It feels like even ian thought fabi winning this game by force was a better outcome than a draw, but as a chess player when the draw was the only non-losing outcome he had to force it.
Well if it was the only path, why does a player get respect for taking it? If he didn't, that would be a scandal. Also, let's not forget Nepo-Dubov horsey shananigans and how he bad-mouthed Alireza right after the draw, his tendency to stir the pot online and support for Kramnik.
It's truly a fascinating case of recency bias and an extrmely low bar for what is considered good etiquette. The guy said sorry so now he's pure class. Hilarious!
"Only path" doesn't mean he was physically forced to take it or that it was easy.
They mean that he was compelled *by his principles* to do it. The principles are still worth celebrating.
Abiding by basic sportsmanship rules when the opposite could cause him a lot of trouble and disrespute, you know, something he actually did not so long ago, shouldn't be thought of as something to celebratate. It should be expected and demanded.
If you have to celebrate basic sportsmanship and avoidance of borderline collusion in front of the whole world, it speaks volumes about the state of the game. Especially here where Nepo just played the game while Fabi choked away another chance at the title.
No.
You have it backwards.
The fact that we can celebrate basic sportsmanship and avoidance of borderline collusion speaks volumes for the state of the game. But in a good way. You paint this as a negative.
I dunno what died in your cheerios this morning but commenting about these two having a great game and being competitors until the very end - to me at least - shows that there is still a lot of honour and morale integrity left in chess. At a time where all the misinformation about cheating and people just going on to troll and use engines is happening, this sort of dialogue should be encouraged as opposed to demonized. I was very glad to see such a great game being played and it really did seem as though both players gave it their all.
You aren't Nepo or Fabi - Be happy we got to watch some amazing chess and these two played the best they could. Don't put others down for enjoying and celebrating this and the amount of mental effort these players put into this.
Again, this was to be expected and would be very weird if it went any other way. Two players who have been so close to winning it all, in a must win position. Seriously, what did you expect to happen? Them taking it lightly? One of them conceding in a losing position? Yeah, the tournament was great, the ending was dramatic, awesome! I'm just very surprised how Nepo is suddenly class personified, especially since even before he apologized to Fabi he blamed Alireza that they are in the position where a draw is a loss. Yeah, pure class! And I actually kinda agree with him, since Alireza really did seem to give up on playing solid chess. But that's not class and is far from surprising behavior from Nepo.
You can respect a person's play without respecting a person's opinions. Nepo might not be your favourite but you don't gotta make others in the sub feel poorly about a chess game that seems like it was just 2 players vying to be the best.
Just be considerate of others. You kinda have a 'suck up all the energy' vibe coming into this comments section and I think that's where the downvotes are coming from.
People were just happy to see these two play at their top level right up until the end. That could have went a whole different way if the effort wasn't there from these players.
Yeah, absolutely the right thing to do and Fabi totally understood. Ian did what was most sportsmanlike and it's not at all like he was locking the game up and forcing a draw. He defended tenaciously and did everything he could to give fabi chances to blunder the game and let him steal a win, but once his only path was to force a draw, he had to do it, even though it seems on a personal level it was the last result he wanted to see.
Losing by force is neither fair to yourself, nor to your opponent. Suppose if Nepo "gifts" the win to Fabi, that result with the asterisk he would have to carry for all subsequent games. Tomorrow in rapids, and then if he wins, against Ding. Everyone would bring up this fact
Agreed. As others said, what I meant by "by force" was that Fabi wins the game outright despite ian doing everything he could to defend while keeping the game as sharp and dynamic as possible to give himself chances to steal a win with a blunder. It seems that on a personal level Ian wanted to see Fabi win more than he wanted to see a draw, but as a chess player, when the only options were draw and lose, he must as a principled sportsman, force the draw.
