No, it's from chessdom.com (that is streaming challengers' group games too, btw).

I see. Thanks.

Jesus.

GOAT gonna GOAT. Thought things might get real interesting when caruana started 2-0 and Carlsen drew 2 then lost but things always get back to normal eventually

Notice that when Caruana won 7 games in a row, everyone went crazy about it, but when Carlsen wins 6 in a row barely anyone even seems to notice.

Yes, the fields are different, and Caruana's run was legitimately a much bigger deal, but nevertheless comparing reactions to the two runs shows what a league of his own Carlsen is in. We just expect this from him.

Help us Wei Yi, you're our only hope!

I do agree with you in that Carlsen is, by a longshot, the clear #1. He's dominant in the sport of Chess right now, period.

I'm really excited about So, though. He could, in the next few years, become a legitimate match for Carlsen. Of course, that's by in large wishful thinking but it would be great for chess in the US. So is an extremely intelligent, creative player.

Also with Caruana it was the first 7 rounds, while Magnus started with 1/3.

Carlsen is such a beast that I think people just want to see someone else be a real threat to him.

Before the World Championship match I read articles that mentioned Anand's year (winning the Candidates and Bilbao), Caruana's win on the Sinquefield Cup, and how it was going to be harder for Magnus to defend the title.

That was true, but Carlsen didn't really have an off year like I saw some people say before the match. He won the Zurich Challenge, the Gashimov Memorial, Rapid and Blitz World Championships (and eventually the WC Match).

I think Grischuk mentioned in an interview after the Sinquefield Cup how Caruana's result was great, but Carlsen has been showing great results consistently.

I mean I don't remember seeing Magnus do worse than second place (!) since I started following chess (does anyone know when was the last time he finished 3rd or lower?).

All that being said, I'm rooting for Chucky today

+16.6 rating points, improved from World #65 to World #51, STILL 15 YEARS OLD!

^ Wow. Unbelievable...

To reach 2700(.4) as a result of Tata Steel, Wei Yi needs to win all the three remaining games (B vs Michiels, W vs Haast, B vs Saleh). Fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, So is up to the 7th on the live rating list (at 2784.8), would be the 6th... if not for Giri's decent performance (2789.1 now). The latter (aged 20) will excel Fischer's, Karpov's and Ivanchuk's rating peaks if he scores at least 2/3 in the remaining rounds (W vs Van Wely, W vs So, B vs Wojtaszek).

Incredible!

The other event has already happened - Giri reached 2792.5 by beating Van Wely yesterday and exceeded Fischer's, Karpov's and Ivanchuk's all-time best live ratings. (I meant to say '+0.5 at any time' instead of '2/3', sorry). So reached 2788.5 yesterday, 1.2 points away from Fischer's best.

Edit: congrats to Anish, his live rating is now 2792.7, ahead of Anand's current (thus up to the 5th place in the table) and of Naka's all-time best Wesley is now 2783.8. 111 moves are quite an impressive length for a chess game! Well, it was bound to get long because of the queen ending; but it turns out that not all of them are drawn!

Giri reaching 2800, Wei Yi reaching 2700, Carlsen reaching 2870 again today? Will be a fun day.

Really nice Caro-Kann today from Navara. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Aronian <2780 pretty crazy.

Lost almost 60 points in less than a year, that's almost a Radjabov caliber meltdown.

I don't think Magnus will lose this position (after move 41), so he'll win the tourney. Yawn. Still, it's been a great job by Maxime, Anish, Wesley, Liren and Yi.

Just 2 years ago a future WC match Aronian-Carlsen seemed inevitable and the least chess deserved. Today we say the same about Caruana.

FYP

As Wei Yi is not in the Grand Prix, to qualify for the 2016 Candidates, he'll need to either get into the final of the World Cup in Baku in October, or be nominated by FIDE, or get into the top 10 by rating. I guess the easiest way for him is to bink the World Cup. He's more likely to play the WCC match for the first time in the next cycle than in 2016.

Oh yeah, obviously he's a massive long shot for the next cycle. For a "future" WC match that "feels inevitable" though, and consciously allowing both fandom and awe of his most recent result (aka this thread's topic) to color the assessment...

You gotta wonder what Western Chess organizers will think about the infiltration of Chinese players into international chess events. Right now, it has novelty value. But in 5-10 years, these events could be swamped by Chinese players, which could hurt the selling of chess to Western audiences.

Grischuk had a strong month -- he's only a point away from Caruana.

I'm curious what makes you think this "infiltration" is happening... or will in the future? Also, I've been wanting an excuse to play around with the filters on 2700chess.com's new "all FIDE players" listings. This seems like a good opportunity!

Currently, in order to crack the "top-100" list of European chess players, you need a rating of 2634 or above. There are currently 9 Chinese players rated 2634 or above. And presumably a European player is more likely than a Chinese player to participate in a European event (which is what you meant by "Western" I presume?) So a European event catering to "top" players could probably expect to see at most about 1 in 15 entrants be Chinese. There are several Chinese players in the 25-50 range of the world rankings (6 of them, to be precise), making this ratio higher in that rating range, but then at the "elite" level there is also only one Chinese player in the top 24 right now. I'm not convinced this qualifies as an "infiltration", it's just a few very good chess players from the same country. Kudos to them for that.

So what about the future? If there is a large glut of Chinese juniors, then perhaps we could expect these ratios to change in the future. You did say 5-10 years out was your time frame.

The 100th best European Junior (players born in 1997 or later) is rated 2332. The number of Chinese Junior players rated 2332 or above? 6.

Going younger, the 100th best European player born in 2000 or later (kids 15 or under) is rated 2149. In that age range, China has 9 players rated 2149+

How about the pre-teens? The 100th best European player born in 2003 or later is rated 1863. How many Chinese 12 (and below) year olds are rated 1863+? 7.

Looks like the ratios stay pretty steady as we get younger, so I don't see any strong reason to think that 5-10 years from now China will be much more prevalent on the world chess stage than they are now. Certainly there are a few great Chinese players (and one who I happen to obsess over as he continues to shatter records for youngest player to achieve various rating milestones... records mostly held by Carlsen at this point). It doesn't really seem to me, though, that anyone is being "swamped". Either now, or in the foreseeable future.

Tell us what you really think.

The LPGA (ladies golf tour) is rife with dominant Korean players and they have one of the most successful female leagues out there. Probably trailing only women's tennis.