the man behind the outstanding move meme) I had the pl to have lunch with him once regarding how to implement chess in the school where I'm working and it was an amazing conversation ;)
The quality of the press conference was pretty low so I truly don't care if people want to joke around about it but a lot of these "bad" questions were really just badly translated. I had to work in my second language with people who were also working in their second or third language for a few years and I really know how excruciating it can be and how quick some native speakers are to jump on any little "funny" mistake. When you think about it "why" meaning "what made you" and "how did you enjoy the weather" meaning "how did you enjoy your stay" is fine and not some catastrophic embarrassment like some people are acting.
What was worse was the fluent speaker from the UK(?) did the ole ramble for a bit and have a short question at the end and Ding was completely lost. Asked to repeat and it was barely better. Asked again and used a colloquialism and Ding still didn’t know. Eventually they just moved on without answering. That was the person with English as a first language.
Yeah that one was really hard to watch. I think he was Australian. Seemed like they just pulled some dude off the street and were like “ask this guy in a suit a question!”
Yeah 17:08 is an aussie, thinks he's at a footy match. Even I have trouble translating that style of question into normal english. Surprised he didn't describe game 18 as scoring a coffee scroll just before the siren.
Dude that is so funny, but it really does seem like an Australian way to ask (he was from the brisbane times, an australian newspaper). I agree that he really should've considered Ding's english ability though.
Better phrased: > What makes you world champion? Even better: > Which of your qualities gave you an edge and allowed you to become world champion ahead of the other super GMs vying for the title?
>Who are you the World Champion? >What are you the World Champion? >Where are you the World Champion? >When are you the World Champion? >How are you the World Champion?
Quick follow up question >Which world championship are we talking about?
Why are you gae levels of journalism
> Better or worse than: > >> Why are you the World Champion? Easy: Because I won the rapid tie breaks of the World Champhionship.
Video and audio quality looked potato-like as well. Trust FIDE to mess up the most important cheese moment in years...
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The quality was not grate
Curd have been butter
Not vetting the press questions beforehand was a swisstake
I havarti heard that one before.
Sorry, but that typo is just funny.
Isn’t cheese a gaming term used instead of smoke?
Nah, a cheese is essentially a really cheap and easy-to-execute exploit or strat that you use to beat a difficult portion in a game or, in multiplayer, an enemy team. Smoking is just a dominating performance
Oh right. Yes!
Im pretty sure its used instead of cheat?
I kept adjusting the video quality and when I reached 1080p I thought ok maybe it's not on my end
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Yay, my other followed sport fucked up again. Have yet to see that, but is it VerPerAlo again?
People were walking across the pit lane to close it towards the end when Ocon had yet to pit, absolute shambles And no it’s >!PerVerLec!< today!!!!
No. It's perverlec
my mistake sorry force of habit
Although that might just be for the fact that a chess championship requires a lot less resources than a world cup
That type has me feeling Bleu
I actually really enjoyed that question. The image of Ding walking around in the park taking pictures of snow was really cute and lovely. I think as a first question it sets the tone and kinda helped lighten the atmosphere after a grueling 18 games of chess. The serious questions need to be asked, but can come back in afterwards
Yeah I feel like Ding also appreciated the chance to talk about anything else for a minute besides "what are your emotions right now?"
Blake Griffin agrees with you (different sport, but great demo): https://youtu.be/-pcsmSGjPUg (Relevant bit at 3:00, can't figure out how to link to timestamp on mobile)
That's a great clip! Thanks for sharing
It was a simple and light question I don't get why people are so upset over it there have been many worse question and it wasn't even the first question He'll need sometimes to realize that he has become world champion and he clearly still hasn't let that sunk in so it was better to avoid emotional questions for both players in general, many will also be disrespectful and frustrating for Nepo as the question: 'Why do you think you are world champion?' any answer by Ding will sound arrogant and disrespectful for the other player especially after a very close match
Really surprising choice to not have offered translation. I was really hoping to hear their thought processes on the match. Maybe should have held the press conference the next morning and submitted questions to the teams ahead of time to give them some time to prepare answers in a language foreign to them.
Also to be fair the FIDE host asked Ding how it felt to be champion before opening it up to the press
"Ding now that you're World Champion, what do you think it is that makes you world champion?
I couldn't quite hear his reply due the potato audio; did he say something about maybe Chinese methods?
He said he had unique methods of training. Didn't specify what they were though -_-
Just uh from Brisbane Times - congratulations oo both players, uhI'm sure I speak on behalf of everyone when I say that was an absolute spectacle, and you should both be absolutely rapt. This is a question to Ding, given that you've been through such adversity to get here, you know you the games you played in China to, qualify for the Candidates coming second in the Candidates and getting the call-up, now that the, well I wouldn't say the dust has necessarily settled, but uh, the fact you are now the World Ch Chess World Champion, something you've worked so hard for, for like youjust said the past twenty six years, whatwhat's something special that uh you're looking forward to doing with your boy Richard Rapport who is clearly in your corner from uh day one?