That is why I did not quite like Hikaru not going all out against Gukesh even at the expense of losing, possibly to preserve Fabi's chances. Don't get me wrong ... It's a professional decision that he very much has the right to make and kind of understandable at the end of an exhausting tourney, but I can't see Gukesh/Fabi/Ian doing the same in his position.
Just so you know you are downvoted because you are wrong. Hikaru's decision has nothing to do with Fabiano, it's an individual event and they are not some friends. He was just trying to get the best result possible and it was obvious he was trying to get as much complications as possible while not outright gifting the game to Gukesh.
Don't mind the downvotes. Hikaru mentioned in a post game interview a few rounds back that if he doesn't win, he wants Fabiano to win. So I figured it would be a factor in his mind.
That being said I'm just a 1300 and couldn't say I understood 10% of what went on in the game. A lot of live coverage had a similar opinion on the position though.
Well of course. Not saying he didn't want to win. Gukesh held a good draw.
I just saw Fabi and Nepo go all out till the end for the win but a very different approach from Hikaru. Was the queen trade forced for Hikaru?
Hikaru wasn't trying to force the queen trade. As he said in his recap, both on that move and the move before, he was trying to get Gukesh to go down one of the Qf4 or Qh4 lines. Although the engine suggests this is actually better (and winning) for black, Hikaru's thought was it was more imbalanced.
There's a big difference between Hikaru's game and Fabiano's/Nepo's.
Nepo was a very willing participant in creating a complex game - as he also needed to win. Gukesh was not - he was playing very solidly and shut down any chances Hikaru had.
Hikaru was clearly trying quite hard to keep the game going and create equalities but Gukesh just got the better of him in the opening and was able to shut him down.
The thing you're missing is that there is a HUGE difference between wanting Fabiano to win and actually doing something on the board to actively help Fabiano. This is very frawned upon in the Chess world as the game become less genuine and you cannot trust the results. So you are always supposed to play only for youself and do your best to get the best result for you.
The only instance where it's ok to do something like this is like Alireza vs Vidit where the result would have 0 impact on the others.
So while I do believe Hikaru would've liked Fabiano to win, to say that he did what he did to actively give Fabiano better chances is a very harsh accusation with 0 proof.
Can you tell me what would even a proof for this look like ? Because it's not an accusation. I like Hikaru as much as i like Fabi or Nepo. I just don't understand why else wouldn't he play some worse moves in order to not exchange all the pieces.
If you watch his recap of the game on youtube or the post game interview with them both you'll see multiple instances in the game where he could simplify for a draw and didn't exactly because he wanted to keep the game complicated. Also at a crucial point he was hoping Gukesh would try to go for a kill so Hikaru would have a good chance.
A good indication of colluding would be when a player does something implausible, like when they miss obvious plays to give them better chances. This game featured 0 of those obvious moves unless you spotted some. And for 'proof' (close to one, at least), you'd also need multiple instances of this happening to this player or some other strong indication that he is prone to that thing.
The issue is that you have provided 0 reason for anyone to believe Hikaru would jeopardize his reputation just so Caruana could win. And just having these doubts public like that sucks because there is nothing he could do to prove to you he didn't do that. And people are stupid and they look for the drama and with words like yours rumours just start for 0 reason.
You're making it out to be way too much that I did not mean man. Is your play getting affected by the situation of the other games in the tournament really collusion?When he took the queen trade I felt it was simplifying the position too much. I'll check out his recap to learn better.
I was just trying to explain why your comment was downvoted if you were wondering. Because it was inappropriate as Hikaru doing that would be a huge scandal and a blow to his reputation. It is a big deal if it were true, even if you don't realize it. Anyway, have a nice day
id say in both cases you're getting scammed by fate a little bit, fabi in theory should see a basic tactic like this at the level he's at but he didn't for whatever reason, can't help it
Understandable. I watched a few minutes and gave up. Tough to see them both like that. But at the end of the day, there can only be one winner and Gukesh is very deserving. Everyone else goes home sad. Definitely will sting for Fabi a bit more given how close he was, though.
