It was impressive seeing Magnus predict that Ding crumbles, then Ding goes and wins one.

If Ding wins a WC match again, what kind of narrative does his career take on? Like, he shouldn't have even been in the candidates where he shouldn't have even won 2nd place, and then shouldn't have even been in a WC match, which he then shouldn't have won, and now is in a match he also shouldn't be able to win.

Like, wtf is that narrative? lol

He'll forever be one of the weakest world champions.
He'll forever be the "but Magnus" world champion.

Doesn't change the fact that he won the first match fair and square (and with Rg6 balls of steel to boot), and the fact that he's a super likeable character.

I'm rooting hard for him.

If he wins tomorrow, or wins it in tiebreaks, I think it changes people's evaluation of him. He rates higher than the one-off FIDE champs during the split-title era, and gains some genuine respect because then he succeeded in overcoming a lot to come back to the board and perform.

But if he loses tomorrow, or loses it in tiebreaks, he'll be the asterisk.

Yeah, I don't count those as world champions.

It appears Magnus has learned something from GothamChess and has focused on MAXIMUM CLICKS and VIEWS by endless vapid "Takes/Predictions."

It's done nothing but abject him to ridicule in the real chess community where he's basically become like a chess grandmaster version of Colin Cowherd.

This is sad. But Ding did it to himself. Once again, he refuses to press in a low risk situation. Instead he voluntarily goes into a drawn pawn-down ending with less time on the clock that his oponent can milk for all eternity.

Will he draw this 99 out of 100 games? Probably. But why even go for this?

Crazy match won

I'm sure Magnus will have something to say about this

And in the end Gukesh wins with black to seal it. Congratulations to the champ.

Wow, I watched ,game 14, live online.. watching the up close body language and eyes of the players, it was a brutal devastating game and ending . It was more emotional than most athletic events.

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GJ Champ.

Happy for India.

Hope Ding can take comfort in having played above the rim at the highest level for the better part of 5+ years.

This is a guy who went more than 100 games of classical without losing.

A literal legend.

Wild. Thanks for creating this thread, Tuma!


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It really must be seen to be appreciated:

can someone eli5 why that was such a blunder, if it was such an obvious blunder, how did he make it given how few choices he had available, and then why did gukesh have it locked up with certainty?

It was really tempting for Ding to try to exchange just the rooks, because then it's a super easy draw if the bishops can stay on the board.

I can only imagine that Ding did not consider that black would trade rooks, leading to an oversight of the fact that the bishops can be forced off as well. So he spent all his time thinking about all the other things black can try, and didn't consider the obvious.

But with Gukesh able to forcibly exchange the bishops off too, it's fairly easy for a good player to calculate whether the king and pawn ending is an easy win or not. And in this case it was winning.

There probably is no eli5 way to explain why the resulting K+2P vs K+P position is easily winning, but it has to do with a concept called "opposition": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_(chess)

Consider the final position of the game, after black's 58th move:



Here, it is white to move, and we say that black has the opposition. It's white's turn and he must move his king, giving way for either the black king to come around it and get in and capture the pawn on g3, or for black to be able to push his f-pawn forward and get a queen.

If it were black to move in the above position, there is no way for black to do this, and the position would be a draw. Kd5 is met by Kd3 keeping the opposition, and no forward progress is possible by black.

Back to the position with white to move. 59.Kd3 or 59.Kd2 is met by 59...f4, eventually getting a queen. 59.Ke2 is met by 59...Ke4 again keeping the opposition, while 59.Kf2 black has 59...Kd4 with a diagonal opposition. In this case, 60.Ke2 Ke4 is the same position as if 59.Ke2 Ke4 were played from the diagram, so lets only consider this:



Now any move except 60.Kf2 allows 60...Kf3 by black, and white's last pawn will fall. So after 60.Kf2 Kd3, black cannot be stopped from marching his king over to take the g3 pawn. The need for white to move his king on every move will allow black to move closer and take it. Then he will be able to get one of those pawns to become a queen.

All of these ideas are pretty well known and familiar to even average tournament players, which makes 55.Rf2 a horrible blunder at even the local club level, much less in a world championship game.

Great question rickroll and
Fantastic post TimM.

wow, thank you tim, you went above and beyond

i can state with full confidence, that if i freaky friday'd with gukesh right after the ding blunder and entered his body that ding would have easily salvaged a victory

Hey Fide... EF YOU

The King's Speech.

Fide been not much of a great organization for decades now .
Ask Kasparov .

Man I miss the old age of the old system of WC cycles during fisher times.

That was so insane. Daanya trying to keep it together while Chucky is dying of agony.

This is basically the most fun tournament that's ever been played.

Hans vs Magnus in the quarters today everyone.

can someone explain what happened?