Chess

[Kepler]

FIDE banned/severely restricted trans women from competing in order to encourage more women participants.

The guy who runs FIDE is a former Putin crony who I'm sure is MAGAt-level misogynistic. The Russians still have outsized influence in chess, as the Russian orthodox have influence on politics* and are particularly Neanderthal on LGBTQ.

* International chess is nothing but politics. It makes the Olympics look like the spirit of pure competition.

 

[Kepler]

I missed this. It's hilarious.

Game starts at 4:52.

 

[Russell Jaslow]

* International chess is nothing but politics. It makes the Olympics look like the spirit of pure competition.

This is so true. Say what you want about Bobby Fischer's insanity, but he was dead right about the Russian's political maneuvers in FIDE. Garry Kasparov would also agree.

 

[Kepler]

For the first time in more than fifty years of playing, I am a 1700 player.

I read an interesting stat: the average age of the top 10 players in the world ten years ago was 31. Today it is 27.

 

[MissThundercat]

Magnus Carlsen punted from Worlds after refusing to change out of jeans.

 

[Kepler]

Fun article on the de facto Worlds in 1873.

 

[Kepler]

The 2025 Worlds at Goa. TIL ESPN has a Chess page. It's... well, OK, it's what you'd expect. But better than their college hockey "appetizer" coverage.

Livestreaming here. It's India so essentially swap am and pm.

Teaser.

Unfortunately not appearing: every non-Indian in the promo. This tournament decides 3 challenger slots to challenge Gukesh yet the only ranked competitors are Indian. Disappointing. :-(

But we're also witnessing the rise of India as the successor to Russia as the dominant world chess power, as China yet again fails to get its shit together, so despite the homogeneity it's a very important tourny. And all the guys have a back history running to when they were about 4. What I'm saying is I'd pitch that Bollywood script at Cannes.