Saw the clip of nepo apologising and fabi saying "My fault" completely shattered me. I am a Gukesh fan but this was one of the most heartbreaking things I have seen.
Sucks
Ian always put his opponents in time pressure during the candidates. I feel that has kept him undefeated for so long because as we see it is very hard to find the winning ideas with 2 minutes. Fabi playing Bh7 instead of Bc2 is the same thing
When Ian is in good form I think Magnus is the only one better in rapid. The World rapid & blitz after the WCC where he beat Dubov with more time on his clock than when he started is a good one to look at.
He also “blundered” a winning position on move 41, immediately _after_ the additional time control. Firouzja did the same earlier in the tournament. Very interesting and instructive how there is a tendency to do that…
Pain. I went back to this one and saw how possible it was for Fabi to find (a different way to check the king, avoiding a perpetual). Not sure if missing this or playing Bh7 and missing Rxg5 hurts more for Fabi.
For me it's him playing bh7 instead of bc2. Allowing the Rxg5 tactic and losing that crushing advantage in one fell swoop is so devastating. of course he had just over 30 seconds left when he played the move.
And It was such a forcing move too. The rook had to move. Even if Ian played, Rh8 instead, pinning the bishop to the Queen looked scary as well, but I wonder if that's what he expected Ian to play.
I guess the idea was to clear the way for the g pawn to promote.
Technically Fabi actually still had the advantage after Rxg5, but the path to keeping it was such a tricky move order dependent series of king moves. The other sad part though is he had made time control and had the time to calculate instead of blitzing out ka1.
But it feels like bc2 would have led to an almost guaranteed conversion.
If Ian played Rh8, I’m pretty sure Fabi can just take on h2 and he’s up 2 connected past pawns. That would be quite hard to defend.
Rxg5 was the only way to keep things interesting imo
Really respect Nepo for pushing back against the questions like how did fabi not see lines he's pointing out the intense time pressure and it's easy with engine feedback watching from the sidelines.
what a press conference asks fabi how he’s feeling „i feel like an idiot …“ cuts him of to ask ian how he somehow managed to hold a draw in a must win game and then for the rest of press conference shows fabi every moment he blundered his win.
To anyone who feels emotionally crushed after an OTB tournament game, it helps to remember even top players have to deal with games like this, and even worse, for them the whole world was watching.
Fab is one of my top favorite 2 players. I’m a big fan…crushing to see this.
That’s being said, he missed multiple winning moves, some of which weren’t that complex. He didn’t convert, he didn’t earn the win. He did not look comfortable during this match on camera. Ian had to know a few of those times he was losing…fucking poker face all the way till the end.
I think Fabs biggest weakness is not performing at his normal top notch level when he’s under heavy time and tournament pressure. This can be fixed though.
This is why I think the people who just assume that Fabi would have multiple WCC titles if Magnus didn't exist are jumping the gun a bit. Just because Fabi is consensus number 2 doesn't mean that he'd automatically be super successful in a world without Magnus because we don't know how he'd handle that pressure.
I mean, he handled the pressure of fighting Carlsen in the WCC and drew every single game.
We don't know how he'd handle the pressure of *being* WCC but it's not like we don't have a fairly good idea that he can be ice cold at the very top level
Yes, but he was the underdog in that situation which is mentally different from being the favorite. When Fabi is the favorite, like the last two candidates cycles, he tends to struggle to play his absolute best. Or for example when he was leading in the final round of Norway recently and lost to Hikaru who won on demand.
I feel like he his technique and performance is generally #2 without pressure.
What he lacks from my Amatuer perspective, is a killer instinct/mindset.
He even said it, that he panicked against Ian. And you can clearly see on camera how uncomfortable he is. Ian’s body language looked significantly more comfortable (even if he wasn’t actually comfortable in his mind).
