2017 Sinquefield Cup: Round 3

It's Round 3 of the 2017 Sinquefield Cup, the third leg of the Grand Chess Tour. The Cup is an elite international event, featuring ten of the strongest chess players in the world. Over the course of nine rounds, these competitors will battle for $300,000 in prize money, points toward the Grand Chess Tour, and the coveted title of 2017 Sinquefield Cup Champion. Join GMs Yasser Seirawan, Maurice Ashley, and WGM Jennifer Shahade for the move-by-move.

2017.08.04

[goldentime]

chess commentary keeps getting better and better.. keep up the good work. makes it fun to watch

[RRRaszkolnyikov]

After the fifth hour, GM Yasser Seirawan excellently analyzed the endgame between GM We(a)sley So and GM Hikaru Nakamura...GM Seirawan is such a great chess player and an amazing commentator... The best choice to narrate such a well-organized event. :)

[sterlinguini]

A daily recap segment would be amazing.

[abhishekganiger]

wat book was naka referring to for amateurs.. I didn't really get wat he was saying.. wat is the name of the book he is referring to?

[zebrastripes]

Did anyone fianchetto his bishop today?

[OmkarChakradeo]

Which books yesser recommended at what time?

[aaronchiafos]

Yasser's smile, Maurice's engine, and Jen's... err... "bouncy" personality? I call it the "Holy Trinity" of chess commentating.

[xxivqz]

From 1:31:42 till 1:33:45, the Saint Louis Chess Club runs this sham interview where Alejandro Ramirez asks the players about their opinion on what they think The Grand Chess Tour is doing for the popularity of chess. Apart from distasteful and nauseating, as most self-congratulatory interviews are, the answers we get from some of the players are not only confused but striking.

For example, Wesley So seems to suggest that The Saint Louis Chess Club invented 10 minute chess, which is false: faster time control types of chess have been played for many, many years now (they are called Blitz and Rapid Chess, and many people enjoys them on the web or in the many tournaments around the globe). The Saint Louis Chess Club, on the other hand, has only introduced 1 hour per side chess, and in arrogant and dishonest fashion attempted to call it "Classical" Chess, just as the real Classical Chess which provides players with 4 hours per side, if they happened to need it during game play.

Then, Hikaru Nakamura informs us that blitz chess is more interesting (than classical chess), because in blitz chess you have a higher number of decisive results. This proposition is also false, and it evidences many conceptual misunderstandings from Nakamura's part if taken as it is. First, it doesn't matter which time control you play, you can always get interesting positions in chess: because chess is the one that's interesting (not the time control). Secondly, he seems to confuse the concept of something being interesting with that of being exciting. Blitz chess is, as anyone who plays the game knows, riddled with mistakes and bad chess in general. Mistakes and bad chess ARE NOT interesting. Yet, watching people playing fast (because if they don't, they lose the game), might be considered by some to be exciting. Players lashing out 50 moves in a minute might result in exciting chess, NOT in interesting (let alone, good) chess. Thirdly, Nakamura probably meant 'blitz chess tournaments are more interesting than classical chess tournaments, because in blitz tournaments you have a higher number of decisive results', which makes more sense, but it is still doubtful as proposition. For it is almost as if saying that tournaments where bad chess is played are more interesting than those in which good chess is. Among bad players (amateurs, etc.), you'll have a lot of decisive results at the end of every single round in a tournament, my friend. If you, Hikaru, find THAT to be "more interesting" (and or more exciting), then why don't you advice the Saint Louis Chess Club on this matter for next year, and tell them not to bring you or the rest of the chess elite with its 'boring' chess, but the bottom of FIDE's rankings. That way they'll get A LOT of decisive results in those otherwise boring crosstables that used to include you.

Then, we have Viswanathan Anand giving us what it appears to be an inlink into the Saint Louis Chess Club's vision of chess, given the 'many' changes they've brought to the world of chess in these last 5 years, namely: that it is all about the fans. That it's all about them having fun, even if at the expense of the players themselves. For, although players might be uncomfortable with the extra element of unpredictability that the Saint Louis Chess Club is adding to the game with that 30 seconds delay that they're using there, it is still pretty funny for the spectators watching the players being uncomfortable! (read: being desperate). Because that's what every little child wants (or once wanted) to become, when he or she falls (fell) in love with the beauty of the game of chess: to be laughed at by people while he or she suffers.

Let me tell you something, people from the Saint Louis Chess Club: if this is the kind of chess you're trying to make popular (and whose destination many of us can see now), if this is the "step forward", that "change" you're saying the world of chess is desperately in need of, please leave me out of it. 'Cause I don't want chess to become a joke, as under the custody of your lifeless, greedy hands, but a celebration of the human mind and spirit.

[kareemzidane]

Why is this black guy still working, after he disrespected Magnus and even Wesley with his passive aggressive condescending interviews a couple of months back?? What is this? That was so unprofessional and gutterlike. It is not his job to be a drill sergeant to super GMs. He kind of looks like a Butterball in a suit, the one from Hellraiser, just out there to raise some hell. Every now and then looks himself in the mirror and repeats endlessly, "Imma grandmaster". They call him Jodie or Ashley or something.