Plessiez

Ju Wenjun is (almost certainly) going to defend her title as women's world champion for a fourth time, in what I think must be the most one-sided chess match I've seen in a while. (The closest comparison might be Kasparov's matches against Short and Anand in the 1990s; there may have been some more recent women's world championship matches I've forgotten about though.) The match started in April, with Ju being challenged by Tan Zhongyi, the previous champion (who Ju herself defeated in 2018). It was pretty level at first: Tan was actually the first player to register a win, in Game 2. Ju equalized immediately though, and after four games the score was tied at 2-2. Then Ju won game 5. And game 6. And game 7. And game 8. It's a best-of-twelve event (I have no idea why the women's world championship isn't the same length as the open world championship, but then I have no idea why FIDE does anything it does when it comes to women's chess, or indeed chess in general), so now Ju only needs one draw in four games to win the match. Game 9 is being played as I write this, and while Tan has just captured Ju's isolated queen's pawn the engine seems completely unimpressed by the material situation and insists the position is even. But maybe Tan will be able to make it competitive; I don't really know. It's very hard to see her winning four in a row though, even if she somehow wins this one. If (when?) Ju wins the match, she'll have defended her title four times in seven years: once in a knockout tournament a few months after the first match against Tan (like I said, I have no idea why FIDE does ... anything), and then in matches against Aleksandra Goryachkina (currently the 4th highest rated woman in the world with a rating of 2544), Lei Tingjie (currently 3rd, with a rating of 2552) and then Tan Zhongyi again (currently 5th, with a rating of 2536). Officially Ju herself is 'only' the second highest rated woman in the world, with a 2580 rating -- Hou Yifan plays just enough classical chess to stay on the rating list, I guess -- but it feels hard to argue that she's not been incredibly dominant in the women's game over the last decade. I think she'd be favorite against Hou Yifan if they were to play a match right now, despite the nominal rating difference.

That historical essay (and its many footnotes) is by far my favorite part of City of Saints and Madmen. It's also the part that most closely ties into the (sort-of) sequel, Shriek: An Afterword. That's rather more of a traditional novel than City... was, but I think it's very good: it's probably my favorite of all of VanderMeer's works.