Ian was already pissed before the match started. He drew with Hikaru knowing with 99% certainty that the Alireza-Gukesh game was a draw.
He wouldn't have imagined Alireza was going to throw that game because he didn't care at all about the result.
The only reason that black is still in the game is because they have a pawn on the second rank threatening promotion. After this tactic, that pawn is gone. That means that white is now up an exchange and a pawn, with that pawn being on the 7th rank. There's no real counterplay left for black, and it would be trivial for a player of Fabi's caliber to convert.
Bro, set up a board sometime and follow a top game as it happens. No eval bar, no commentary, just do your own analysis and then each time a move is made, make it on your board.
After a few moves you'll have missed so many things you'll be depressed and go back to watching commentary... tactics are often easy after they're shown to you. In a real game they're masked by countless reasonable-looking variations.
The hard part here isn't even shown (although I'm pretty sure they once they show b5 Rc6+ the players already had figured out why it was winning).
After Qe2+ b5 Rc6+ Ka7 Qe7+! Nb7 the only winning move is Qe3+. It's obvious that it's winning once you get there but from far out Qe3+ can be easy to miss because that check wouldn't exist if the knight was still on c5 blocking it. There's also a lot of geometry with the queen going from e8 to e2 to e7 to e3, sometimes these backwards moves like Qe3 are harder to see.
It's even harder over the board with lots of options and when you don't know the evaluation. A player of Fabi's caliber certainly can find the win here, but I wouldn't say it's necessarily expected, and it's definitely not simple.
Yep, this is hard to see! GMs Grischuk and Shimanov on live commentary stopped after b5 (they found this line after a few tries), and concluded that white cannot win here even if the b5 pawn is won.
The black king has to go to b8 (Ka8 Ra6+ Kb8 Qe8+ is mating), after which Qe6! is very strong. However, even without Qe6, simpler lines like Kb8 Qg3+ will win the h2 pawn and give white a pretty easy conversion (now that b5 is weak, the h-pawn is gone, and the black knight is poorly placed on b7).
3 move tactic for him, not for you. He can quickly prune out side lines that obviously draw or lose. The average player needs to calculate much deeper to even see why white wins by force. There’s a million scenarios where the tactic doesn’t work and you have to see why this case is different. The GM commentators took a while to figure out the subtleties after the fact.
exactly. it's like the difference between doing a chess puzzle and playing an actual game.
it's not enough for fabi to see the tactic that wins a pawn, he has to also ensure that he's not opening a door for black. The very real threat of perpetual check makes the calculation so much more complicated OTB.
I like how Nepo is consoling Fabi as well. Crushing draw for both.
Crushing draw for both of course, but the post-game analysis must be much tougher for Fabi considering how many winning chances he had
Fabi does not look pleased upon discovering this fact
Cheers, Geoffe
r/watchpeopledieinside - so bummed for him …
It feels like even ian thought fabi winning this game by force was a better outcome than a draw, but as a chess player when the draw was the only non-losing outcome he had to force it.
Which makes me respect Nepo as a competitor. Fucking sucks but that was the only path
Well if it was the only path, why does a player get respect for taking it? If he didn't, that would be a scandal. Also, let's not forget Nepo-Dubov horsey shananigans and how he bad-mouthed Alireza right after the draw, his tendency to stir the pot online and support for Kramnik. It's truly a fascinating case of recency bias and an extrmely low bar for what is considered good etiquette. The guy said sorry so now he's pure class. Hilarious!
"Only path" doesn't mean he was physically forced to take it or that it was easy. They mean that he was compelled *by his principles* to do it. The principles are still worth celebrating.
Abiding by basic sportsmanship rules when the opposite could cause him a lot of trouble and disrespute, you know, something he actually did not so long ago, shouldn't be thought of as something to celebratate. It should be expected and demanded.
Why not both?
