On the Gukesh match (from my email)

 [[{“value”:”Unusual, relative to other competitions, that the (undisputed?) top 3 players weren’t competing for the title. The quality of play seemed correspondingly lower than other big tournaments. Ding really is quite an anomaly. Some massive holds despite admitting in interviews to not seeing some pretty straightforward lines. Huge props for him to reach game 14
The post On the Gukesh match (from my email) appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.”}]] 
Unusual, relative to other competitions, that the (undisputed?) top 3 players weren’t competing for the title. The quality of play seemed correspondingly lower than other big tournaments.
Ding really is quite an anomaly. Some massive holds despite admitting in interviews to not seeing some pretty straightforward lines. Huge props for him to reach game 14 the way he did with a win in game 12.
Very very sad way (for both he and gukesh) to end the match.
Guskesh will be an excellent champion and ambassador of the game.
The format looks massively stressful, and I get why Magnus doesn’t play it anymore, but I think the format in a way is actually perfect. It rewards massive amounts of prep with an engine, plus provides a serious psychological battle, which all together actually seems to be a pretty good examination of what chess is in a world where humans are inferior to computers. Rapid is more fun to play, but classical really tests all your mental faculties.
Next world championship could be a great one. Maybe a last chance for Fabi or Hikaru to win. Also very likely we see an all Indian match.

That is from S., all astute observations.

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