Just after I last posted on this thread, my old laptop finally decided to die. And, after I replaced it -- because I'm an idiot who doesn't use a proper password manager -- I had a bit of trouble logging back on to the board. On the other hand, I'd been hoping to play in my first in-person tournament since 2019 today, but I ended up having to drop out due to poor health. So I suppose now is as good a time as any to catch up what I missed. Apologies for the slightly rambling nature of this. Some final thoughts on the world championship match first: The close Gukesh victory we got was arguably the best result for everyone, in some ways. Good for Gukesh, of course, because ... well, he won. Good for FIDE because Gukesh as the youngest ever world champion (and a player in the top five by rating who seems to only be getting stronger) is a much better image for the game than Ding was. Good for spectators who wanted a dramatic last-minute turnaround similar to the one we had last year. Good for people who, like me, still resent the fact that FIDE insisted on having tiebreaks after the world championship was reunified. (In the sense that we've still yet to have the title of world champion change hands because of a tiebreak win. Obviously there have been matches that went to tiebreaks, but none where the defending champion didn't win, at least when there was a defending world champion taking part.) And at the same time, perhaps good for Ding too. The defending champion was able to put up much more of a fight than most people were predicting -- with a couple of nice wins as well -- which I think does him a lot of credit. And one suspects no longer having the burden of being world champion will be good for his mental health (and, perhaps, that his chess might improve as well). It's too early to be sure, but I find the currently popular idea that Ding is uniquely and obviously the weakest world champion rather silly. His career to date certainly suggests he's more deserving of the title than, say, Max Euwe (who was never even the second best player in the world). And while health problems stopped him being an active champion or retaining his title for long ... well, he certainly defended it more vigorously than either Tal or Fischer managed to do. And it's not as if there haven't been dramatic blunders in world championship matches before 2024, either. Honestly, I'm still a little nonplussed by the fact the loser of this match doesn't get an automatic invite to the next Candidates. That doesn't really seem right to me. And, more generally, I think that FIDE's qualification cycle this time around is pretty dubious. Far too much focus on the World Cup, which shouldn't be awarding more than one place but is awarding three, bizarre FIDE circuit rules that many of the top players don't seem to really understand or want to participate in, that stupid Grand Swiss event that FIDE keep pushing, far too few rating spots (effectively either just one or possibly even none?). Just doesn't make sense to me at all from a sporting perspective. Does FIDE not want the strongest possible field for the Candidates? Who does this system actually benefit? But, again, perhaps better for Ding on a human level to be out of it. The actual last game of the match was a bit of a disappointment as a spectator though. Obviously Ding's blunder was a real shame for him, but I thought that even before that it was probably his worst game of the match (even more so than the previous games he lost). A lot of odd strategic decisions on his part throughout the game, both in the opening and then in choosing when and how to liquidate into a (theoretically) drawn ending. Other events: Very pleased to see Volodar Murzin win the World Rapid Championship. You wait ages for an eighteen year old chess world champion, and then two arrive at once. A very impressive tournament for him (undefeated for, I think, the second year running in this event?) too; a shame the result was somewhat overshadowed by two very silly things (neither of which make either Carlsen or FIDE look especially dignified). I suspect we'll see more of Murzin in top level classical events before too long. Given how much of a prodigy Carlsen was, it's perhaps no surprise to see him ticking off all the ex-world champion milestones so quickly, but his promotion of 'freestyle' chess (the variant that grumpy old people like me used to call Chess960, and that the generation before mine used to call Fischerrandom, and the really old used to call shuffle chess, and that nobody has actually ever adopted no matter how many former world champions insist that there's too much opening theory...) seems pretty quixotic to me. I just don't see any organic audience for this at any level, and the attempts to throw money at it to create one aren't convincing. (At least when Kasparov broke away from FIDE and started his own doomed rival chess body back in the 1990s we got some fun high-level chess games out of it.) 'Freestyle chess' isn't quite as ridiculous as, say, the various attempts to promote chessboxing, but it's ... well, it's not chess, is it? Finally, the annual Wijk aan Zee tournament started yesterday. This is the only surviving 'big' chess tournament I remember from my youth (even if it has changed names half a dozen times since then), so I always look forward to it. Interesting to see that in the first round both Gukesh and two of his seconds won, but that neither Gukesh himself nor Vincent Keymer seemed to actually benefit from any sort of opening preparation edge, the way you might have expected following on from the match. (Gukesh was worse for most of his match and would have been dead lost if Giri had found the winning move 35. ... Ng4!; while Mendoca was completely winning until the awful 31. Rc1??). Apparently Gukesh only arrived in the Netherlands from India a few hours before the opening game, which is ... well, not quite the approach Mikhail Botvinnik would have pushed for, let's say.

Back to the match: I've been following the games pretty closely this month even though I've not posted in this thread since round 1. I think it's pretty safe to say that neither Ding nor Gukesh is playing like the strongest player in the world right now (or even the strongest player in the world not named Magnus Carlsen), but it's been a very entertaining event to watch all the same. Particularly games 9, 11 and 12 of the last few. I'll admit I'd just about written Ding off after that Game 11 loss -- surely the much anticipaed mental collapse was about to come? -- but his win yesterday was very, very convincing. It felt like a little glimpse of the Ding Liren of 2019 (and, not for the first time, Gukesh's opening preparation seems to have let him down a little bit). Feels like it could be anyone's match still. Would be rather sad to see either player lose, honestly. A young, active and (presumably) still improving world champion would probably be better for the game overall, but if Ding wins it would be a huge personal victory for him after the year and half he's had since becomming champion. The number of world champions who have successfully defended their title by winning a match while champion is smaller than you might think, too: of the 16 previous (undisputed) world champions, Capablanca, Euwe, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal and Fischer all failed to do it (as did Kramnik, if you take the literal -- but admittedly rather odd -- stance that he only became 'undisputed' world champion after beating Topalov). Incidentally, the stakes feel a bit higher than usual this time: I don't think I'd realized until recently that the loser of this match won't be seeded directly into the next Candidates tournament. Feels rather unfair to me, that. Yes, the champion getting an automatic rematch (as Botvinnik did, and Karpov did as well) was too generous, but personally I think even bringing in rapid tie breaks over the champion retaining their title in the event of a tie was a mistake (which is why I'm glad that, so far, the defending champion has won every tiebreak: another reason to root for Ding if it gets that far). Now a champion can lose a match and ... suddenly they're supposed to qualify for a tournament whose qualification process started before they lost their title? Come on, surely that's not right?