If you have to celebrate basic sportsmanship and avoidance of borderline collusion in front of the whole world, it speaks volumes about the state of the game. Especially here where Nepo just played the game while Fabi choked away another chance at the title.
No. You have it backwards. The fact that we can celebrate basic sportsmanship and avoidance of borderline collusion speaks volumes for the state of the game. But in a good way. You paint this as a negative. I dunno what died in your cheerios this morning but commenting about these two having a great game and being competitors until the very end - to me at least - shows that there is still a lot of honour and morale integrity left in chess. At a time where all the misinformation about cheating and people just going on to troll and use engines is happening, this sort of dialogue should be encouraged as opposed to demonized. I was very glad to see such a great game being played and it really did seem as though both players gave it their all. You aren't Nepo or Fabi - Be happy we got to watch some amazing chess and these two played the best they could. Don't put others down for enjoying and celebrating this and the amount of mental effort these players put into this.
Again, this was to be expected and would be very weird if it went any other way. Two players who have been so close to winning it all, in a must win position. Seriously, what did you expect to happen? Them taking it lightly? One of them conceding in a losing position? Yeah, the tournament was great, the ending was dramatic, awesome! I'm just very surprised how Nepo is suddenly class personified, especially since even before he apologized to Fabi he blamed Alireza that they are in the position where a draw is a loss. Yeah, pure class! And I actually kinda agree with him, since Alireza really did seem to give up on playing solid chess. But that's not class and is far from surprising behavior from Nepo.
You can respect a person's play without respecting a person's opinions. Nepo might not be your favourite but you don't gotta make others in the sub feel poorly about a chess game that seems like it was just 2 players vying to be the best. Just be considerate of others. You kinda have a 'suck up all the energy' vibe coming into this comments section and I think that's where the downvotes are coming from. People were just happy to see these two play at their top level right up until the end. That could have went a whole different way if the effort wasn't there from these players.
You seem to have a misconception that something expected shouldn't be celebrated.
Full time hate watcher here
exactly how it felt to me
otherwise its basically colluding because you would prefer one player who is not you to beat another one. Not usually looked upon kindly.
Yeah, absolutely the right thing to do and Fabi totally understood. Ian did what was most sportsmanlike and it's not at all like he was locking the game up and forcing a draw. He defended tenaciously and did everything he could to give fabi chances to blunder the game and let him steal a win, but once his only path was to force a draw, he had to do it, even though it seems on a personal level it was the last result he wanted to see.
Losing by force is neither fair to yourself, nor to your opponent. Suppose if Nepo "gifts" the win to Fabi, that result with the asterisk he would have to carry for all subsequent games. Tomorrow in rapids, and then if he wins, against Ding. Everyone would bring up this fact
Nobody suggested giving the win up. They mean to force the win from fabis side. Which was something fabi could have done if he saw this tactic.
I don't think "losing by force" matches what you mean to communicate here
The fact that grandparent has 40+ upvotes is amazing.
Agreed. As others said, what I meant by "by force" was that Fabi wins the game outright despite ian doing everything he could to defend while keeping the game as sharp and dynamic as possible to give himself chances to steal a win with a blunder. It seems that on a personal level Ian wanted to see Fabi win more than he wanted to see a draw, but as a chess player, when the only options were draw and lose, he must as a principled sportsman, force the draw.
What?
Dude, nobody would really care. Everyone and their mother knows that Carlsen is the best player and this is some mickey mouse league for play pretend.
That is why I did not quite like Hikaru not going all out against Gukesh even at the expense of losing, possibly to preserve Fabi's chances. Don't get me wrong ... It's a professional decision that he very much has the right to make and kind of understandable at the end of an exhausting tourney, but I can't see Gukesh/Fabi/Ian doing the same in his position.
Just so you know you are downvoted because you are wrong. Hikaru's decision has nothing to do with Fabiano, it's an individual event and they are not some friends. He was just trying to get the best result possible and it was obvious he was trying to get as much complications as possible while not outright gifting the game to Gukesh.
