Well, I have no idea why my post didn't show up. Anyway, it was a link to a tweet indicating Carlsen may be done with WC matches, unless Firouzja wins the next candidates:

BREAKING: @MagnusCarlsen hints that the #CarlsenNepo match could be his last World Championship match. https://t.co/W9w10eGlBQ

— Tarjei J. Svensen (@TarjeiJS) December 14, 2021

Giri's response is amusing:

I am thinking to never tweet anymore, except for if @MagnusCarlsen tags me.
The motivation is no longer the same.
I want to quit social media while at my best and in the retirement focus on my chess career instead.

Thank you.🖤

— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) December 14, 2021

Carlsen has the highest rating of all time, but ratings of top players have edged upward ever since Steinitz was 150 pts better than second place (especially around 2000 when the effects of internet kicked in for chess study).

Carlsen doesn't crack this guy's top 10? I find that unfathomable. He has dominated every facet of the game for the last decade. He's got to be the strongest human chess player of all time given the advance in theory and engines.

Also sad that Anand doesn't get much love in these types of lists. Yes, he's had to contend with Kasparov and Magnus, but he's been around the top for 30+ years, spending most of those between #1 and 3.

Yeah, I thought it was remarkable that this list has Edward Lasker listed above Carlson, Anand & Morphy.
But the photography is great.

Nakamura said yesterday he is guessing that Magnus is just let down by all the hard work and the resulting anti-climatic nature of the Nepo trouncing.

Personally, I think Magnus might be playing mind games, which he certainly does. Maybe he really doesn't want to play Firouzja, because by saying he's the only worthy opponent left, he certainly put a bullseye on his back for the Candidates.

Rey Enigma vs Nakamura, good fun.

Let's give a bump to chess to mark International Chess Day.

https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2022/07/20/International-Chess-Day-UNESCO-FIDE/6411658265359/

Go to 1:15 mark to see how strangely Shankland lost a drawn game in the Olympiad.

U.S, gagging this Olympiad. Fabi hemorrhaging points.

Rongagin71 said:

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Go to 1:15 mark to see how strangely Shankland lost a drawn game in the Olympiad.

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You have to feel bad for Sam. I wonder how much of that is driven by the increase in online play for some of these guys.

Dream Team failed to medal.
Chess is hard.

130 move forced mate...from Chess Vibes...
only problem with it is the guys fingers got tired of moving the same piece.

Welp, the Hans cheating drama, how we feelin'?

Cloud said:

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Welp, the Hans cheating drama, how we feelin'?

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Crazy chess drama. His past appears to not be helping here.

Go to the 25:00 mark to see one big reason why Magnus has suspicions.

The only problem I have is that it seems very suspicious but they don't have the smoking gun. Without that you have to give the player the benefit of the doubt that he didn't cheat IMO

pic.twitter.com/sFMrmocLcS

— Chess.com (@chesscom) September 8, 2022

Interesting

thanks for that insert. Agadamator is great.

I believe Magnus when he says he detects algorithm play.

If there was no cheating, then Hans just lucked into a win by finding himself in the position that he was in.

I would bet that there is no one on earth that has played more matches against algorithms than Magnus, and probably by a pretty wide margin.

I also think he has seen the chess.com evidence of Hans cheating more than he has claimed.

powerbelly said:

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I also think he has seen the chess.com evidence of Hans cheating more than he has claimed.

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This may be true. Chess.com has the best dataset to capture cheaters.

To gain an edge, you don't need to follow an algorithm for every move. You really only need to identify one set of unexpected moves in the game that will most likely lead to a favorable position, where you give up position purposely at first, and then gain the upper hand 10 to 20 moves later.

I also believe chess.com. I think that Magnus and Chess.com deserve the benefit of the doubt until and unless Hans addresses the chess.com data.

I think Hans is cheating too.

I'm interested in the pressure politics of this. If Magnus and Hikaru tell organizers they won't play in their tournament if Hans is invited, I think he gets frozen out.

BTW, rumors out there that Magnus and Hikaru are going to play some kind of match. That would greatly eclipse the Nepo/Ding world championship, IMO, and would be great fun.

