FIDE Candidates Tournament 2024

[jcarmody]

The tournament for the next Classical Chess World Championship challenger begins tomorrow in Toronto, Canada.  Who else is going to follow it?

The winner will face Ding Liren later this year.

https://worldchampionshipcycle.fide.com/

[Jacobson]

I'm only casually watching the recaps but pretty great tournament so far with only 0.5 points separating the top 5 at 10 games.

Are you rooting for anyone in particular? I think I'd be happy with most of the top players right now. Would be cool if Rukesh or Pragg won considering how young they are but after the last two championships it would also be nice to see Ian win three candidates in a row and finally become champion. Hikaru winning would be great for the memes and content so there's that.

[jcarmody]

I've been a Caruana fan for years so I'm hoping he can go all the way this year.  I'm nearly an anti-fan of Nakamura (he beat my boy last Candidates and this one) but the internet outrage over him winning would be entertaining!  I, too, would love to see one of the youngsters win but it could be fantastic if Nepo won and then became world champ.

[jcarmody]

The final round was a wild ride for those of us watching with the computer evaluations!  Fabi fought to a crushing position, blew it then got it back a few times before the game finally ended in a draw.  So, two things:

1. Congratulations to Dommaraju Gukesh for winning the 2024 FIDE Candidates match.  At 17 y/o, he's the youngest challenger to the world title in history.  The championship match is going to be awesome!

2. The computer evaluation is meaningless because people (even super-GMs) don't think like computers.  Don't believe that anything they say has any practical value. (Although I, for one, welcome our new AI overlords.)

[Jacobson]

There was a documentary about AlphaGo where at some point an interesting move was played and the creators were able to say something to the effect that a human would have only played that move 1 in 10,000 times or so. If something like that could be done in chess it would be interesting to see additional info in the eval bar which would show not only how the engine evaluates it but how likely a human is to play that move. So is this a +4 that a human is very likely to see or is this a +4 with only 1 continuation that is unlikely to be played?

I only caught the very end of the Ian and Fabi game but it was rough seeing Ian having to play like 30+ moves knowing that he was, at best, playing for a draw and that he wouldn't be the winner even though he hasn't lost a single game in the candidates.

[jcarmody]

>> If something like that could be done in chess

I suspect there is because the major online chess platforms have some algorithm they use to detect cheaters.  They won't share how, though.

Of course, what a human would play differs depending upon the skill level of the human playing.  Still, I've heard GMs comment that a move is a "computer move" at the top level.

So, we get treated to a world championship match later this year between an inexperienced youth and an experienced champion that has been struggling lately.  This should be exciting.  Certainly more exciting than Carlson/Nepo...