If he wins -- and I certainly would not have guessed a couple of months ago that, even after twelve rounds, it would still be a question of 'if' -- Gukesh would be the youngest undisputed world champion. But, if you count the 'FIDE world champions' from the period between Kasparov and Short's split from FIDE in the 1993 and the Kramnik-Topalov reunification match in 2006, not quite the youngest champion ever: Ruslan Ponomariov was also eighteen when he became FIDE champion in 2002 and he was actually a few months younger than Gukesh at the time. How much the FIDE champions count is, I think, still slightly a matter of dispute: yes, people call Ding the 17th world champion (in a line that passes through Kasparov and Kramnik and ignores everyone else claiming to be world champion at the time), but Anand at least is regularly described as a "five time world champion", which can only be true if you count not only his three match victories (against Kramnik, Topalov and Gelfand) but also the 2007 world championship tournament and the FIDE title he won in 2002. I think the "X-time world champion" label is a bit silly, myself, but equally it seems fair to acknowledge that modern world championships happen at a much faster rate than they sometimes did. Lasker was world champion for over twenty-five years, but he only played seven matches for the title during this period; for comparison: Anand played five matches just in the period 2008 to 2014 and Carlsen played five between 2013 and 2021.

In hindsight, I should perhaps have also wondered which Ding would show up Tuesday and Wednesday... Today's game was (unfortunately) a lot closer to what I'd feared would happen this match. And, indeed, what I thought we were going to see after the first hour or so of Monday's game. At least tomorrow is a rest day? (Nothing against Gukesh at all: I just hope we get to see a competitive match.)

Well, that was fun.

Honestly, I think the Ding Liren of six years ago -- rated comfortably over 2800 and just coming to the end of a year long, 100 game undefeated streak -- would be the heavy favorite against today's Gukesh. But we've not really seen that Ding for a long time, except for the occasional positive moment (including, to be fair, a couple of nice wins against Gukesh himself, at both this year and last year's Wijk aan Zee). As it is, it seems very hard to predict anything but a Gukesh win this year. I guess you could argue that Ding has the advantage of match experience and, should it come to tiebreaks, that he still seems to be the stronger rapid player. If Ding can keep it close for the first half of the match, maybe he can surprise a few people. But if Gukesh gets an early win I'd worry we might see Ding just collapse mentally, and I think on current form that looks a bit more likely. I guess we'll find out which Ding is going to show up on Monday.

The Chess Olympiad is taking place in Hungary this year, coinciding with the 100th anniverary of the founding of FIDE. Very impressive tournament for India so far. Seven rounds in, India are the only team with a 100% record in both the open and the women's event; Erigaisi and Gukesh are up to 4th and 5th in the live rating list; and Gukesh in particular is on an undefeated 5.5/6 playing on first board (he didn't play in the first round). Meanwhile Ding Liren is currently languishing at 22nd in the rating list (more than 100 points below Carlsen!) and has yet to win a game in the Olympiad. November's world championship match is not exactly looking like it's going to be very competitive... I'm not sure what's gone wrong for Ding -- I've heard things about illness or mental health issues, and I know he took a few months off of chess entirely last year, but I don't know anything specifically -- but as a fan of his it's really sad to see, whatever the reason. Even when he played Nepo two years ago he was far from his best, but these days he seems like a shadow of the player he was five years ago. He was rated over 2800! He was, for a time, pretty clearly the second best player in the world! He broke the record for longest unbroken streak in top level chess (which, of course, Carlsen then broke again a couple of years later). Yes, he was sort of lucky to qualify to play for the title the way that he did, but he had made multiple appearances at the Candidates on merit. In the post-Carlsen era, I think he deserved to be world champion as much as anyone. Now ... well, I guess he's still a good rapid player, at least. But his classical results have been dreadful and they don't seem to show any sign of improving.

