English Chess Forum

Carlsen v Firouzja, after an hour: Magnus has used only a quarter of an hour to Firouzja's three-quarters of an hour (no increments, I believe) and after 23 moves and lots of exchanges they're on a symmetrical same-colour bishop ending which I would just assume were drawn, were it not for the relative speed with which Magnus has got here. Does he know something?

(EDIT: David and Judit on Chess24 think the rat I am smelling is imaginary. Maybe Magnus just thinks bring on the Armageddon.)

It always *should* be a draw, but it's definitely not *just* a draw (as can be seen by the time spent by Firouzja in the endgame).

And so it came to pass - while I was out so I missed the excitement, but I am assuming 40...f4 was where Black lost it, presumably missing 43 Bd5

(EDIT: Chess24 say no, Black's 41st was the fatal error.)

Chessbomb for some reason seems to have something awry with its clock times and three of the six players have, according to them, less than a minute remaining after an hour and a quarter's play. (Oddly, they have Carlsen right, where "right" means "agrees with Chess24". Mind you according to Chess24 Carlsen has been thirty-seven minutes on move 14. I haven't been paying attention, so is that right?) (EDIT: yes.)

You (Justin) asked on Twitter what the longest is that Carlsen has spent on a move. Absent anecdotal evidence from Carlsen or others from his early career, there will be a lot of "move time" data in his games since, well, that data started being recorded. Though I don't know how much of the data has been kept, or where you would search for it (maybe in a chess games database?).

I tried searching for "thought for over an hour" in the hope that this comes up in some tournament reports, but no luck. Maybe it is the longest ever? You do get references to 'long' thinks of 20 mins or so.

He's not normally a time trouble guy and so I think particularly long thinks of his would have been noticed. So while I'm not (yet) saying it's his longest, (a) it may well be (b) it ought to be possible to establish whether it is or not.

Carlsen squeezes blood out of a stone again, while Rapport is having maybe the tournament of his life.

Matt Mackenzie wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 14, 2021 8:40 pm

Carlsen squeezes blood out of a stone again, while Rapport is having maybe the tournament of his life.

Goodness, yes. Rapport has four wins and three draws in the classical part of the tournament. Gained over 18 rating points so far, and has reached sixth in the live rating list.

Does anyone think he can sustain this and become a regular feature of the top 10, maybe even reach 2800?

He's black v Carlsen today, then white v Nepo and black v Firouzja, so that might go someway to answering your question

Eye-opening opening

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 15, 2021 4:06 pm

Eye-opening opening

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4. d3 Ne7

It's been around for a while, the 1880s in fact. Tony Miles gave it a go in 1997.

You can also list the victims who didn't trust their opponents and played Nxe5.

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 15, 2021 4:21 pm

It's been around for a while, the 1880s in fact.

James Mortimer, 1883

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 15, 2021 4:21 pm

Tony Miles gave it a go in 1997.

Wondering how often it has been played this millenium, since the modern history of the Berlin really starts with Kasparov v Kramnik.

What was that quote about Nepo always having one real stinker every tournament

Tari can't mess *this* one up, surely?

He cannot