Recreational player status confirmed.

King of the rec players. Coffeehouse champ.

Well, his relationships with Kramnik prove that Topalov is a riggie.

He'd be an undisputed world champ at some point if he were stabler. Sometimes he finds genial moves, sometimes he misses easy (for his level) lines.

Hometown dude, lookn good

silly game vs. ding today

cmon Wes

Topalov was ranked #2 in the world in 2014 or 2015, that's how he got into the candidates

svidler beats giri with black

Sopiko has become a rapid nympho.

Really? I thought she preferred Banter Blitz to Banter Rapid. She played the former on Thursday.

On a side note, it would be hilarious to see a 7-way tie at the top after the last round, though I'd still prefer there to be fewer rivals to Caruana and/or MVL in the Monday tiebreak

But Peter said in the interview as he 'had to go back to school' to brush his endgame skill up and that he should have finished Anish off 3 hours prior.

rabid*. I guess you'd be the one to clear up that typo.

Topalov wins this tournament!!!!

Link?

https://www.twitch.tv/saintlouischessclub

Live now!!!

It does look like we'll see a Topalov vs So tiebreak tomorrow. Aronian's pawn structure is wrecked; MVL vs So is looking very drawish.

According to the Lomonosov tablebases, the position after Topalov's 52nd move Rxc3 is won (White mates in 43). 52... Kd6 53. Rc4 are optimal moves.

Aronian's position is lost in practical terms, and he's down on time too.

Topalov might not know how to win this, nevermind what the tablebase says.

Indeed. 57. Rd4+? is the drawing blunder, ouch. (The tablebase confirms it.)

The commentators nailed the explanation, 'The rook was so stable on c4.'

.

Congrats to rooooktaker on being the best predictor

P.S. And finally, we've seen an underpromotion to a knight at the toppest top GM level!!!

Too bad the knight promotion was the only non-losing move. I'd like to see a top GM underpromote just to show off. Maybe Nakamura will try it some time.

Wesleyyyyyyyyy!

Toppy probably barely cares. To busy cracking jokes and not thinking about chess.

That a boy Wes!

ICYMI: Radio Jan on the Sinquefield Cup

Who is this guy???

Rumour has it that 'CM Radio Jan' is actually GM Jan Gustafsson himself, making a self-parody. Radio Jan has yet appeared only in that Sinq comment video and one episode of c24 Banter Blitz.

Disclaimer: those who have never seen a 'normal' Gustafsson broadcast need to watch one beforehand in order to get the most laugh out of Radio Jan's mannerisms.

**** - that is a very inflammatory rumor! Jan Gustafsson would surely never, ever, do a self-parody!

Btw, the idea for it came out of his coverage of Bilbao iirc. He was getting so bored b/c most of the games weren't super interesting and he kept talking with Huchenbeth (his co-host each day) about how they needed to be more like Skip Bayless (who Huchenbeth has never heard of, naturally) and they need more hottakes, etc.

So I think that's why he decided to do Radio Jan. The big problem was that in the banter blitz session the comments got somewhat offensive/bad. So I think review sessions going over big tournaments and making fun of everyone (especially a close personal friend like Svidler) is the way to go, it worked a lot better imo.