11–20 of 67 posts
The problems of the top players are not those of amateurs.
It's hard for some of the very best when they're no longer at their peak. Don't get me wrong, Magnus is still world #1 for a reason, but he used to be at a level where no-one could even scratch him. Now he has to fight much harder for victories, and he's not enjoying that. It's hard to determine how much is down to that factor, how much is how he feels over not being world champion anymore, and how much is a financia…
Forget Chess960, abandon castling, abandon symmetry, embrace Transcendental Chess! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_chess
It's hard for some of the very best when they're no longer at their peak. Don't get me wrong, Magnus is still world #1 for a reason, but he used to be at a level where no-one could even scratch him. Now he has to fight much harder for victories, and he's not enjoying that. It's hard to determine how much is down to that factor, how much is how he feels over not being world champion anymore, and how much is a financia…
I get the sense that it's less he has to fight harder to win, and more he has to grind boring studying just to even play. I don't _think_ he'd care that much if his win rate is going down if just being there didn't require spending all day, every day, memorizing lines.
It's hard for some of the very best when they're no longer at their peak. Don't get me wrong, Magnus is still world #1 for a reason, but he used to be at a level where no-one could even scratch him. Now he has to fight much harder for victories, and he's not enjoying that. It's hard to determine how much is down to that factor, how much is how he feels over not being world champion anymore, and how much is a financia…
Let's not forget that Magnus didn't lose his world champion title, he gave it up willingly after holding the title from 2013 to 2021. All those years where everyone else is focusing specifically on how to defeat him and still coming short. He's talked about this at length in interviews, mostly it just became incredibly boring.
I think it's a shame for the sport that he wasn't willing to risk losing his WC title over the board, but make no mistake, he has lost his WC title regardless.
I think everyone here can probably sympathise when a job stops being about the bits you actually enjoy or are good at. I have no doubt Magnus is the best ever, but the vast majority of the effort in classical chess is spent away from the board. Slogging through an opponent and their team’s computer driven opening prep just isn’t super fun and probably isn’t why most people fall in love with chess. Anyone who has gone…
As an amateur player (~2000 ish), classical is where it's at. I love the feeling of deep focus that is so hard to find in the rest of life these days but that I can still get into in a serious, slow over the board game. The problems of the top players are not those of amateurs.
While studying openings was a thing, it still felt like there was room for improvisation and tactics. Now playing feels like a chore and more about rote memorization than actually playing a game.