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Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

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Re: Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

#211

Post by StopDisinfo910 »

hveksr wrote: post #183
StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jean controversy was a couple of years after Magnus stopped defending the title. It has nothing to do with it. Magnus just doesn't care about the format of the world title. I think something broke for him while playing Caruana in 2018. The classical games were a snooze fest of defensive plays after defensive plays and everything was settled in the rapid tie break in a fairly unsatisfying manner. He is not the fir…

There was no snooze fest though in 2018 WCC. The games were extremely exciting, with unbalanced pawn structures. They all ended in draws only because of their strong defensive skills and a touch of luck in a few games.

Unbalanced pawn structure is a feature of the Sveshnikov Sicilian but Caruana had done a lot of prep and it was obvious. Carlsen quicky left the main line for the boring 7. Nd5. Plus, Carlsen missed a lot of good moves because he had to play it safe. To me, it was boring chess of the highest level.

A lot of it felt like watching engines by proxy. One prepared well on a very complex opening. The other found the best meta counterplay and held until he reached the tie break.

Game 12 is a travesty. It was clear he just wanted to move to rapid.

Re: Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

#212

Post by sebstefan »

For those wondering why Nakamura (who we're used to seeing winning, or in the top 3 in chess960 tournaments) isn't there

> Hikaru Nakamura, the 2022 Fischer Random World Champion, declined his invitation to the event, citing the changes in the format, rushed arrangement, reduced prize fund, and his focus on the upcoming Candidates Tournament 2026. He said he had been invited to the first leg of the 2026 Freestyle Tour, with the same format and prize fund as the 2025 tour; however, a few days before the announcement of the world championship, he was informed there would be no year-long tour. Instead, only a three-day event with rapid time controls would be held, and it would be called a World Championship. He called it a "hastily arranged tournament with less than 1/3rd the prize fund it originally had", and lamented that the classical length format from the first event in 2025 wasn't continued.

Re: Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

#213

Post by sebstefan »

smnplk wrote: post #14

I think Nakamura didnt play this time because of his Candidates prep. Otherwise I think Nakamura would have a slight edge on Carlsen in this game.

> Hikaru Nakamura, the 2022 Fischer Random World Champion, declined his invitation to the event, citing the changes in the format, rushed arrangement, reduced prize fund, and his focus on the upcoming Candidates Tournament 2026. He said he had been invited to the first leg of the 2026 Freestyle Tour, with the same format and prize fund as the 2025 tour; however, a few days before the announcement of the world championship, he was informed there would be no year-long tour. Instead, only a three-day event with rapid time controls would be held, and it would be called a World Championship. He called it a "hastily arranged tournament with less than 1/3rd the prize fund it originally had", and lamented that the classical length format from the first event in 2025 wasn't continued.

Re: Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

#214

Post by gynecologist »

Quarrel wrote: post #123
purplejacket wrote: post #103

Magnus is just so tenacious. From a lost position he snatched a victory. Take a look at the five hour mark (plus or minus) for the crucial moments of the key game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6ey5Up4S7w

Thanks for the direct link. That game they're in at 5:00:00 was great.

And don't miss the highlights at 3:10:22 and 4:23:65, I was on the edge of my seat!

Re: Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

#215

Post by gynecologist »

Pay08 wrote: post #148
gyudin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The curse of being born in Smartphones’ generation :3

Are you claiming that Magnus is cheating?

He's saying he lost because fabiano caruana was too distracted scrolling on tiktok and youtube shorts instead of preparing for his match against magnus.

Re: Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

#216

Post by thomasahle »

freetime2 wrote: post #28

How long do chess players typically remain at their peak for? According to wikipedia, Magnus is currently 35. Is it impressive to be winning at 35? Would we expect to see his performance drop off in the next 5-10 years? Even if he is still capable mentally and physically, I would think the stress of training and competing at that level must get old after a while.

Most players actually peak in strength around age 35 [1].

But Carlsen has been number one for more time than any player for him, safe Kasparov [2]:

- Kasparov 255 months at number 1

- Carlsen 188

- Karpov 102

- Fischer 54

Bonus nuance: Carlsen has the longest unbroken run of 174 consecutive rating lists

[1]: https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-age-related-decline-in-che...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FIDE_chess_world_numbe...

Re: Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

#217

Post by wslh »

Sidenote: I didn’t know anything about Freestyle Chess before reading this, so I checked Wikipedia first[1]. Interestingly, the randomized nature of the format, its defining feature, isn’t strongly emphasized upfront, which may make it less immediately clear to newcomers.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freestyle_Chess_Grand_Slam_Tou...

Re: Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

#219

Post by heliumtera »

freetime2 wrote: post #28

How long do chess players typically remain at their peak for? According to wikipedia, Magnus is currently 35. Is it impressive to be winning at 35? Would we expect to see his performance drop off in the next 5-10 years? Even if he is still capable mentally and physically, I would think the stress of training and competing at that level must get old after a while.

Magnus peak rating was on 2014.

But he lost motivation afterwards, so that was not necessarily his peak, maybe he just yoloed a little after that. In his own words he's way past his peak. In recent interview he said his bullet no increment (most taxing on reflex/fast calculation) peak was around 7 years ago. I would assume his prime physical form came after his rating peak, because classical chess rewards deep study and consistency, and he admits all motivation was gone once there were basically no challengers and he distanced himself too much of the pack after Caruana also peaked hard.

But regardless, safe to assume his peak was 10-7 years ago. Still good enough to surpass current gen easily.

Re: Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

#220

Post by nurettin »

vasco wrote: post #136
nurettin wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 960 possible starting positions and the chosen one is known at the start of the tournament where players are given 15m to prepare. I have observed that GMs aren't surprised when they see the board. They usually go "ah it's this one with the opposite bishops" or something similar.

When a chess player means "no prep" it probably still means more prep than any normal person would consider reasonable, because what would require you to sit down and take notes, move pieces and memorize, they can just do in their head getting coffee by now. So yeah they recognize almost all the patterns, it's just harder justify spending 1 month on an opening you won't even be able to use, but they still know how to…

Oh, totally, I just wanted to highlight what beasts these players are and how wonderous it is to see them recognize so many starting positions that they already started showing familiarity despite how new the tournament format is.
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