An excellent result for Gukesh but that must have been a heartbreaking way for things to end for Caruana (and for Nepo too, but at least he wasn't forced to immediately give a press conference where he was shown how many winning opportunities he'd missed out on). Something rather depressing about watching them both hopelessly play out a drawn Queen endgame, knowing that they needed a win but weren't going to get another chance. Would be very, very surprised if Carlsen decided to challenge for the world title again (barring extensive changes to the format that I don't think should happen and I don't think anybody except Carlsen is keen on happening). He just doesn't seem to enjoy playing those sorts of matches (and historically probably hasn't done quite as well in them as he should have done, blowout win against Nepo last time aside) and it's not as if he's got anything to prove or needs the prize money. Maybe if the new champion also starts to regularly dominate tournaments and challenge for the number one rating spot Carlsen would be more tempted, but Ding definitely isn't doing that and it's too soon to say if anybody else will. For a minute a couple of years ago it looked like Firouzja might, which I think was why Carlsen seemed interested in playing him, but that really hasn't materialised at all. As well as performing badly in two consecutive Candidates Tournaments Firouzja hasn't really threatened Carlsen at the top of the rating list at all (he came into this tournament rated 6th in the world and leaves it rated 16th). If Carlsen was interested in challenging again -- which, again, I don't think will happen -- I'd be shocked if he didn't have to go through the Candidates. But he'd have a much easier path than everyone else as long as he was able to qualify by rating (the way Firouzja did this time and Ding did the time before).

Not an original observation to me but still somewhat amazing to think that today's round 14 will be the first round of any Candidates Tournament going back all the way to March 2018 in which Ian Nepomniachtchi won't start at least tied for the lead. Nepo had previously been leading or co-leading every round of every Candidates he'd ever taken part in for a run of 41 consecutive rounds. Pleased to see Gukesh managed to win -- and well predicted by @A Horse Named Stranger -- as when I gave up and went to sleep last night (around the time control) I thought his chances of getting a result weren't looking so good. Would be great to see him win the event now. Failing that, I'd like to see Caruana have another shot at the title, especially because the performance of Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa this month (as well as the rise of other young players like Abdusattorov and Erigaisi up the rating list) suggests he might not get any better chances in the future. (And I think Caruana has at least as much claim as anyone else of his generation for the status of Best Player Not Named Magnus Carlsen, so it would be nice for him if could get the title to match that.)

Caruana winning today and both the games featuring players ahead of him in the standings being drawn would definitely be the fun result, right? Would set up a final round tomorrow with four co-leaders, all playing each other, with all four of them more or less obliged to play for a win. Glancing at the current engine evaluations for today's games, it doesn't seem that such an outcome would be particularly unlikely either.

No. This is, by some distance, the closest it's been at this stage of the tournament since the double round robin format was (re-)adopted for the 2013 Candidates Tournament. In five previous years (2013, 2014, 2018, 2020/21 and 2022) there was a clear leader by round 10 who went on to win the event. In most of those tournaments the chasing pack was pretty small too (Anand had 6.5/10 at this stage in 2014, ahead of Aronian on 5.5/10; Caruana also had 6.5/10 in 2018, ahead of Mamedyarov on 6/10 and Grischuk on 5.5/10; Nepo also had 6.5/10 in 2020/2021, ahead of three players on 5.5/10; Nepo had 7/10 in 2022 again with three players tied for second way back on 5.5/10) and won that year with a undefeated 9.5/14. The two closest previous Candidates Tournaments were probably 2013 and 2016, but neither of them were this close. Carlsen had 7/10 in 2013, ahead of Aronian on 6.5/10 and Kramnik on 6/10 but Kramnik went on a late run and briefly overtook both of them to take the lead (in round 12) before Carlsen beat Radjabov as Black in round 13 to catch him (and then they both lost in round 14 to finish on 8.5/14, but Carlsen won because of superior tiebreaks). And in 2016 Karjakin and Caruana were tied after ten rounds on 6/10 each (with Anand just behind on 5.5/10), and Karjakin briefly went behind both Anand and Caruna before regaining the lead and winning the tournament (with 8.5/14 as well). But there's never been anything like this before. This year not only are Gukesh and Nepo tied on 6/10 [just like Karjakin and Caruana were in 2016], there are three players just behind them on 5.5/10 (and Vidit just behind them on 5/10, but that's probably(?) a bit too far back to be in contention at this stage). Feels almost impossible to pick a winner still and it could easily come down to rapid game tiebreaks (which were first brought it last year, instead of the the older tiebreak system that was used in 2013, but obviously not needed to pick a winner that time around).