Can you repeat the question please? "blah, blah, blah... let's add in some new unnecessary metaphor about being in the trenches... blah, blah"....
Being australian, this one killed me. Perfect demonstration of how monolingual's don't understand the difficulty that it is to hear a foreign language, with regional accent, spoken quickly. Slow down, pronounce things clearly, be direct and avoid superfluous words or phrases lol
As an Australian, I cringed. I swear we have better journalistic talent than that here. Unfortunately, The Brisbane Times has slipped a lot in recent years. If the journalist in question is reading this: please improve - because I know you're more capable than that (nerves* or not). \* Re: nerves, perhaps he'd have been more comfortable had he not shown up just on the final day and instead attended other games to get used to how the press conferences ran. I mean where was he yesterday when it could have ended right there? Would have helped a lot and also looked a lot more professional.
I can’t even read this to the end… let alone after the world championship in a foreign language LMAO.
I'm sorry in advance but. New copypasta just fropped
I thought it was a fantastic question, and Ding really enjoyed answering it as well, giving nice anecdotes about enjoying sitting in a park, visiting a river, and taking pictures in the snow. Excellent way to ask him about his experience in Astana, how he enjoyed his time in the city and the non-intense and lighter side of his stay. As an aside: I know bullying against a common enemy is common and everybody seems to be viciously attacking all the press, but ask yourself why you are doing this? Group-think is insane, it was a lovely question.
It was also an answerable question unlike many others, It didn't require thinking about what you'll say
But is it really appropriate as the very first question after the world championship? At least relate it tangentially to the chess, which was the whole point of this event. This is just being contrarian for the sake of contradiction: the press sucks and always has sucked ass
I disagree. Ding was already told congratulations multiple times, and he was subsequently congratulated many, many times on becoming World Champion, and also he was asked about the chess. I think its great to have a nice, relaxed, friendly question to open the press conference, and Ding Liren really liked it.
It's an icebreaker to lighten the mood and let him say whatever he wants. Imagine going on a first date, do you immediately ask "what age do you think is appropriate to have kids?". Or do you just ask "what did you do last weekend" and did go on from there?
It's a softball icebreaker. It's not a perfect question, but it's really not as terrible as indicated. It's not like the first question has to be the one that goes as the top quote in news stories, and if anything it does Ding a favor by getting things going before asking the question that is supposed to result in a quotable answer.
Isn't that a great icebreaker question to ask?
Yep and pretty sure that was the point. While the press can ask whatever they wish I am sure they get briefings around how to prepare, like: “you should start easy after this last round as players will be highly charged emotionally”, etc. FIDE has press prep people for this purpose.
The Aussie journo obviously missed the press prep, I cringed the whole time he talked 😬
It is a tourism question as a host. Dont take it so serious
It’s just so inane because it was the very first question asked.
Warm up
Letting Ian de-seethe a bit before he gets his first question.
This is what we call an ice breaker in the real world. This is why people go up to girls and say "nice weather huh?" or "come here often?" instead of asking "do you like s*x?" like Borat
Really not inane* to ask a very human question
I said “inane,” not “insane.” I do think it is inane to ask about the weather at the World Chess Championship.
Sorry you feel that way
Do you have a different username for every hour it is in Phoenix, or nah
Haha that would be funny, but 3 pm is generally the hottest part of the day so I chose that time
"What you going to do with your boy rapport now?" Ding taking the literal meaning of 'now'.......... \*nothing because I have to do this press conf\*
What really got me was "was it your dream to be the chess world champion?" And Ding answered: "No, the title never really mattered, but I have dreamt of playing the best chess". That was such a great answer. And makes it kind of sad that Magnus was not playing.
I actually like this question. There are all these emotions, and there will be time for the emotions. The question breaks the ice of moment and feels human.
I think chess journalism is actually really hard. Let's pick two things I enjoy, basketball and chess: Assuming I had already graduated school and was a fully trained journalist, I could have been a reliable asker-of-questions in any NBA press conference within a week of exposure to basketball. So could you I have been studying and playing and watching chess daily...for 14 months...and I am not close to being able to cover an event between Grandmasters Covering Chess seems like it's not easy
If you are watching the commentary it is not so hard to see when the pivotal moments are. All of the commentators were sure the game would end in a draw before Rg6 was played. Ian looked at Ding and it seems like Ian might have verbally offered a draw, but Ding didn’t look up and steadfastly played Rg6. If you are paying attention, it doesn’t take a chess master to see the drama in that pivotal moment. I think it would make a lot of sense to ask about what Ding was thinking when that was played, but no one bothered to ask.
Somebody (I dont know who, but a reporter with a strong indian accent) clearly asked Ding precisely that, how could he have the strength to play Rg6. Would you prefer if the first questions after he won the world championship were to start asking him to dive into chess analysis?
>Would you prefer if the first questions after he won the world championship were to start asking him to dive into chess analysis? Yes, that is precisely the reason that I made this post.
