World championship

[Dric902]

While some of you Neanderthals weren’t watching. The World Championship of Chess is ongoing with an excitement only the most hardy can sustain

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/chess-world-rattled-as-someone-nearly-wins-game/

I love how they write some of this up like an action movie

“It’s a miracle save,” said Robert Hess, an American grandmaster commentating on the match for Chess.com.

Chess players are second only to maybe biological taxonomists in their proclivity to elaborately name things, and sure enough even this rare position has its own proper name: the Karklins-Martinovsky Variation. But neither player was troubled by Karklins-Martinovsky, they said after the game. Its theory is well known to these elite players.

And so they played on. The powerful queens came off the board by move 8, but this loss took no edge off the fight. For a while, the game looked less like a battle and more like a dressage competition, as 66 percent or more of each player’s first 12 moves were knight moves.

By the 47th move, Carlsen was down a knight but up three pawns, which gave him a few slim hopes. Two had open routes to the end of the board, where they could become queens. Much delicate, asymmetrical and impossibly complex maneuvering commenced, as Caruana tried to prevent the pawns’ promotion.

A dozen moves later, Caruana had captured three of Carlsen’s pawns, including those aspiring to become queens, and still had one of his own. That left him in a victorious position — if only he could see it. On the 68th move, a supercomputer analyzing the game found a guaranteed checkmate a distant 30 moves down the road — down a lengthy bridle path, say

but it was not to be

seven draws now and counting

 

.

 

 

Edited November 18, 2018 by Dric902

[Huaco Kid]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjp1Zrvn8VQ

[KWalrad]

In the Spring we watch the grass grow to idle away the time, Summer we watch paint dry. Winter we watch the cars rust or we watch chess.

 

Pawn jump Queen. Bishop jump Queen. Gangbang!

[Dric902]

With his last chance to command the white pieces in a regulation game in the World Chess Championship, defending champion Magnus Carlsen was unable to drum up any attacking chances. Game 11 — like the 10 that preceded it — ended in a draw.

There is an austere beauty in the equilibrium of draws that this match has reached: Two goliaths, pushing each other with all their might, yet moving nowhere. At any moment, though, the ground can shift.

 

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