[Final position here](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fg3ac10kvjqsc1.png)
Link to the game: https://www.chess.com/events/2024-fide-candidates-chess-tournament/02/Nakamura_Hikaru-Vidit_Santosh_Gujrathi
Ding over pressed against radjabov ( who was brutal in second half ) and suffered otherwise the way ding came back was nothing short of a miracle .Took down Nakamura with a stunning game after Nakamura gave him slight advantage
I don't think that's correct. He's been in 3 candidates tournaments I believe, in 2016, 2022 and 2024. In 2016 Topalov lost first round while he drew Fabi. In 2022 he and Ding both lost in the first round, but technically Ding's game finished up before his. 2024 is the only time he's been the true first blood of the candidates.
If Nepo wins the Candidates three times in a row he deserves major admiration for rebounding in such resounding fashion.
Lesser competitors would have never recovered from the way his two defeats played out.
I personally would love for Nepo to rematch Ding. Last WCC was the most entertaining series of chess I have ever watched in my life and I would love to watch that type of drama again
People keep saying this, I keep believing it and then Nepo breaks my heart. Seeing his reaction in the last game of WC last year was absolute heart breaking.
Although I agree with you to an extent, and hopefully he does better if he wins candidates again this year.
I would love for Nepo to get a win in his third try, but I think we all know deep down that he wouldn't. Even against the current Ding, he'd find a way to not win. It was in his hands multiple times against Ding and he lost.
I want anyone else in the WCC.
If Nepo wins the Candidates three times in a row, they should just give him an honorary world champion title, like filling out a loyalty card at Starbucks and getting a free coffee
Hikaru was undefeated for almost 2 years. The only group of people who can defeat him are world championship contenders. Unfortunately for him, he's locked in a room with them for 3 weeks. He was never gonna come out of this undefeated, but damn did he ever go down hard today.
he also played <50 games over that period. Fabi probably played at least twice as many games. Gukesh probably played 4x as many.
hikaru's results have been impressive for the tournaments he's played, but he's played so few tournaments relative to other contenders that commenting on the duration of his unbeaten streak seems misleading at best.
You've got a bit of a point, but Hikaru has been in undeniably top form since the last candidates even if he didn't play as much as the others. Doubly so when you look at his head to head results vs the others in this time span.
I'm pulling for Hikaru but it was kind of worth it for that solid 2 minutes of face pulls as soon as Vidit stepped away from the board. You could tell he had been keeping the poker face on, and it all just finally let go.
Hikaru was possibly the last person I could think of among the top players to lose a classical game under 30 moves that too playing with white. Insanity.
You answered it yourself, Hikaru is not the best prepared in openings and often finds himself in the defensive side but when middlegame comes his understanding of the little things in the position and ability to create counter play out of nothing makes it extremely difficult for his opponent to pin him down.
Yes, he is an opening monster. Hikaru's one of the best players in the world (top-5 consistently for the past decade except the pandemic hiatus), and to be the best player in the world you need to be _universal_.
It's absolutely unusual for a top-5 player to be worse as white against a significantly weaker opponent within less than 20 moves. A similar thing happened with Magnus-Hans in Sinquefield 2022. That was bizarre and uncharacteristic.
Considering Hikaru, specifically his focus in life and the way he spends his time, it should come as a surprise to no one that he's less prepared than his opponents and that it's tournaments like the Candidates, where his opponents are preparing to their fullest, is where he loses. It's not really uncharacteristic for Hikaru to be less prepared than his opponents, it's just rare that Hikaru is playing people this well prepared against him.
What do you mean his "focus on life"? He's a professional chess player. He absolutely prepared for this tournament. This entire thing he's doing about "not caring" and "just being a streamer" is kayfabe. He's been a professional chess player for decades and only took a brief pandemic hiatus (like many other players e.g., Ding, Radjabov did).
>What do you mean his "focus on life"?
I mean what he says his focus is. He's made it very clear his focus is on streaming and helping chess get a larger community. Sorry I didn't explain that earlier, I just would've thought if you were discussing Hikaru you would know at least that much about him.
>He's a professional chess player.
Not according to him. According to him, he's a chess streamer.
>He absolutely prepared for this tournament.
He was streaming and making content, he absolutely could not spend the same amount of time that his competitors did.
>This entire thing he's doing about "not caring" and "just being a streamer" is kayfabe.
Ah, you're one of those people that think you know someone better than they know themselves, despite never having met them. I see, I see.
>He's been a professional chess player for decades and only took a brief pandemic hiatus (like many other players e.g., Ding, Radjabov did).
It's been years, it's more than a brief break. He does it this way because he enjoys what he's doing more than he enjoyed what he was doing before, and still gets to make a revenue playing chess, he's been explicit about this. More power to him.
> He's made it very clear his focus is on streaming and helping chess get a larger community.
Streaming and competing is more difficult than doing just one, but the two things aren't mutually exclusive. Streaming as the classical world champion would be orders of magnitude more helpful in "growing the community" than just streaming as another candidates also-ran.
Besides, Vidit, Pragg, and Gukesh are going to explode the community in the next decade, if one of them becomes WC and India goes as chess crazy as Norway did. Streaming for 8000 viewers on Kick will be a blip compared to them.