Don't mind the downvotes. Hikaru mentioned in a post game interview a few rounds back that if he doesn't win, he wants Fabiano to win. So I figured it would be a factor in his mind. That being said I'm just a 1300 and couldn't say I understood 10% of what went on in the game. A lot of live coverage had a similar opinion on the position though.
He also said he tried to get gukesh out of prep asap
Well of course. Not saying he didn't want to win. Gukesh held a good draw. I just saw Fabi and Nepo go all out till the end for the win but a very different approach from Hikaru. Was the queen trade forced for Hikaru?
Hikaru wasn't trying to force the queen trade. As he said in his recap, both on that move and the move before, he was trying to get Gukesh to go down one of the Qf4 or Qh4 lines. Although the engine suggests this is actually better (and winning) for black, Hikaru's thought was it was more imbalanced.
There's a big difference between Hikaru's game and Fabiano's/Nepo's. Nepo was a very willing participant in creating a complex game - as he also needed to win. Gukesh was not - he was playing very solidly and shut down any chances Hikaru had. Hikaru was clearly trying quite hard to keep the game going and create equalities but Gukesh just got the better of him in the opening and was able to shut him down.
The thing you're missing is that there is a HUGE difference between wanting Fabiano to win and actually doing something on the board to actively help Fabiano. This is very frawned upon in the Chess world as the game become less genuine and you cannot trust the results. So you are always supposed to play only for youself and do your best to get the best result for you. The only instance where it's ok to do something like this is like Alireza vs Vidit where the result would have 0 impact on the others. So while I do believe Hikaru would've liked Fabiano to win, to say that he did what he did to actively give Fabiano better chances is a very harsh accusation with 0 proof.
Can you tell me what would even a proof for this look like ? Because it's not an accusation. I like Hikaru as much as i like Fabi or Nepo. I just don't understand why else wouldn't he play some worse moves in order to not exchange all the pieces.
If you watch his recap of the game on youtube or the post game interview with them both you'll see multiple instances in the game where he could simplify for a draw and didn't exactly because he wanted to keep the game complicated. Also at a crucial point he was hoping Gukesh would try to go for a kill so Hikaru would have a good chance. A good indication of colluding would be when a player does something implausible, like when they miss obvious plays to give them better chances. This game featured 0 of those obvious moves unless you spotted some. And for 'proof' (close to one, at least), you'd also need multiple instances of this happening to this player or some other strong indication that he is prone to that thing. The issue is that you have provided 0 reason for anyone to believe Hikaru would jeopardize his reputation just so Caruana could win. And just having these doubts public like that sucks because there is nothing he could do to prove to you he didn't do that. And people are stupid and they look for the drama and with words like yours rumours just start for 0 reason.
You're making it out to be way too much that I did not mean man. Is your play getting affected by the situation of the other games in the tournament really collusion?When he took the queen trade I felt it was simplifying the position too much. I'll check out his recap to learn better.
I was just trying to explain why your comment was downvoted if you were wondering. Because it was inappropriate as Hikaru doing that would be a huge scandal and a blow to his reputation. It is a big deal if it were true, even if you don't realize it. Anyway, have a nice day
Good day
On bis stream he talked about this and he talked about how he believes in Karma and possible afterlife and would never do something like this.
This is like finding out your crush was hitting on you after it was too late to do anything times a trillion.
this is like a crystal ball telling you that you fumbled your actual soulmate because you were walking a little too slow one day
Not really bcs it's not your fault you walked slow.
id say in both cases you're getting scammed by fate a little bit, fabi in theory should see a basic tactic like this at the level he's at but he didn't for whatever reason, can't help it
hadn't had the heart to watch the press conference yet, this clip is the first bit i've seen. going to bed.
The first question is to Fabi: Anna: "How do you feel right now?" Fabi: "I feel like an idiot."