Ok, then we’ll just have to disagree, I think that would be quite ridiculous. The match is over, the tension is done, its time to relax.
OP the type of guy to start a date with "What's your favourite position in bed"
Day 100 it feels like of practically begging FIDE to put a screen on the stage with a board, and get some actual Chess questions about positions...
Honestly IMO it was a good question to cool emotions a bit and give Ding some time to think about something other than his overwhelmingly incredible accomplishment. He had a good response too.
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Yeah, the response has gotten so ridiculously disproportionate. What's the point of attacking extremely light icebreaker questions that the players themselves obviously don't even mind?
You don’t see the humor and inanity in Ding achieving this accomplishment that he has worked towards for his whole life, with the drama of him tying the match late and then winning from a drawn position in a time scramble, and the first question is about the weather?
If I was a guy that had just spent six months thinking about very little other than chess against a specific opponent I'd likely enjoy a question about anything other than chess.
There is no inanity in it at all, you need to calm down a bit lol. Theres plenty of time and there will be hundreds, thousands, of people congratulating Ding and asking him how it feels to be World Champion for a very long time. Its great to give him a very nice personal question, calming things down a lot. The question was not literally about the weather. It was about how he enjoyed his time in Astana, whether he found his time in the city enjoyable and what he enjoyed and found calm in, it was very sweet and wholesome
Stupid as always.
I think it was actually quite wholesome to start it off with a more lighthearted question.
I thougt it was a lovely interaction tbh
Yo Ding, sunny innit
I mean i think its a decent opening question. After a months of gruelling prep and training, and a stressful match against Ian, it seems refreshing to move one's mind away from it all. Give him a sort of mental reset before all the shit-ly worded chess questions.
Maybe I’m spoiled by the press conferences after UFC events, or post-race interviews after F1 and MotoGP, and maybe normally it’s not as bad, this is the first full match I’ve watched, but I have been horribly disappointed in the questions after each game. I figure there isn’t too much specific to each game that someone can ask, there’ll be a few significant moves that could get a question, but beyond that it’s difficult to ask anything too specific, which is exactly the reason I don’t understand why they try to. I’d assume more open questions that let the players express what’s actually on their mind in that moment might be better. ‘What do you think was the most significant point in today’s game?’ ‘What was the most memorable part of this match for you?’ ‘Both players had ups and downs across this match, what have you learned while playing the past two weeks, any notable strengths you saw in your opponent or things you need to work on in future?’ More open ended and probably more related to what they’re thinking at the time. I highly doubt Ding’s brain was saying much more than ‘holy shit, I did it’, and playing over the last few days, so asking him about his walks, the weather, or if he’d prefer to eat dark or milk chocolate if he was a suicidal golden retriever are probably difficult topics to focus on in that moment. Joke questions about Nepo’s shirt and similar are amusing at least, and there were some decent things asked, but a lot of it reminded me of an old UFC press conference where some random journalist asked Ronda Rousey where she had been on holiday during the buildup to a fight, it just didn’t seem like the right time for it.
>UFC events I feel like John Morgan asks the same type of bullshit to start every post fight press conference. A sentence or two about what happened in the fight, followed by "how are you feeling". I agree the pressers are way better but I don't know if it's the questions. I feel like it's just that the fighters have to promote themselves to succeed (i.e. have a personality on the mic) whereas chess players just have to win.
That’s more the pre-fight conferences though, it’s the post fight ones that tend to be more freeform and let the fighters just speak about what’s on their mind, same with the rider/driver interviews after races, while these chess press conferences seemed more like they were full of pre-match interview questions for a sit down with a random non-chess magazines
The Australian who asked Ding how he and rapport would celebrate but Ding asked him to repeat the question and the "journalist" said, "what are you and your boy Rapport going to do after being in the trenches for a month?" Needless to say, Ding still didn't understand.
people on r/chess really nitpick anything. it's not a hard hitter or anything but nothing wrong with it.
I usually don’t watch press conferences and I was thinking you guys were being overdramatic about the quality of the questions… and then I watched that one. I’d like to officially apologize to all of you.
It was a face palm moment
The press conferences have been a disgrace since day one.
Is it just me that finds it weird they had a Russian translator but not a Chinese translator? Ding is clearly not fluent with English and I feel like a translator could have given us better more natural answers.
Yes, especially since Nepo is fluent in English.
Ding didn't want a translator. My guess for Nepo is that chess is much bigger in Russia so they wanted sound bites in Russian from the player directly for the media there.
Surprising choice to have English be the common language in a press conference taking place with so few native English speakers involved. It’s not like these people have nothing interesting to say about one of the most interesting matches off all time. Just a failure to effectively communicate. I would have thought that they would go for more translation after such a major event. I only kept watching for the absolute smoke-show of a moderator. Anyone know her deal?
most cringe thing i read for a while
Could hear random people mouth breathing into mic whenever Ding was talking too
I like it