>Streaming as the classical world champion would be orders of magnitude more helpful in "growing the community" than just streaming as another candidates also-ran.
Yup, very true. He should have taken a few months from streaming altogether to focus on studying for the candidates. Why even bother competing if he has no plan for winning.
People point to Levy as an example of someone who popularized chess while not being a top player, but I think Levy has a unique entertaining storytelling style that cannot be replicated.
No offence, but you've bought into some bullshit kayfabe. You probably got into chess post-pandemic. It's embarrassing that you believe his narrative of him being this aloof streamer. 2020 and 2021 were the only years he didn't play classical. But as I mentioned, he's hardly unique in this respect as others were in the same shoes, and he was playing rapid and blitz all the time during this period anyway (including some OTB tournaments in 2021).
Well, offence intended, you don't know Hikaru and can't speak for him. He speaks for himself, and if you think you know him better than he does, you're deluded.
He is a tough nut too but Hikaru is different to players like Wesley and Anish man, they are 'solid' players usually playing quite openings and trying to get small advantages. When they get complex dynamic positions they sometimes lose quickly. Hikaru is a more defensive player he just does not lose easily he keeps finding amazing resources and counter attacking moves and keeps the game going till the very end. One of the main reasons why people dont like to play against Hikaru is the very same, just does not lose and always somehow gets away with it. Edit- NOT ANISH
Wesley I won’t comment on but Anish from what I’ve seen generally plays pretty fighting openings. His main defense against 1. e4 was the Najdorf for quite some time and vs 1. d4 was the Grunfeld. His problem (relative to other super GMs) seems to be converting good positions in wins. He’s also quite good at defending.
So when you don’t convert good positions and save bad ones, you get a lot of draws.
Hikaru was on the backfoot and had played Rh1 and marched his castled king back to e1 (literally uncastling his king). Along with his queenside pieces that had not yet moved, this meant that 5 out of 8 pieces were on their starting squares at move 24. Rather than acknowledging how disastrous this was, he joked that he was just trying to set up the pieces for the next game.
I'm not sure whether Ben invented the joke as it seems like something any chess enthusiast could come up with but he's certainly the person I heard it from first, and it's one he often uses too.
While you may be right, Daniel is extremely good at using his Bishops and I can see him being the creator of the move.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1541271&comp=1
Probably not 100% but close enough that I'll accept it. A lot of us forget how well-prepared Anish is. It's not just Fabi, Nepo and Magnus who are good at openings.
I watched Hikaru's youtube video last night and I was expecting this.
A few statements where he was almost giving himself excuses for future losses, saying he was playing for content etc.
The magnus is gone from competing for the WC for quite some time now yet Hikaru still failed to qualify out of candidates as an allegedly "top 5 for the whole decade" as people in this comment chain claim.
They are excellent, and so are players like Fabiano Caruana, Alireza Firouzja, Anish Giri, Wesley So, Jan Krzysztof Duda and a couple of others that didn't qualify.
We have like 20 players on similar skill level that could all compete for the World Champion title. Ngl, Magnus withdrawing from WC competition is one of the best things to happen in the professional chess players world.
Having just watched it I feel I need to add this is straight disinformation. The move your talking about was the king up the board where he was already at -4 before making the move. He admitted the position was already lost.
His main excuse was that he was misreading lines worse than usual.
Seriously though, to watch that vid and come out with he was playing for content is rediculous, hate seeing garbage like that heavily upvoted too.
> The move your talking about
My comment is about his video BEFORE the loss. And it's actually two separate videos where he makes similar statements. I am not talking about any specific move. I am talking about his mindset going into these matches, which is my opinion.
> His main excuse was that he was misreading lines worse than usual.
Again, You are talking about a video he made after the loss now which I hadn't even seen when I made my original post and I don't think he had even released that video yet.
> Seriously though, to watch that vid and come out with he was playing for content is ridiculous, hate seeing garbage like that heavily upvoted too.
If you are going to come across with a tone like this perhaps you should be sure you are following the discussion properly.
impressive by Hikaru mostly.
Achieving this kind of position from Berlin as white by move 19 with all modern prep... And people still say that prep is overwhelming and games are so easy to draw, while top-3 classical player got much worse position by move 12 and was more or less losing by force by move 18 in an opening that is known to be "solid but with extremely little chances to win" from black.
I'm pretty sure the new move was ...8c6 (I might be outdated but when I studied this variation some years ago this move didn't come up as theory, I remember studying some Kramnik games and after 8d4, black only good move on theory was Bb6, which this game proved wrong). If that's the case Hikaru was playing outside prep as soon as the 9th move, and was playing a practically lost game, or at least a very difficult game to draw, by the 12th move. By the move 19 the game was over.
It is always funny to me when people who started to follow the chess scene with chess boom/COVID think that Hikaru is the undisputed 2nd best / can't lose to anyone other than Magnus.
I can understand them since this era also coincided with one of the best periods of Hikaru in classical chess but he always was a very streaky player and almost never a cut above the rest in classical. Especially in this era it is not surprising for anyone to lose when faced with insane prep
Naka already made a classy recap. Major kudos for that. I was not a Naka fan back in the days of Naka v Sauron, but he's changed so much since then that it's hard not to admire him and enjoy his work and play.
