Let's start this OP off with a rundown of our competitors, courtesy of FIDE's official WCC app.



As we know, FIDE and Agon, in all their corruptness and general stupidity, attempted to suppress other outlets from live relaying of moves, but even Russia was like "wtf is this ****?" and thus Chess24 will be bringing us live coverage, with none other than Peter Svidler among the cast.

Carlsen was so worried about Russian cybersecurity attacks that he has enlisted Microsoft to help him secure his preparation. Karjakin, for his part, is not playing the role of the fluffy underdog. As he says, "If Carlsen wants to beat me he needs to show the best play of his life."

Designated game days are the 11th, 12th, 14th, 15th, 17th, 18th, 20th, 21st, 23rd, 24th, 26th, and 28th, and the designated tiebreak day is the 30th. Pre-match betting odds and a variety of simulations suggest that Carlsen is a 4:1 to 4.5:1 favorite. Let's hope we have a fun one.

Live Coverage

LOL official app with their faces/names swapped.

I predict Carlsen will open 1.c4 in the first game.

Will be following chess24, but Jerry will also comment live on twitch.

I decided to pay for the official coverage this time - in the worst case, if it sucks I will fall back to the more regular ways of broadcasting. Call me a sucker, but I want to try it at least once!

With that in mind, where the F is the official app? I've been trying to locate it for like an hour, it's not in my app store...

Chess24's Stockfish at depth 29 is giving an unusual suggestion on the best first moves:

(+0.22) 1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Bf5 3. c4 e6 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. e3 Nc6 6. Be2 Nf6 7. O-O O-O 8. Nh4 Bxc3 9. Nxf5 Bb4 10. Ng3 dxc4 11. Bxc4 Bd6 12. Bd2 Bxg3 13. hxg3.

Edit: here's a ChessVideos replayer of this line.

PGN:
I'd love to see 2... Bf5 OTB for sure but it's not going to happen.

Meanwhile, CM Radio Jan has released a prediction for the match.

LOL Fide forever and always. I also saw that they misspelled "championship" as "chempionship" - at least when the app was initially released.


I really want to see 1.e3 from Carlsen and then just steamroll Karjakin anyway.

The Tromp!

Wowowow. Not quite, 1.e3 but man, should be a pretty exciting game.

in

I know Lichess analysis is far from the be all end all, but still. Pretty impressive stuff.

subscribed

The Trumpowsky in game 1.

Carlsen got jopkes!

Boring match so far, which is what I predicted.

exact same for game 2 also!

I predict another 1. d4 game for round 3.



with Carlsen being victorious somehow.

I got a chuckle out of the particular way Svidler declined to talk about Twitter comments with Hansen, which the latter did frequently when teamed up with van Campen.

The following is a free link to the official coverage, with live video analysis and live cams of the players, courtesy of the message board at chess24:

http://wcc.protectedvideos.com/

lol

Great post Rei.

I laughed during the 6th hour, when half-asleep GM Eric Hansen said "I'm really terrible at trying to calculate these types of endgames."

ugh, so close

lol

Karjakin defends like the NBA's Kawhi Leonard.

These guys have a knack for epic draws

And in the 6th hour today, while Svidler and Hansen were discussing Canada, Svidler said "When I imagine Canadians, I think of South Park."

Could anyone explain Magnus's 73... Bf4 to me? I wouldn't make this move ever (but then, I'm not the world champion). It's an exchange of bishops doubling Black pawns and creating a passed g-pawn for White. Instead, Magnus could have kept defending his g5 pawn with the bishop (i.e. moved 70... Bd8 instead of the 70... Bd7 that, strangely, works too). If Sergey attacked it with both the B and the N, he's immediately lose his g4 pawn so it would be a fair exchange of pawns.

I'm thinking that Magnus saw no other way to try to break through?

Chess is dead

This wasn't a way to break through either.



The king would just be walking from c1 to c2 and back (or the knight would be walking from f2 to h3 and back - Black's bishop can't attack both the c2 square and the g4 pawn, as f5 is taken away by that pawn). The f-pawns wouldn't promote without their king. And if Black moved the king to a4, he'd be no longer attacking the b2 pawn and White would move the king to d2 (into the square of the f3 pawn), threatening Nh3xf4. Sergey deviated from this simple defensive plan as, apparently, he was trying a find a win for himself too after Magnus decided to shift his king to the kingside.

Rather, I wonder why Magnus didn't just shake hands after the time control (move 60). There was no way to break the fortress.