Tata Chess 2016...

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Yasser is possibly the best commentator on the planet, he has none of the arrogance of others and is humerous and knows how to handle people with the utmost diplomacy. Svidler i like but he can be very dismissive and hardly ever shuts up. Jen always look vacant is just there for eye candy and Maurice is an engine junkie 😛

Nah, Svidler all the way for me. That said i'd love to see them co-commentate 😀

Rd. 10 Carlsen drew with Giri and Caruana squashed Wei in just 32 moves, brutal.

At some point I saw Wei Yi only had 4 minutes left, while still about 15 moves to play till the time control. Caruana roughly still had an hour at that point.

Originally posted by tvochess
At some point I saw Wei Yi only had 4 minutes left, while still about 15 moves to play till the time control. Caruana roughly still had an hour at that point.

Yeah these guys are so prepared. Even Navaras unbelievable game of last year at Biel where he walked his king up to the eighth rank was mostly preparation.

Originally posted by Marinkatomb
You know, I think Tal and Wei Yi couldn't be more different. Tal sacrificed using intuition, Wei Yi actually calculates the whole line! He spent some 20 minutes deciding on 0-0-0 (instead of an immediate g4), i got the serious impression that he had actually worked the whole thing out before he castled.

From reading Tal's book I gathered at points he might be the best raw calculator of all time, but other books seem to humanize him a bit more and focus on the intuition, perhaps because you can attach more axioms to thematic positions ... "Tal intuitively busts open the center with a pawn sac after the opponents unprepared wing attack" etc etc...

I think his relying on intuition might have been only in the times of his poor health (if fully at all?), or knowing he was simply too superior to some players in imbalanced crazy positions not to sac..
Whatever he was about his performance dropped significantly, losing to a 50year old Botvinnik by -5 after beating him +4 the year before . . . I don't think there's ever been bigger swing in WC rematches.

Although I admit I can never know, at 1800 I am many standard deviations behind these mammoths, plus there is a tough language barrier in some of these books, a different style of posturing.

...so take what I say with 64 grains of salt 😉

Originally posted by Marinkatomb
Nah, Svidler all the way for me. That said i'd love to see them co-commentate 😀

Yasser might me a very affable, likeable commentator, but the quality of his suggestions (in chess quality terms) pales in comparison to those of Peter Svidler