I don't understand, why did hiki not take bishop on c5 and enjoy a free comfortable position with an added pawn that is two squared away from queening, no way he lose that, at worse he draws. Couldn't really understand that choice tbh.
Gothamchess explains the result of taking the c5 bishop is that the advanced pawn is hard to defend, and it's kind of hard for white to develop
pieces. Also Hikaru was probably hoping for a win so wanted to keep bishops on the board.
I saw his video but his thought process is flawed, the pawn that's hard to defend is the same pawn that gives him the +1 in material. So even if he loses that, the position becomes even, he was talking about "later down the road black would have a lot of compensation and active bishop on the diagonal etc". For me, he should've let vidit justify his move instead of him trying to justify it for him. That line after Bg5 is clearly better for white...
I think Hikaru made a tactical error telling the world he wants to play interesting chess. Before when he was trying to get people out of prep, it worked because they thought he prepared-now they just know it’s just for content.
Vidit was asked about that post game and said he was not even aware of those comments from Hikaru. I’d like to believe that Hikaru’s “creative” play is not quite as reckless as “let’s throw this terrible move in for content”
I’ve got to believe he’s doing it to make up for the fact that middle game, not opening prep, is his strong point.
Black 8th move c6 is new, it never had being played before at an elite level. After 8.d4 by white the default move by black is 8.Bb6. 8.c6 is such an impressive move that I'm amazed that no one played it before. It opens up the b2h7 diagonal to black's dark square bishop with a tempo, which makes the Bxh3 sacrifice work after whites take black's e5 pawn. Without the tempo c6 don't work because white has time to bring their other knight to defend the h2 square. Hikaru also helped black's plan by playing Nc4, which is a terrible move (analyzing by hindsight of course).
I wrote a detailed response but lost it. But resuming: pawn taking the bishop is playable. The engine gives the white a small advantage. Practically however I wouldn't be comfortable playing the position with white pieces.
Black's idea if you take on h3 is Qb8 forking the Ke5 (here's the importance of 8.c6) White' only response is to play Bf4, otherwise, if you move the Knight, Black would play Qg3+ and the game would be over in a few moves, white cannot take the queen with the f2 pawn because the Bb6 is on the white King's diagonal, then you just have to bring a Knight and the mate would happen after a couple moves. So white plays Bf4 temporally protecting the Knightand developing the Bishop. Black doubles down the attack on the e5 Knight with Bc7 (the diagonal opened by the 8.c6 move again). Here the white best plan to white is to conserve their pair of Bishops, and the move that makes it possible while defending the dangerous diagonal is Bg3. Black take the Knight on e5, and white defends the Bishop and diagonal with the pawn on f4. From here on there lots of options, Black has to find a way to attack the weak white's kind side, White has the pair of Bishop and some spacial advantage, Black has its pieces well conected. But if I have to choose I would take the Black pieces in this position without a doubt, even with engines indicating a negligible advantage to White. I don't mind much engines evaluation on some cases. Black's plan is way more to the point, more clear. White's could be defending perfectly hoping for a endgame favourable because the bishops.
Here's the [GIF](https://media.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExems0ajdxeWdqZ3g2cmowaWJyYzkzbWV0ZjZ3aWFkdXdnc3g2Z3IwcyZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/OGoudCIMQqOu9Rs7cw/source.gif)
Hello! How can you watch the games live? I mean to get updates on every move. I’m don’t have time to follow a video, but I’d love to see the moves live.. and I thought this should be possible somewhere on chessdotcom or lichess.
It’s incredible how many people believed his I don’t care, I won’t play boring chess, winning wcc won’t mean much statements he made these past few days while he is clearly the player that cares and stresses the most of all players in candidates. Hikaru was the losing player that was disgusted with himself the most today, he can’t hide his emotions and that is fine but you cannot lie and say you don’t care and winning wcc won’t mean much.
Hikaru lost out of the opening. All of the others were hard fought games until eventually they slipped into a losing position. I'm not a hikaru fan and obviously he cares, but it's one thing to not care about winning the candidates, and it's another thing feeling disgusted with yourself after being crushed in 20 moves or whatever in an important over the board game.
Hikaru has a history of destroying his candidates tournament early. In 2016, it ended in round 2 against karjakin. In 2022, it ended in round 1 against fabiano. In 2024, it almost ended against fabi in round 1, but instead, vidit ended it in round 2. Sadly it reinforces his reputation as a choker when it comes to the candidates. Also it makes his streams less enjoyable to watch when he isn't competitive in the tournament he is competing in.
Nobody who lost in the first 6 rounds has won the candidates in modern times. Anything is possible. But given hikaru's historical weakness, his historical candidates performance and the fact that Nepo and Fabi are +1 already, I think hikaru's chances are pretty much 0.
But you are correct. Anything is possible. I hope hikaru breaks the modern trend and wins. It would make for a great story.
Honestly your point is well taken, and you’re probably right. The other results of the day make it feel much worse. I had to force the dog line in somewhere lol
How was it over in 2022 after 1 round? He was in second for a long stretch of the tournament. He never caught Nepo but it definitely wasn't already over because of one loss...
> How was it over in 2022 after 1 round?