Agristotle said:

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I think Hans is cheating too.

I'm interested in the pressure politics of this. If Magnus and Hikaru tell organizers they won't play in their tournament if Hans is invited, I think he gets frozen out.

BTW, rumors out there that Magnus and Hikaru are going to play some kind of match. That would greatly eclipse the Nepo/Ding world championship, IMO, and would be great fun.

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They have played a number of times before.

Magnus almost always wins the long-form games, but Hikaru is better at blitz and bullet.

What would be interesting is if they played a series of games that consisted of one long form game and one blitz game.

After the second round, the first person that goes up by two wins the match. See who can beat the other at their own game first.

You would have to alternate so that the person that goes first doesn't have a huge advantage

1 - long game
2 - Blitz
3 - Blitz
4 - long
5 - long
6 - Blitz
7 - Blitz
and so on.

The first person to go up by 2 games (minimum of 4 games) wins. Maybe have 10 games max, when you declare a tie.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/09/carlsen-niemann-chess-cheating-poker/671472/

Interesting article inspired by the recent madness that makes some interesting points. We all know computers are so far above humans when it comes to chess that the highest rated human couldn't beat the top computer in a hundred tries. So what exactly is the point of human v. human chess competition? Humans learn from computers, practice against computers, and study computers. They try to find obscure, counter-intuitive computer strategies that the other player hasn't seen and exploiting their ignorance. So chess is less a game of logic and intuition, and even more a game of studying rare and unusual lines that give a major advantage if the other person doesn't know them. Now this has always been a part of chess, but I think younger players are spending less time studying Kasparov, Fischer and Capablanca and more time studying engine v engine games.

I think that's what happened with the recent "cheating" scandal. Magnus is clearly better than Neimann. But all it takes is Neimann to luck into some obscure line against Stockfish that then happens to come up in a match. At that point Magnus being better doesn't matter anymore. It's just a matter of knowledge or ignorance. I think the kid just got lucky with his preparation.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/09/carlsen-niemann-chess-cheating-poker/671472/

Interesting article inspired by the recent madness that makes some interesting points. We all know computers are so far above humans when it comes to chess that the highest rated human couldn't beat the top computer in a hundred tries. So what exactly is the point of human v. human chess competition? Humans learn from computers, practice against computers, and study computers. They try to find obscure, counter-intuitive computer strategies that the other player hasn't seen and exploiting their ignorance. So chess is less a game of logic and intuition, and even more a game of studying rare and unusual lines that give a major advantage if the other person doesn't know them. Now this has always been a part of chess, but I think younger players are spending less time studying Kasparov, Fischer and Capablanca and more time studying engine v engine games.

I think that's what happened with the recent "cheating" scandal. Magnus is clearly better than Neimann. But all it takes is Neimann to luck into some obscure line against Stockfish that then happens to come up in a match. At that point Magnus being better doesn't matter anymore. It's just a matter of knowledge or ignorance. I think the kid just got lucky with his preparation.

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If chess.com says they have the goods, I believe them. They apparently had one of the guys that worked on these chess engines make an AI that "learned" to identify AI players versus human players.

Watch the video above. Hans entered into a line of play 29 moves in, that required another 19 moves to pay off, losing position and material along the way. You can't prep for a position that occurs 29 moves into a match. The variation is just too much.

Chess.com is a neutral 3rd party, and is the foremost sleuth at detecting cheaters. They have a HUGE dataset to work from.

Finally, Hans has refused to address the data that chess.com released. Until he breaks his silence on that, I give the benefit of the doubt to chess.com, not Hans.

Eric Hansen said they "quietly" had to dump Hans from their Friday night tournaments because it was obvious to many that he was cheating.

About third through this video breaking down a statistical analysis of Hans Niemann games and accuracy of other games. Very interesting.

According to this analysis, Hans is currently playing better than Bobby Fischer did during his famous 20 game winning streak. A very sudden increase.

Possibly another NZT-48 outbreak.

Chess.com dropped their Hans report. Pretty clear he is a habitual cheater but I wonder if we'll ever learn how he cheated OTB?

Chess.com report on Hans is pretty damning.