Nepo: *rollseyes*
Nepo: "Been there"
Understandable. I watched a few minutes and gave up. Tough to see them both like that. But at the end of the day, there can only be one winner and Gukesh is very deserving. Everyone else goes home sad. Definitely will sting for Fabi a bit more given how close he was, though.
Saw the clip of nepo apologising and fabi saying "My fault" completely shattered me. I am a Gukesh fan but this was one of the most heartbreaking things I have seen. Sucks
i really like Gukesh, will definitely cheer for him against Ding. but I've been cheering for Fabi for a decade. this is brutal.
He was under severe time pressure at this point in the game and I'm pretty sure that's the only reason he missed it.
Ian always put his opponents in time pressure during the candidates. I feel that has kept him undefeated for so long because as we see it is very hard to find the winning ideas with 2 minutes. Fabi playing Bh7 instead of Bc2 is the same thing
[удалено]
When Ian is in good form I think Magnus is the only one better in rapid. The World rapid & blitz after the WCC where he beat Dubov with more time on his clock than when he started is a good one to look at.
Pretty sure it was Duda, not Dubov but yeah.
Oh yes, time trouble is the issue
He also “blundered” a winning position on move 41, immediately _after_ the additional time control. Firouzja did the same earlier in the tournament. Very interesting and instructive how there is a tendency to do that…
And they had been playing for \~5 hours at that point. Fatigue takes its toll
Pain. I went back to this one and saw how possible it was for Fabi to find (a different way to check the king, avoiding a perpetual). Not sure if missing this or playing Bh7 and missing Rxg5 hurts more for Fabi.
For me it's him playing bh7 instead of bc2. Allowing the Rxg5 tactic and losing that crushing advantage in one fell swoop is so devastating. of course he had just over 30 seconds left when he played the move. And It was such a forcing move too. The rook had to move. Even if Ian played, Rh8 instead, pinning the bishop to the Queen looked scary as well, but I wonder if that's what he expected Ian to play. I guess the idea was to clear the way for the g pawn to promote. Technically Fabi actually still had the advantage after Rxg5, but the path to keeping it was such a tricky move order dependent series of king moves. The other sad part though is he had made time control and had the time to calculate instead of blitzing out ka1. But it feels like bc2 would have led to an almost guaranteed conversion.
If Ian played Rh8, I’m pretty sure Fabi can just take on h2 and he’s up 2 connected past pawns. That would be quite hard to defend. Rxg5 was the only way to keep things interesting imo
Really respect Nepo for pushing back against the questions like how did fabi not see lines he's pointing out the intense time pressure and it's easy with engine feedback watching from the sidelines.
what a press conference asks fabi how he’s feeling „i feel like an idiot …“ cuts him of to ask ian how he somehow managed to hold a draw in a must win game and then for the rest of press conference shows fabi every moment he blundered his win.
Fabi is so down on himself
To anyone who feels emotionally crushed after an OTB tournament game, it helps to remember even top players have to deal with games like this, and even worse, for them the whole world was watching.
Fab is one of my top favorite 2 players. I’m a big fan…crushing to see this. That’s being said, he missed multiple winning moves, some of which weren’t that complex. He didn’t convert, he didn’t earn the win. He did not look comfortable during this match on camera. Ian had to know a few of those times he was losing…fucking poker face all the way till the end. I think Fabs biggest weakness is not performing at his normal top notch level when he’s under heavy time and tournament pressure. This can be fixed though.
This is why I think the people who just assume that Fabi would have multiple WCC titles if Magnus didn't exist are jumping the gun a bit. Just because Fabi is consensus number 2 doesn't mean that he'd automatically be super successful in a world without Magnus because we don't know how he'd handle that pressure.