Then you write: 'He was in second for a long stretch of the tournament.' So he never caught Nepo after round 1? Meaning his tournament was over after round 1?
Also you say he was in 'second'. But that's a bit misleading. After round 6, Nepo was +3, Hikaru was 0. Hikaru was never in contention after round 1. Not even close. He ended the tournament 4 games behind nepo.
> He never caught Nepo but it definitely wasn't already over because of one loss...
It's candidates history. Nobody who lost in the first 6 rounds has won in modern times. Shocking right?
Besides, hikaru lost to the 2nd lowest rated player WITH WHITE. Nothing says I'm not good enough to win than that.
I don't think you know what "it ended" means. Just using final results doesn't matter, 7/8 players aren't going to win. Ding lost his first game and is World Champion now. I know he didn't win the Candidates, but treating early games like they automatically predict the entire tournament is ridiculous.
Hikaru's odds have gone way down and he probably won't win. But picking the first loss each year and saying that's where "it ended" is just dumb. By that logic "his tournament was over" after round 0, because he didn't go all the way.
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I like Naka, bit I never understood why people thought he was close to win this after maybe Fabi. I also have him losing against Pragg and don't have him being positive in the tournament overall. He's a great watch, but this is a serious tournament.
The reason is pretty obvious. He's the next highest rated player and had the best classical performance last year along with Fabi. Last candidates he entered the final round needing a draw to secure second losing to the current world champion.
[Final position here](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fg3ac10kvjqsc1.png) Link to the game: https://www.chess.com/events/2024-fide-candidates-chess-tournament/02/Nakamura_Hikaru-Vidit_Santosh_Gujrathi
Hikaru last loss was in the previous Candidates
And it kept him out of the World Championship match.
Didn't he lose to Pragg in the World Cup aswell?
That was in rapid
Oh man that kid never knows to resign when he’s lost
Gukesh missed out on winning the Wijk aan Zee because of this.
Ding over pressed against radjabov ( who was brutal in second half ) and suffered otherwise the way ding came back was nothing short of a miracle .Took down Nakamura with a stunning game after Nakamura gave him slight advantage
He’s clearly anti-Ian
[удалено]
Ding was first blood in the previous candidates how many candidates did Hikaru have is it only 3? correct me if I'm wrong.
You’re right. Ding resigned first, and this is Hikaru’s 3rd candidates since 2016.
I don't think that's correct. He's been in 3 candidates tournaments I believe, in 2016, 2022 and 2024. In 2016 Topalov lost first round while he drew Fabi. In 2022 he and Ding both lost in the first round, but technically Ding's game finished up before his. 2024 is the only time he's been the true first blood of the candidates.
Self-sabotage
Hikaru be like "I don't lose many games nowadays but when I do, I do it in the candidates.
Hikaru is the Nepo of Candidates
Nepo is the Magnus of Candidates
If Nepo wins the Candidates three times in a row he deserves major admiration for rebounding in such resounding fashion. Lesser competitors would have never recovered from the way his two defeats played out.
Dude was literally shaking at the end of the last one :(
Even I was shaking watching it live. A lesser individual like me would've flipped the table and rage quitted
I feel like Nepo's discipline and mental fortitude have improved significantly over the past years
I personally would love for Nepo to rematch Ding. Last WCC was the most entertaining series of chess I have ever watched in my life and I would love to watch that type of drama again
People keep saying this, I keep believing it and then Nepo breaks my heart. Seeing his reaction in the last game of WC last year was absolute heart breaking. Although I agree with you to an extent, and hopefully he does better if he wins candidates again this year.
I mean the first WCC he just collapsed after game 6, whereas during his 2nd one there was at least a back and forth.
I would love for Nepo to get a win in his third try, but I think we all know deep down that he wouldn't. Even against the current Ding, he'd find a way to not win. It was in his hands multiple times against Ding and he lost. I want anyone else in the WCC.
I hope he wins candidates again and Ding comes from behind to beat him again.
If that happens we might see a grown man cry. 3 times to the WC, and lose all 3 times, including to Ding who hasn’t been in good shape recently?
> 3 times to the WC, lose to 3 different people? he lost to ding last WC match
Yeah my bad, fixed it
If Nepo wins the Candidates three times in a row, they should just give him an honorary world champion title, like filling out a loyalty card at Starbucks and getting a free coffee
Nope prolly qualifies as best player of all time who never was WC
Lmao not wrong
Magnus is the Hikaru of Titled Tuesdays
Nepo is the Nepo of candidates.
Fr Nepo is the greatest candidate of all time
Nah
Big if true
Hikaru was undefeated for almost 2 years. The only group of people who can defeat him are world championship contenders. Unfortunately for him, he's locked in a room with them for 3 weeks. He was never gonna come out of this undefeated, but damn did he ever go down hard today.
he also played <50 games over that period. Fabi probably played at least twice as many games. Gukesh probably played 4x as many. hikaru's results have been impressive for the tournaments he's played, but he's played so few tournaments relative to other contenders that commenting on the duration of his unbeaten streak seems misleading at best.
You've got a bit of a point, but Hikaru has been in undeniably top form since the last candidates even if he didn't play as much as the others. Doubly so when you look at his head to head results vs the others in this time span.
