The Match Has Begun: Will an American Finally Reclaim the World Chess Championship?

Khabibs Tiramisu said:
How do people cheat in chess? I'm not familiar, but I did watch Bobby Fischer's movie Pawn Sacrifice (Awesome movie btw) and he was upset that some players were intentionally losing to manipulate the rankings. Is that the cheating that you're referring to? Or is it something else?
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What I got from it was players were working together in tournaments . All vs bobby he was upset and walked out once
But don't get how they can ? Never played it
 
Idonotbelieveit said:
What I got from it was players were working together in tournaments . All vs bobby he was upset and walked out once
But don't get how they can ? Never played it
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Let's say you have a round-robin style tournament with 10 players, and 9 of them are working together (an exaggerated situation but it works for this explanation). Fischer would play each of the 9 guys, all high-level grandmasters, and all of those grandmasters would try to force draws against Fischer, rather than playing for a win. Even somebody of Fischer's caliber would struggle to win more than a couple of games against them (it's hard to win against somebody who is trying to force a drawn game). He may not have any losses, but because he doesn't have many wins, he doesn't have many points in the standings. Meanwhile, the 9 guys would also draw a lot with each other, except for one or two guys who they want to win the tournament, and they could throw a bunch of games so that those one or two people finish ahead of Fischer in the standings.

In reality, it was a lot more subtle than that, but you get the idea. Fischer was also paranoid as hell, so even though he was right that Russia was colluding against other countries and against Fischer, his accusations may not have been accurate and it was quite hard to prove.
 
Update on the tournament I covered-

Caruana and Carlsen finished the tournament in a three-way tie for first place (with Levon Aronian). The three men had equal records, and also equal tie-breaks (I think they had 4 tie-breaking criteria). It came down to flipping coins to see which of the two could play for first place, and the players agreed to share first place instead of suffering that indignity.

Caruana also won a different, tour-related tie-breaker against Wesley So to clinch his spot in London, for the chess tour final that takes place after his World Championship match with Carlsen.
 
Pretty sure id beat everyone in this thread at chess
 
No, in my opinion.

I feel like people in a country are only as good as the sport/activity is popular. Meaning the best soccer players will come out of places where they are obsessed with soccer. (Aside from sports that rely on pure ability like Jamaicans and sprinting or Kenyans and running long distance).

That said, chess isn't really promoted that much here. In places like Russia and India everyone seems to know how to play. Russians put tons of resources to see their chess players succeed.

Fischer was the exception to that rule but he was a friggin' MONSTER, we probably won't see that again in our lifetime.

Edit: I thought Fabiano was Italian. In any case, my answer stands. He doesn't have an answer for Carlsen, who is a machine.
 
a chess player doing a silencing pose might be the most unintentionally hilarious thing I've ever seen
 
So THAT’s what all this Russia-hating lately is really about ... !!!
 
I doubt it.

Carlsen has a lot of experience with big matches, and has basically seen it all at this point even though he's still in his prime. That's a bad guy to go up against.
 
No because Hillary got the popular vote. I don't know how we can trust our Nation's intelligence level.


That's gonna be a hard no bro.
 
Alphaboy said:
I feel like people in a country are only as good as the sport/activity is popular. Meaning the best soccer players will come out of places where they are obsessed with soccer. (Aside from sports that rely on pure ability like Jamaicans and sprinting or Kenyans and running long distance).
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That's a valid way of looking at it for teams or for national chess programs, but people like Caruana are extreme outliers and it's impossible to split hairs so thin that his background could be called a factor in the match.
 
Fawlty said:
That's a valid way of looking at it for teams or for national chess programs, but people like Caruana are extreme outliers and it's impossible to split hairs so thin that his background could be called a factor in the match.
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I used background because historically Americans don't fair as well as Europeans. He may be an exception though.
 
Alphaboy said:
I used background because historically Americans don't fair as well as Europeans. He may be an exception though.
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Yeah historically Americans have always lagged, though right now America has Hikaru Nakamura in addition to Caruana (I'm leaving out Wesley So because he came up in the Philippines and only recently moved to America). We're the only country with 2 players in the top 10 in rating.

Russia's legacy and chess culture are still keeping them strong, with the highest number of 2700+ players, but they are no longer dominant.

The top 10 now includes Norway, Azerbaijan, France, India, Armenia, China, and the Netherlands (along with US/Russia), which supports the idea that individual freakishness is a lot more important than national focus.
 
I downloaded a chess app on my phone last week, and I went from beginner level to master in about 20 minutes or so, but I got stuck in master for a whole weekend, now I'm on grand master level and god damn that is hard.
 
KnightTemplar said:
I really want to learn to play Chess. I've always admired the skill of those who play it, but never had the chance to learn the game.
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I got lucky in my school as a kid I had the option of playing soccer (I didn't like it at the time) or playing chess, I went in to play chess as a 10 year old and felt in love with the game immediately. Just started playing again, took years off from it.
 
The match started today, for those who wanted to catch it. Game one has started, and they are about 20 moves in, with Magnus, playing black, taking an early advantage in the game with Caruana blundering and getting into some time trouble.

A couple of streaming options (there are more out there):



 
Caruana getting a draw here would be a great outcome. Losing with white in the first game is worst case scenario for Fabi so holding here would be huge. Magnus looks pretty strong right away from game 1, gaining an advantage and making Fabi have to defend all game. If the first game is any indication, this is going to be a good battle for the title.
 
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