Saw it 2 moves ago and tried setting it up

https://x.com/CSQpod/status/1909664562179166707?t=_ypPsgJNr9bTpKZWmSV_Mg&s=19

I looked and saw analysis of most to least common squares to find checkmate, and this was one of the more rare squares. Nothing to learn, just interesting I guess.

The top 8 will play two-game classical matches, and the top 4 will choose their opponents and the color for the first game.

Chess-Results

In this position, Leela playing black sacrifices the Queen for the Knight on f5, and in the resulting position black has an iron-clad fortress.

If you notice the evaluations of the engines, Stockfish doesn't understand the fortress and thinks white is winning here at +4. The game eventually ended in a draw.

The game is from the Computer Chess Championship (CCC) season 23 'Classical Cup' event with this match being the final in the winners' bracket

Game link: https://www.chess.com/computer-chess-championship#event=classical-cup-4-match-11&game=15

His exact words, according to this chess.com article: "no standard deviations of the player's performance in this particular tournament from his typical rating performance.".

Isn’t it an insane take, given that he was literally caught red handed? Shouldn’t it make you question your cheating detection methods/criteria?

Not the first time such issues arise with Alireza, it has happened before regarding Wijk as well. Given how little he plays I really wished that he is a regular in Freestyle. Also Buettner accepts that he did increase the field to 12 players to incorporate Alireza in the Paris event ( something we on the sub could easily guess and criticise)

It has occurred to me that my behaviour with online chess is somewhat similar to the behaviour of a gambler.

The difference (thankfully) is that I am "gambling" rating points instead of money.

Can't help but wonder if anyone else feels the same way.

I only managed to get a snippet of it, and my apologies for the awful videography, I was in a rush trying to capture the the moment so my family would believe me!

My husband's parents are big into chess, and they have a dedicated chess room with this demonstration board that my boy loves to play with during our weekly visit. He's been interested since he watched some games being played around his 1st birthday, and he learned the pieces shortly after.

He likes pointing out the letters and numbers around the board, so I decided to start naming the squares as he moved the pieces, just thinking that the repetition might give him some subconscious familiarity with the idea and sound of the square names. Maybe make them easier to learn over time.

This quickly became a game where he'd move a piece or pawn and shout,

"NOW!!"

and I would respond with,

"Now.... the bishop is on C...2," first tracing my finger from the piece down to the letter, then from the piece over to the number.

We've only played this "game" a few times, so I was shocked this week when he suddenly started following the procedure solo and naming squares on the first two ranks with decent accuracy. Not bad for not even 2 years old!!

Even better, this happened at his grandfather's house, on his grandfather's birthday. He's a National Master and was a state champ back in the day. You can bet he was one proud Papa!

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGEH21o0YOI

I’m back at it again! I went through and calculated the rapid Elo for the players in the events organized by Jan Henric Buettner. Their Elo is only representative of their results in freestyle and is not connected to their Elo in standard chess. Without further-ado, here are the rapid freestyle Elo’s after Freestyle Paris.

1. Ian Nepomniachtchi: 2698.7

2. Magnus Carlsen: 2692.3

3. Javokhir Sindarov: 2655.5

4. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave: 2653.2

5. Alireza Firouzja: 2649.4

6. Hikaru Nakamura: 2649.3

7. Nodirbek Abdusattorov: 2635.9

8. Fabiano Caruana: 2635.2

9. Vincent Keymer: 2631.5

10. Arjun Erigaisi: 2620.4

11. Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu: 2576.3

12. Richard Rapport: 2571.5

13. Gukesh Dommaraju: 2535.4

14. Vladimir Fedoseev: 2530.8

15. Ding Liren: 2492.9

16. Vidit Gujrathi: 2483.8

17. Levon Aronian: 2479.9

    Some Notes: Ian gets the highest ever live rapid freestyle Elo at 2698.7, beating out Fabiano who previously had the record at 2698.2. Alireza is the only person to have the same rank in both freestyle and standard rapid, at 5th. Fabiano had the biggest drop, going from first to eighth and losing around 30 points. I will also be calculating the Elo for the classical portion of the event, and I’ll keep doing this for the events until something official comes out.

I looked and saw analysis of most to least common squares to find checkmate, and this was one of the more rare squares. Nothing to learn, just interesting I guess.

Just posted a short article about cheating software that's currently bypassing Chess.com's security measures. Interesting stuff

Check solution:
https://play.chessclub.com/daily-puzzle/2025-04-08

Capablanca coined the term petite combinaison in his writings to describe a small tactical sequence of 2-3 moves—short, elegant combinations that sometimes secured just enough material to transition into a winning endgame or, like here, win a full piece.

Unlike deep sacrifices or complex tactical fireworks, Capablanca’s signature combinations were brief, precise, and clean. Rather than delivering an immediate knockout, they left his opponents in a hopeless position, reinforcing the perception that he won effortlessly by playing simple chess.

Here’s a perfect example from a game he played in New York in 1918 against Marc Fonaroff. How would you proceed?