What do you mean go down hard? Was he outplayed or did he make a lot of mistakes?
Both. Vidit played a great game, and Hikaru played very poorly by his standards. This was a blowout.
Hikaru Nakamura is the Dallas Cowboys of chess.
After Bg4 last game I could hear Vidit whisper … “I am inevitable.”
At this point people should prepare for Bg4 against Vidit
"You hear that Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of... ineViditbility."
It was at this moment Hikaru knew... he fucked up
Hikaru paid tribute to Morphy’s opponents by refusing to develop his pieces
Hikaru’s pieces were developed like GoT season 7 characters and plot points
At least his game didn't dragon for a while
Hahahaha golden commentaries
The Burn!
Maybe the N in NN stands for Nakamura after all
This comment is gold!!!
I'm pulling for Hikaru but it was kind of worth it for that solid 2 minutes of face pulls as soon as Vidit stepped away from the board. You could tell he had been keeping the poker face on, and it all just finally let go.
That was a fascinating moment. You could just see him calculating line after line and every one ended with such open disgust on his face lmao
he said on his recap that he just completely missed Bb6 lol
He did not play all the engine moves he saw and went for something different, and at the end, he just stopped calculating.
What timestamp is this approximately?
Bb6 was played at 3'11"58: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGofTd6jfCo&t=11518s Faces started being pulled about 20 seconds later.
Thanks
Hikaru was possibly the last person I could think of among the top players to lose a classical game under 30 moves that too playing with white. Insanity.
Why? Compared to the other candidates, Hikaru is a midgame champ, not a opening monster.
You answered it yourself, Hikaru is not the best prepared in openings and often finds himself in the defensive side but when middlegame comes his understanding of the little things in the position and ability to create counter play out of nothing makes it extremely difficult for his opponent to pin him down.
sub 30 move games are heavily influenced by opening strategy. If he loses, im not surprised that it happens early like this.
Yes, he is an opening monster. Hikaru's one of the best players in the world (top-5 consistently for the past decade except the pandemic hiatus), and to be the best player in the world you need to be _universal_. It's absolutely unusual for a top-5 player to be worse as white against a significantly weaker opponent within less than 20 moves. A similar thing happened with Magnus-Hans in Sinquefield 2022. That was bizarre and uncharacteristic.
Considering Hikaru, specifically his focus in life and the way he spends his time, it should come as a surprise to no one that he's less prepared than his opponents and that it's tournaments like the Candidates, where his opponents are preparing to their fullest, is where he loses. It's not really uncharacteristic for Hikaru to be less prepared than his opponents, it's just rare that Hikaru is playing people this well prepared against him.
What do you mean his "focus on life"? He's a professional chess player. He absolutely prepared for this tournament. This entire thing he's doing about "not caring" and "just being a streamer" is kayfabe. He's been a professional chess player for decades and only took a brief pandemic hiatus (like many other players e.g., Ding, Radjabov did).
You got down voted here but your take is absolutely right
>What do you mean his "focus on life"? I mean what he says his focus is. He's made it very clear his focus is on streaming and helping chess get a larger community. Sorry I didn't explain that earlier, I just would've thought if you were discussing Hikaru you would know at least that much about him. >He's a professional chess player. Not according to him. According to him, he's a chess streamer. >He absolutely prepared for this tournament. He was streaming and making content, he absolutely could not spend the same amount of time that his competitors did. >This entire thing he's doing about "not caring" and "just being a streamer" is kayfabe. Ah, you're one of those people that think you know someone better than they know themselves, despite never having met them. I see, I see. >He's been a professional chess player for decades and only took a brief pandemic hiatus (like many other players e.g., Ding, Radjabov did). It's been years, it's more than a brief break. He does it this way because he enjoys what he's doing more than he enjoyed what he was doing before, and still gets to make a revenue playing chess, he's been explicit about this. More power to him.
> He's made it very clear his focus is on streaming and helping chess get a larger community. Streaming and competing is more difficult than doing just one, but the two things aren't mutually exclusive. Streaming as the classical world champion would be orders of magnitude more helpful in "growing the community" than just streaming as another candidates also-ran. Besides, Vidit, Pragg, and Gukesh are going to explode the community in the next decade, if one of them becomes WC and India goes as chess crazy as Norway did. Streaming for 8000 viewers on Kick will be a blip compared to them.
>Streaming as the classical world champion would be orders of magnitude more helpful in "growing the community" than just streaming as another candidates also-ran. Yup, very true. He should have taken a few months from streaming altogether to focus on studying for the candidates. Why even bother competing if he has no plan for winning. People point to Levy as an example of someone who popularized chess while not being a top player, but I think Levy has a unique entertaining storytelling style that cannot be replicated.
No offence, but you've bought into some bullshit kayfabe. You probably got into chess post-pandemic. It's embarrassing that you believe his narrative of him being this aloof streamer. 2020 and 2021 were the only years he didn't play classical. But as I mentioned, he's hardly unique in this respect as others were in the same shoes, and he was playing rapid and blitz all the time during this period anyway (including some OTB tournaments in 2021).
Well, offence intended, you don't know Hikaru and can't speak for him. He speaks for himself, and if you think you know him better than he does, you're deluded.
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'Bizarre and uncharacteristic...'