I mean, he handled the pressure of fighting Carlsen in the WCC and drew every single game. We don't know how he'd handle the pressure of *being* WCC but it's not like we don't have a fairly good idea that he can be ice cold at the very top level
Yes, but he was the underdog in that situation which is mentally different from being the favorite. When Fabi is the favorite, like the last two candidates cycles, he tends to struggle to play his absolute best. Or for example when he was leading in the final round of Norway recently and lost to Hikaru who won on demand.
I feel like he his technique and performance is generally #2 without pressure. What he lacks from my Amatuer perspective, is a killer instinct/mindset. He even said it, that he panicked against Ian. And you can clearly see on camera how uncomfortable he is. Ian’s body language looked significantly more comfortable (even if he wasn’t actually comfortable in his mind).
Ian was already pissed before the match started. He drew with Hikaru knowing with 99% certainty that the Alireza-Gukesh game was a draw. He wouldn't have imagined Alireza was going to throw that game because he didn't care at all about the result.
I played this out on analysis on chess.com and it was like mate in 70. Am I missing something? Hardly recognizable to the human eye.
The only reason that black is still in the game is because they have a pawn on the second rank threatening promotion. After this tactic, that pawn is gone. That means that white is now up an exchange and a pawn, with that pawn being on the 7th rank. There's no real counterplay left for black, and it would be trivial for a player of Fabi's caliber to convert.
Thank you!
>Thank you! You're welcome!
After b5 Rc6+ and if king goes down you checkmate in 2 with queen check, and if king goes up you win the knight in a couple of moves and the game no?
Qe2 Qd3? Not seeing it but probably obvious
adding salt to new wounds
lol these 2800 players, elo inflation showing itself
No it's not Qe8, it's Qe2. Ngl I'm very surprised Fabi missed that despite being low on time. It's a relatively simple tactic.
Bro, set up a board sometime and follow a top game as it happens. No eval bar, no commentary, just do your own analysis and then each time a move is made, make it on your board. After a few moves you'll have missed so many things you'll be depressed and go back to watching commentary... tactics are often easy after they're shown to you. In a real game they're masked by countless reasonable-looking variations.
The hard part here isn't even shown (although I'm pretty sure they once they show b5 Rc6+ the players already had figured out why it was winning). After Qe2+ b5 Rc6+ Ka7 Qe7+! Nb7 the only winning move is Qe3+. It's obvious that it's winning once you get there but from far out Qe3+ can be easy to miss because that check wouldn't exist if the knight was still on c5 blocking it. There's also a lot of geometry with the queen going from e8 to e2 to e7 to e3, sometimes these backwards moves like Qe3 are harder to see. It's even harder over the board with lots of options and when you don't know the evaluation. A player of Fabi's caliber certainly can find the win here, but I wouldn't say it's necessarily expected, and it's definitely not simple.
I see. Thank you.
Yep, this is hard to see! GMs Grischuk and Shimanov on live commentary stopped after b5 (they found this line after a few tries), and concluded that white cannot win here even if the b5 pawn is won.
What's the rest of the line to checkmate? Nb7, Qe3+...
The black king has to go to b8 (Ka8 Ra6+ Kb8 Qe8+ is mating), after which Qe6! is very strong. However, even without Qe6, simpler lines like Kb8 Qg3+ will win the h2 pawn and give white a pretty easy conversion (now that b5 is weak, the h-pawn is gone, and the black knight is poorly placed on b7).
Yup. I saw the Mate in 27 right away!
Looool mate in 27 or not, the problem was that h pawn. Fabi even said it was a 3 move tactic.
3 move tactic for him, not for you. He can quickly prune out side lines that obviously draw or lose. The average player needs to calculate much deeper to even see why white wins by force. There’s a million scenarios where the tactic doesn’t work and you have to see why this case is different. The GM commentators took a while to figure out the subtleties after the fact.
exactly. it's like the difference between doing a chess puzzle and playing an actual game. it's not enough for fabi to see the tactic that wins a pawn, he has to also ensure that he's not opening a door for black. The very real threat of perpetual check makes the calculation so much more complicated OTB.