Oh, and if we're confessing to bullet chess habits, I'm currently playing a lot of 2+1 on lichess myself (and have been since 2020, off and on). I should really stop though: my blitz rating (around 2150 at the moment) is much higher than my average bullet rating and I think playing chess that fast is not good at all for my OTB chess either. (I also don't have a mouse, which probably doesn't help.)

Really been enjoying this year's Candidates so far, although to be honest I'm rather hoping Nepo doesn't win again. One player repeatedly winning the Candidates would be the ideal outcome if they were clearly the second best player in the world (assuming the current champion was the best player, of course, which doesn't apply at the moment) but Nepo doesn't seem to be that. Rather, it feels like he's benefiting quite a bit from the competition rules meaning he only needs to focus on the Candidates every other year and not worry about qualifying for them, while players like Caruana and Firouzja expend a lot of energy (and preparation) qualifying and then repeatedly disappoint at the actual event (whether because of nerves or lack of energy or the slightly unusual time controls or whatever else is going on) On the other hand, if Gukesh manages to win and goes on to beat Ding (which, on current form, seems pretty plausible) I'd have to face living in world with a world champion who was less than half my age, and I'm not sure I'm ready for that.

Nomination details are out now and seem to be somewhat confusing. File770 has a discussion thread. Highlights include Babel coming third in the nominations for best novel but being declared ineligble (for no reason that I can see), Xiran Jay Zhao being declared ineligble for the Astounding (despite, I believe, having been declared eligible for the first of two years last year), the Sandman's two nominations (in long form and short form dramatic presentation) apparently canceling each other out and rendering both ineligible and Turing Food Court somehow coming both tenth and twelth in the nominations for best novelette. I'm not really up to speed with the current Hugo nominations process, but this all seems pretty weird, doesn't it?

Ding Liren is the 17th world chess champion. Very happy to see him win (I remember rooting from him in the 2020-21 Candidates, though that didn't exactly go to plan), although after a decade of Carlsen (and for some years Anand before him) it's going to take time to get used to a world champion who isn't even the second highest rated player in the world. Very strange to think, looking back, that Ding only qualified for the Candidates' Tournament at all after Karjakin got himself disqualified; didn't even have a positve score in the Candidates until round 10, only pipped Nakamura to second in the final round, only qualified for the match itself after Carlsen refused to defend the title and never led in the classical portion of the match. And as late as the last rapid game, it looked like it would be Nepo, not Ding, who had all the chances to win. Still, one of the most entertaining matches I've watched in a while (even if -- or, well, because -- the quality was often not quite as high as we might have grown used to).

When was the last time a world championship match had as many as four decisive results in the first six games? Doesn't feel like that's happened for a very long time.

Well, after today it definitely looks like the Carlsen-Niemann thing isn't going away any time soon...

Congratulations to Ding Liren on qualifying for a world championship match, I suppose.

The engines seem to dislike 16. g4 too (and both of Firouzja's next moves as well, especially 18. g5). And Nepo definitely looks to be better now. I don't think we're going to see second-half collapse. (Apparently Firouzja's prepartion for today's game included staying up late playing hundreds of bullet games, which ... well.)