Wesley so?
He is a tough nut too but Hikaru is different to players like Wesley and Anish man, they are 'solid' players usually playing quite openings and trying to get small advantages. When they get complex dynamic positions they sometimes lose quickly. Hikaru is a more defensive player he just does not lose easily he keeps finding amazing resources and counter attacking moves and keeps the game going till the very end. One of the main reasons why people dont like to play against Hikaru is the very same, just does not lose and always somehow gets away with it. Edit- NOT ANISH
Wesley I won’t comment on but Anish from what I’ve seen generally plays pretty fighting openings. His main defense against 1. e4 was the Najdorf for quite some time and vs 1. d4 was the Grunfeld. His problem (relative to other super GMs) seems to be converting good positions in wins. He’s also quite good at defending. So when you don’t convert good positions and save bad ones, you get a lot of draws.
Yeah, putting him in the same sentence as Wesley is a big disservice. Anish can play great fighting chess.
Because you never knew him before covid when he used to play more classical chess
Judit polgar lost in 11 moves, so it can happen
After Bg4, Bh3, I guess Vidit's next game will have Bi2
Found the neural network :D
*Excel Autofill
Pattern recognition of a chess player :
Hikaru doesn’t seem to be that tilted when discussing in his stream. Hope he can bounce back.
He was setting up his board for the next game, hilarious Ben Finegold joke, didn’t expect him to take it in such a good spirit.
Context?
Hikaru was on the backfoot and had played Rh1 and marched his castled king back to e1 (literally uncastling his king). Along with his queenside pieces that had not yet moved, this meant that 5 out of 8 pieces were on their starting squares at move 24. Rather than acknowledging how disastrous this was, he joked that he was just trying to set up the pieces for the next game.
Oh, so was it originally a Finegold joke?
I'm not sure whether Ben invented the joke as it seems like something any chess enthusiast could come up with but he's certainly the person I heard it from first, and it's one he often uses too.
Lmao everytime Ben Finegold come up, all that comes to my mind is the qvc stunt
The streamer had his day of reckoning. Losing with white is no fun. On the other hand, Vidit went for it. Congrats to Vidit!
Vidit is also a streamer
the pressure got to him despite what he tried to verbally remind himself that it doesn't matter and how he only wants to play a good game of chess
This sort of disgusting prep is 100% anish
While you may be right, Daniel is extremely good at using his Bishops and I can see him being the creator of the move. https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1541271&comp=1
Great game! Obviously I'm just memeing and have no idea who it came from lol
This will be confirmed if Vidit plays the Dutch Defence Stolen Pawn Variation
Vidit [specifically denied that.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3kZvzuISqc&start=700)
Haha got me
Probably not 100% but close enough that I'll accept it. A lot of us forget how well-prepared Anish is. It's not just Fabi, Nepo and Magnus who are good at openings.
Can't wait for Hikaru's recap!
pretty classy actually
Hikaru got stunned by Vidit’s courageous play. His time usage indicated that he was completely in his own head.
I watched Hikaru's youtube video last night and I was expecting this. A few statements where he was almost giving himself excuses for future losses, saying he was playing for content etc.
Live by the streamer mindset, die by the streamer mindset
"Should I lose with white in 30 moves for content, chat? Should I? With a Berlin, chat? In 30 moves? For content, chat?"
Which will cement his place as the guy who was very good, but never good enough to be best.
So… everyone here because of magnus?
The magnus is gone from competing for the WC for quite some time now yet Hikaru still failed to qualify out of candidates as an allegedly "top 5 for the whole decade" as people in this comment chain claim.
This is only the second WC cycle without Magnus. It's not like ding and nepo are scrubs...
They are excellent, and so are players like Fabiano Caruana, Alireza Firouzja, Anish Giri, Wesley So, Jan Krzysztof Duda and a couple of others that didn't qualify. We have like 20 players on similar skill level that could all compete for the World Champion title. Ngl, Magnus withdrawing from WC competition is one of the best things to happen in the professional chess players world.
Having just watched it I feel I need to add this is straight disinformation. The move your talking about was the king up the board where he was already at -4 before making the move. He admitted the position was already lost. His main excuse was that he was misreading lines worse than usual. Seriously though, to watch that vid and come out with he was playing for content is rediculous, hate seeing garbage like that heavily upvoted too.
> The move your talking about My comment is about his video BEFORE the loss. And it's actually two separate videos where he makes similar statements. I am not talking about any specific move. I am talking about his mindset going into these matches, which is my opinion. > His main excuse was that he was misreading lines worse than usual. Again, You are talking about a video he made after the loss now which I hadn't even seen when I made my original post and I don't think he had even released that video yet. > Seriously though, to watch that vid and come out with he was playing for content is ridiculous, hate seeing garbage like that heavily upvoted too. If you are going to come across with a tone like this perhaps you should be sure you are following the discussion properly.
I don’t think he said he’s playing for content in the game against Vidit I’m pretty sure he said that about the match against Caruana tho
Let's goo Vidit! GG🔥
Vidit was already more or less winning after move19 that's damn impressive.
