Monday 4 September 2023

More silliness

 One of the reasons why my blog posts have become infrequent is due to a lot of high level chess being played online. Pre-covid there were a lot of high level events running OTB, but now, a lot of top players clash in online events, with fast time limits. While this is entertaining for the online audience (which is of course the point), it does leave me a little cold. 

And I'm not convinced the players are taking it seriously either, as shown in the latest outburst of silliness. The newly reinstated Hans Neimann was playing against Kramnik at chessc.om (NB it wasn't part of an organised tournament). After Neimann won with the Black pieces, a second game was played. The first few moves (Neimann as white) went 1.e4 f6 2.d4 g5 So in this position White can checkmate with 3.Qh5# Instead Neimann decided to out troll Kramnik's troll opening by resigning rather than mating.

Now I'm not sure what the point was that either players was aiming for, but it clearly wasn't rating points!

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