Replying to myself since I realize I worded this badly: "later that year" means "in 2000, when the Kasparov-Kramnik match was played", not in 1998. And having googled, Anand only become FIDE world champion in December, a few weeks after Kramnik beat Kasparov. But Anand won the Chess World Cup (which was in part a qualifer for the World championship tournament) in September, before the Kramnik-Kasparov match. (Bonus fun fact: I've seen it alleged in a few different places that Kramnik won a prize fund of a few hundred thousand dollars for losing to Shirov, while Shirov was told that he'd only get his share of the prize money for that match after playing Kasparov. Which ... well, he never did.)

Disappointing answer, but I don't think there have been any big upsets since the Candidates switched to its modern double round robin system back in 2013. Or any small upsets, either, really: the winner of the tournament in recent years has always been somebody who was in first place (either tied or outright) within a couple of rounds, and more often than not they've stayed in first place for almost the entire tournament. (So if Nepo were to somehow lose from here ... well, it would be quite an achievement.) That said, there was almost a big upset in that very first 2013 tournament: at the halfway point Kramnik had made seven draws and was three points behind Carlsen and Aronian, only to win four of his next five games and become sole leader after twelve rounds. But Carlsen managed to beat Radjabov in round 13 to tie for first again, and then both players lost in the final round, allowing Carlsen to qualify based on his tie break. Before the title reunification in 2007 the system used to determine who got to play a world championship match was ... well, a mess, but single tournaments like the current system have historically been a pretty rare way of selecting a challenger, at least since the 1950s. Actually, thinking about it, arguably the biggest technical upset involves Kramnik again: he lost a match to Shirov in 1998 whose winner was supposed to go on to play Kasparov for the (non-FIDE-approved) title, but that match never happened. Instead, Kasparov decided his next opponent would qualify based on rating alone. The highest rated player after Kasparov at the time was Anand, but he refused to play (I'm not sure why, but he was either already the FIDE recognized champion at that point or would become so later that year). So Kasparov played the next person down on the rating list, who was ... Kramnik. So arguably Kramnik managed to play for (and win!) the world title despite twice failing to qualify: he didn't beat Shirov and he wasn't the highest rated player. Which is improbable enough that I don't feel too bad for him missing out in 2013. (Probably not what you had in mind though, I know.)

Caruana has White against Nepomniachtchi in Round 9. Looks like that could be the crucial game of the tournament. Not that it particularly matters which of those two wins if Carlsen's serious about not playing the winner: they're so far ahead of the pack (Nakamura is in clear third place on 50%, 1.5 points behind Caruana and 2 points behind Nepo) that the odds must be that whichever of them doesn't win the tournament will finish second. Though given how their respective matches went, you'd think that Carlsen would be a lot more willing to play Nepo at this point than Caruana, wouldn't you?

I almost didn't notice that the Candidates had started. Early days yet (we've just reached the first rest day), but Nepo and Caruana are tied for first at the moment (with Ding Liren trailing at the bottom again, sadly). Given Carlsen's threats not to play the challenger if it's anybody but Firouzja, it would be pretty funny if we ended up having a Nepo-Caruana World Championship match next year. (At least, I believe that FIDE's position is that there would be a match between the winner and the runner-up of the Challengers in the event that Carlsen doesn't play?) It would definitely be a very strange situation though, and I hope it doesn't happen (whether because Firouzja wins or Carlsen turns out to be bluffing). Of course, FIDE have stripped an existing world champion of their title before, but Fischer had stopped playing professional chess already by that point while Kasparov kept calling himself world champion and set up a whole rival title qualification process, which was treated at least as seriously as FIDE's by most people (at least while Kasparov retained his version of the title). It doesn't seem like that would make sense for Carlsen to do, if he's really just unhappy about having to keep playing matches (I guess he could try arranging a match against Firouzja, if it comes to it, but I hope Kasparov's example shows why splitting the title like that is a bad idea). But having the world champion just stop being the world champion but carrying on playing chess (and being very obviously the strongest player in the world) seems pretty unsatisfying all around. Would people consider either Caruana or Nepo genuine world champions at that point? (I do think the pace of world championship matches is a bit excessive though. One long match every three or four years seems far more sensible than the current pattern of short matches every other year.)