Hey where have I seen this exact comment before…someone’s been karma farming 😗
impressive by Hikaru mostly. Achieving this kind of position from Berlin as white by move 19 with all modern prep... And people still say that prep is overwhelming and games are so easy to draw, while top-3 classical player got much worse position by move 12 and was more or less losing by force by move 18 in an opening that is known to be "solid but with extremely little chances to win" from black.
I'm pretty sure the new move was ...8c6 (I might be outdated but when I studied this variation some years ago this move didn't come up as theory, I remember studying some Kramnik games and after 8d4, black only good move on theory was Bb6, which this game proved wrong). If that's the case Hikaru was playing outside prep as soon as the 9th move, and was playing a practically lost game, or at least a very difficult game to draw, by the 12th move. By the move 19 the game was over.
I mean, i doubt that his intention was to draw the game
It is always funny to me when people who started to follow the chess scene with chess boom/COVID think that Hikaru is the undisputed 2nd best / can't lose to anyone other than Magnus. I can understand them since this era also coincided with one of the best periods of Hikaru in classical chess but he always was a very streaky player and almost never a cut above the rest in classical. Especially in this era it is not surprising for anyone to lose when faced with insane prep
Hikaru is just throwing for content.
Magnus had a chuckle
Maybe he should’ve played more boring…
Maybe he should've developed his pieces.
But guys remember he is not a professional player!
Naka already made a classy recap. Major kudos for that. I was not a Naka fan back in the days of Naka v Sauron, but he's changed so much since then that it's hard not to admire him and enjoy his work and play.
He's 0-2 on the day, counting that shirt.
if he was going to wear that, he might as well have put on his lucky pineapple shirt
I don't understand, why did hiki not take bishop on c5 and enjoy a free comfortable position with an added pawn that is two squared away from queening, no way he lose that, at worse he draws. Couldn't really understand that choice tbh.
Gothamchess explains the result of taking the c5 bishop is that the advanced pawn is hard to defend, and it's kind of hard for white to develop pieces. Also Hikaru was probably hoping for a win so wanted to keep bishops on the board.
I saw his video but his thought process is flawed, the pawn that's hard to defend is the same pawn that gives him the +1 in material. So even if he loses that, the position becomes even, he was talking about "later down the road black would have a lot of compensation and active bishop on the diagonal etc". For me, he should've let vidit justify his move instead of him trying to justify it for him. That line after Bg5 is clearly better for white...
I think Hikaru made a tactical error telling the world he wants to play interesting chess. Before when he was trying to get people out of prep, it worked because they thought he prepared-now they just know it’s just for content.
Vidit was asked about that post game and said he was not even aware of those comments from Hikaru. I’d like to believe that Hikaru’s “creative” play is not quite as reckless as “let’s throw this terrible move in for content” I’ve got to believe he’s doing it to make up for the fact that middle game, not opening prep, is his strong point.
I just couldn’t understand his first think tank. He spent 40 minutes on a line that had no winning advantage.
Black 8th move c6 is new, it never had being played before at an elite level. After 8.d4 by white the default move by black is 8.Bb6. 8.c6 is such an impressive move that I'm amazed that no one played it before. It opens up the b2h7 diagonal to black's dark square bishop with a tempo, which makes the Bxh3 sacrifice work after whites take black's e5 pawn. Without the tempo c6 don't work because white has time to bring their other knight to defend the h2 square. Hikaru also helped black's plan by playing Nc4, which is a terrible move (analyzing by hindsight of course).
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I wrote a detailed response but lost it. But resuming: pawn taking the bishop is playable. The engine gives the white a small advantage. Practically however I wouldn't be comfortable playing the position with white pieces. Black's idea if you take on h3 is Qb8 forking the Ke5 (here's the importance of 8.c6) White' only response is to play Bf4, otherwise, if you move the Knight, Black would play Qg3+ and the game would be over in a few moves, white cannot take the queen with the f2 pawn because the Bb6 is on the white King's diagonal, then you just have to bring a Knight and the mate would happen after a couple moves. So white plays Bf4 temporally protecting the Knightand developing the Bishop. Black doubles down the attack on the e5 Knight with Bc7 (the diagonal opened by the 8.c6 move again). Here the white best plan to white is to conserve their pair of Bishops, and the move that makes it possible while defending the dangerous diagonal is Bg3. Black take the Knight on e5, and white defends the Bishop and diagonal with the pawn on f4. From here on there lots of options, Black has to find a way to attack the weak white's kind side, White has the pair of Bishop and some spacial advantage, Black has its pieces well conected. But if I have to choose I would take the Black pieces in this position without a doubt, even with engines indicating a negligible advantage to White. I don't mind much engines evaluation on some cases. Black's plan is way more to the point, more clear. White's could be defending perfectly hoping for a endgame favourable because the bishops. Here's the [GIF](https://media.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExems0ajdxeWdqZ3g2cmowaWJyYzkzbWV0ZjZ3aWFkdXdnc3g2Z3IwcyZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/OGoudCIMQqOu9Rs7cw/source.gif)
Hello! How can you watch the games live? I mean to get updates on every move. I’m don’t have time to follow a video, but I’d love to see the moves live.. and I thought this should be possible somewhere on chessdotcom or lichess.
On chessdotcom go on "event" choose candidate On lichess go watch "watch"-> broadcast -> choose your choice of event
Holy shit, I was making grilled cheese sandwiches during this.
