Sep-16-25 FIDE Grand Swiss (2025) 
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| jphamlore: In an interview, Anish Giri claimed that a player stronger than either Giri or Vidit agreed to come to Giri's training camp and help Giri prepare for the Grand Swiss. A reasonable guess would be Anand, since Anand would probably also qualify as someone Giri respects. And no one ... |
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Sep-16-25 Giri vs Niemann, 2025
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| jphamlore: <ndg2: After 15.Be2, Hans managed to give Giri the most Giri-friendly position imaginable. White is perpetually slightly better with bishop pair and strong center. Black has zero counterplay.> This has to be one of the greatest choices of opening ever given the stakes. Giri ... |
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Sep-14-25 FIDE Women's Grand Swiss (2025)
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| jphamlore: Carissa Yip at this point in her career is just playing for memories. She long ago took the path Negi took to cash out her chess career for Stanford CS and beyond. And with zero pressure, why not go for decisive results almost every game? |
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Aug-21-25 Sinquefield Cup (2025)
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| jphamlore: Glorious times for classical-timed chess. The Indian and other young players have completely revitalized the game with their ability to drag almost any opening into fantastic complications, beyond even the abilities of 2700s to fully calculate in the remaining time. Also computers |
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Jul-05-25 SuperUnited Rapid Croatia (2025)
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| jphamlore: Just examining Gukesh's games, I have to wonder if almost all chess literature and software needs to be overhauled to reflect how to maximize chances over-the-board. Imagine an entire book of puzzles where the objective is to find the line that keeps the game on edge, that ... |
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Jun-06-25 Norway Chess (2025)
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| jphamlore: I have to wonder when a world champion like Gukesh goes into near perfection mode with little time left, how is he doing it? Is he just faster because he's younger with more energy to breadth search lines others can't find in that time, or is he intuitively coming up with the best |
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Feb-13-25 Freestyle Grand Tour Weissenhaus (2025)
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| jphamlore: I think these games are showing the computer engines have if anything become too good, at least for analyzing a game in progress. What would be more useful, but perhaps not possible, is an engine that can vary its analysis based on expected depth of calculation. And that expected ... |
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Feb-02-25 Tata Steel Masters (2025)
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| jphamlore: <Olavi: This is completely silly, to decide a great tournament with 3+3 blitz games... actually it's a shame. What on earth is wrong with a shared win.> Because the alternative is Carlsen and Kramnik after Candidates 2013? And look at both players' results the final round. |
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Jan-09-25 Botvinnik vs Smyslov, 1958
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| jphamlore: Botvinnik (re)annotated this game for the book that would eventually be translated into English as Half a Century of Chess. Botvinnik observes that Smyslov would not have liked the following position after a variation 30 ... ♘xd4 31. ♕xd4 ♕xd4 32. ♖xd4 d5, ... |
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Jan-04-25 World Blitz Championship (2024)
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| jphamlore: Carlsen tops the week off by ... getting married! :-) https://www.chess.com/news/view/mag... |
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Kibitzing
