English Chess Forum

MJMcCready wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 04, 2021 5:29 pm

Do we know who will be commentating this?

The official commentary will be done by GM Yasser Seirawan, GM Alejandro Ramirez and GM Maurice Ashley (in St Louis) and by IM Almira Skripchenko and GM Christian Chirila (on site).

I imagine that other websites will have their own commentators.

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 03, 2021 10:19 pm

Bogdan-Daniel Deac is a talented player, if not yet obviously in this class. Perhaps this can be his breakthrough.

Radjabov-Caruana drawn in 18 moves, soon followed (albeit with rather more moves) by Grischuk-MVL & Lupulescu-Aronian.

5 draws?

Mick Norris wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 05, 2021 4:49 pm

5 draws?

Correct. Deac-Giri is worth a look but nothing much to report elsewhere.

Nice win by Caruana today, and what I think we have to call a meltdown by MVL against Deac. Nick's new favourite player has had a dream start.

Disappointing so far, but we are only a third of the way through. Thanks heavens for the local players, who have combined for +2 =3 -1. The other nine games have all been drawn, many without anything you could really call play.

I assume the big names are keen to win the event, so will wake up at some point.

People defended Radjabov in the recent online event, saying "its the format that is to blame" regarding his numerous non-games then.

I wonder how they would explain his "play" in this one?

Matt Mackenzie wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 08, 2021 2:33 pm

People defended Radjabov in the recent online event, saying "its the format that is to blame" regarding his numerous non-games then.

I wonder how they would explain his "play" in this one?

From the official report of Round 3 yesterday:

"...it was mentioned on the broadcast that Radjabov was not feeling well during [the] round."

A good day today otherwise though.

I'm less bothered about friends/ sisters routinely drawing with each other than some other people. The organiser can decide who to invite. But I'd be giving Radjabov white though, since he plays for a draw with white against everyone, and it doesn't then waste a pairing Shak might try to win.

Caruana exchanging on d8 around an hour up on Giri

The first half of this event was pretty miserable but it really took off yesterday, after the rest day.

Today Grischuk is up to his tricks with the clock.

and this time doesn't get away with it.

Anybody want to guess which of the players here has drawn all seven of their games so far?

I like David Smerdon's fighting chess index. The only downside is it makes my Expected Decisive Games index look like the work of a complete amateur who has barely thought it through.

Radjabov's xDG is the lowest at 1.If you invite him, this is what you get. I doesn't seem worth much further comment. But where the tournament has picked up it is because two of the players with high xDG, Shak and Sasha have reverted to type. Together with the local players, the point of which is to raise xDG, now quite a good event.

But I am a bit disappointed that this turned out not to be the case

David Sedgwick wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 04, 2021 9:44 pm

I imagine that other websites will have their own commentators.

There isn't anything fundamentally wrong with the official commentary, or for that matter the official Play Magnus commentary on their events either. It is just that I'm not really the target audience for it.

I like that chess24 is offering alternate commentary - usually by Peter Leko - on their events. But I think they have changed their approach to which events they cover since they became part of the wider Play Magnus group. I hope someone sees this as a gap in the market and tries to fill it, but I am worried that maybe I'm not in a big enough market segment and I will be looking back on the 2010s as a golden age of internet commentary.

I enjoy Jon Speelman's Twitch channel. It's a bit ad hoc, I believe he intends to do tomorrow but not today. There is usually intervention by cats.

Anyone unfamiliar with Twitch should be warned that logging in can be a pain.