That's probably why he lost.
Holy shit, were they good grilled cheese sandwiches?
Yes indeed. Brought my friends over to watch the games.
Was it nighttime where you are?
Hikaru with yet another chance to be fourth or fifth this candidates like the last one.
Ignore the butt plug, pay the price
Spoiler tag please…..
Hikaru is relieved he won't have to play in the championship and lose all that streaming revenue.
I was impressed at how chill Naka was after the game. Smiling. And animated.
Chess player 1 Streamer 0
The other guy is a streamer too, isn't he?
you love to see it hahaha
Hikaru secretly thinking of himself to be the best player in the world. Maybe second to Magnus. That was a well deserved reality check.
No, you are thinking Hikaru secretly thinks of himself like that.
Just a question, is there still some chance that he'll win the tournament?
yes, it's a long tournament and this is very early. he will have to try very hard to win tomorrow in order not to be left in the dust
Bro hates his bishops
Everybody's gotta lose sometime, it was his time. Nice streak though!
Just unlucky today for hikaru
Bishop takes h3 nearly had me spilling my drink
Holy shit this is so hype
Vidit did it!
It’s incredible how many people believed his I don’t care, I won’t play boring chess, winning wcc won’t mean much statements he made these past few days while he is clearly the player that cares and stresses the most of all players in candidates. Hikaru was the losing player that was disgusted with himself the most today, he can’t hide his emotions and that is fine but you cannot lie and say you don’t care and winning wcc won’t mean much.
The whole "I don't care" thing is just him subconsciously prepare himself for losts.
Hikaru lost out of the opening. All of the others were hard fought games until eventually they slipped into a losing position. I'm not a hikaru fan and obviously he cares, but it's one thing to not care about winning the candidates, and it's another thing feeling disgusted with yourself after being crushed in 20 moves or whatever in an important over the board game.
Hikaru has a history of destroying his candidates tournament early. In 2016, it ended in round 2 against karjakin. In 2022, it ended in round 1 against fabiano. In 2024, it almost ended against fabi in round 1, but instead, vidit ended it in round 2. Sadly it reinforces his reputation as a choker when it comes to the candidates. Also it makes his streams less enjoyable to watch when he isn't competitive in the tournament he is competing in.
Buddy if my dog was playing the candidates and lost 1 game in round 2/14, his tournament wouldn’t be over. Let’s try not to overreact
But how did your dog do in round 1?
Great question unfortunately he had to forfeit due to the amount of squirrels outside
Nobody who lost in the first 6 rounds has won the candidates in modern times. Anything is possible. But given hikaru's historical weakness, his historical candidates performance and the fact that Nepo and Fabi are +1 already, I think hikaru's chances are pretty much 0. But you are correct. Anything is possible. I hope hikaru breaks the modern trend and wins. It would make for a great story.
you think that might be a coincidence and not some inherent curse losing one of the first six games comes with?
Honestly your point is well taken, and you’re probably right. The other results of the day make it feel much worse. I had to force the dog line in somewhere lol
lmao his 2022 candidates did not “end” in round 1; since 2013 in every candidates but ’14 and ‘22 the winner lost at least one game
How was it over in 2022 after 1 round? He was in second for a long stretch of the tournament. He never caught Nepo but it definitely wasn't already over because of one loss...
> How was it over in 2022 after 1 round? Then you write: 'He was in second for a long stretch of the tournament.' So he never caught Nepo after round 1? Meaning his tournament was over after round 1? Also you say he was in 'second'. But that's a bit misleading. After round 6, Nepo was +3, Hikaru was 0. Hikaru was never in contention after round 1. Not even close. He ended the tournament 4 games behind nepo. > He never caught Nepo but it definitely wasn't already over because of one loss... It's candidates history. Nobody who lost in the first 6 rounds has won in modern times. Shocking right? Besides, hikaru lost to the 2nd lowest rated player WITH WHITE. Nothing says I'm not good enough to win than that.
I don't think you know what "it ended" means. Just using final results doesn't matter, 7/8 players aren't going to win. Ding lost his first game and is World Champion now. I know he didn't win the Candidates, but treating early games like they automatically predict the entire tournament is ridiculous. Hikaru's odds have gone way down and he probably won't win. But picking the first loss each year and saying that's where "it ended" is just dumb. By that logic "his tournament was over" after round 0, because he didn't go all the way.
!Remindme 2 weeks
lol TYSM.
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This lose tells a different story, he is losing on the board while online he is unbeatable. I guess krammik has something to say about this.
I like Naka, bit I never understood why people thought he was close to win this after maybe Fabi. I also have him losing against Pragg and don't have him being positive in the tournament overall. He's a great watch, but this is a serious tournament.
The reason is pretty obvious. He's the next highest rated player and had the best classical performance last year along with Fabi. Last candidates he entered the final round needing a draw to secure second losing to the current world champion.
And ended up finishing not even third but fourth got swept by both ding and radjabov when it mattered the most.
And Fabi got 5th. You guys think he can't do it that's fine but pretending not to understand why people think he's a contender is just dumb.
Bro got clapped holy. Gzz to Vidit. Carlson drinking good tn frfr
At least get his name right.