Nepo - it's just embarrassing for the game now.

 You don't know if he could have helped it. I claim he probably couldn't. Because he probably did everything he THOUGHT he had to to prepare for the match. It's only after it was too late he found out what he SHOULD have done but didn't think of. We are great predictors of the past. Now that you know the result and what he should have done, you can retroactively think of any possible thing he could have done ahead of time to prevent the mistake. But the world doesn't work like that. And no matter what result occurs, one can always go back and make a claim about how it could have been avoided....but no one, no one can think of everything before an event, and so some important things have to be prioritized above others. He could have taken more time but we don't know if that would have fixed it because maybe he was exhausted. You can ALWAYS take more time in every move but when you are pretty sure the move is fine you don't take any more time. The fact that he said he didn't see it at the press conference tells us he probably thought the move was fine and that he didn't need more time for it.

Also, we don't know the extent of his physical preparation. We can tell by his physique it probably wasn't very much at all...but being in shape doesn't mean you don't get fatigued by mental stress. He might be able to bench 300 lbs and run a 5 minute mile...but stress, lack of sleep, and extreme exertion can still exhaust someone like this. He couldn't help it in the sense that he couldn't have known every possible variable he was lacking until it was made clear by a future failure, which has now occurred and given him information he would have needed prior to the event.

We do not know about his physical condition or about if he sleeps well, if he has trouble with the  food, or the climate, or the stress...
However, playing that fast is just wrong. If he had taken more time, he probably would have seen he hung a pawn / he hung a bishop. It is inexcusable to play that fast when he had so much time available.

 No he would have seen it if he'd really looked. I don't know how long that move took. But he must be very tired and stressed out and something is wrong. He just got blindsided. Inexcusable is a very hard word to debate over, because none of us have any idea what playing at that level is like, and if a 2800 has an excuse, or reason, or not, for making a big mistake. We just don't know. I can't say why he made that mistake. I just don't know. I don't think, from the way he answered the question at the conference, he really even knows.

#214
If you are tired/ not feeling well/ have slept badly/ are nervous... then you must use more time, not less. To err is human, but he played his mistakes too fast. He had plenty of time, more than Magnus.

U can make human errors if the given time period is short, nepo had 50 minutes dude. I knew someone would call me out on "u are comparing chess and football", when i say don't compare them i meant in classical chess u have too much time and it would be like in football someone has 10 minutes but fails to do something

Ian’s “style” is often one of fast play. He has exceptional skills to accurately make assessments and play moves that prove challenging. Opponents can be intimidated. Make mistakes themselves. It’s easy in retrospect to say he should have taken more time before the mistakes were played. Being labeled as “blunders” is all to popular. A harsh evaluation not making a complete assessment. Yea. He did play too quickly. Perhaps he fell victim to ingrained habits from internet play. To suggest he is washed up, that his character can not learn and grow in the future, that he is somehow not worthy of a future run at the Title is nonsense, an immature response and lacks understanding  of human nature. He is a great talent. Let’s watch the remaining games. Perhaps he will win one. He has the skill. His 1st experience at playing for a WC has not gone well. I think he has handled his below par performance rather well in the interviews.

I think we all saw his "exceptional skills" in full display dude

Nepo should take advice from Lasker:
"When you see a good move, look for a better one"
Or he should observe the advice for impatient beginners:
"Sit on your hands"

Shut up is my response. Who are these patzers to rag on a top professional. Clearly, the criticism is an attempt at drawing attention to themselves … as if they would have performed better.

#221
I sincerely hope he uses his time tomorrow and at least puts up a good fight.

 I looked around a little more, and basically he said he just did not see it. It just did not occur to him. He thought he was winning. So, every time you find a good move, and think you are winning, you think you're just going to keep looking, forever? Yeah of course, you obviously do a blunder check. "Check, Capture, Threat." But the problem was, it just didn't occur to him that he needed more time to look because in his universe, there was nothing to worry about. Sometimes you just don't see it. If he had an eval bar next to him, yeah he would have gotten the signal "Bruh...something is wrong...really wrong bruh" and he'd have gone "Whoa...wait whaat? What choo talkin about Willis? What is....why my bar drop -4.....what............ohhhhhh.....ohhh I see it....ohhh he just moves the pawn up and I'm done...." But he never got a signal in his brain that anything was wrong, so he didn't think to keep looking.

Spassky had a team of Russians and it didn't help him against Fischer.

#224
In game 2 Nepo was winning, but he took fright.
In games 8 and 9 if Nepo thought he was winning, his judgement was off, but he played fast and hung a pawn / a bishop. Objectively it was equal in games 8 and 9 before the blunders. In both games Nepo had more time available than Magnus.

Well… for a possible assessment of “why” Ian played a losing move, losing the Bishop a few moves later I’d have to say this description is quite fair and accurate. It’s always difficult for anybody to know just exactly the what/why … even Ian may not completely understand till after match conclusion he had a “blind spot” and rather quickly made a losing move. Human nature. Who here knows what it’s like, the pressures of playing a chess game for the WC ?

Why are you arguing about what mistake did players who are much more better in chess then any of you?

that's too childish even for a little silly fox like me...

I agree. When the endorphins are running high because one thinks he's winning, there's a tendency to look away from any potential dangers. It really wasn't so much of an error of skill, but more of an error of psychology. The position before 27. c5 is somewhat unusual, with black rooks being placed on a4 and d8, respectively. It's  not enough to rely on pattern recognition here alone, and one has to do a lot of pro-active threat scanning, even when they don't see the threats very clearly or at all. I could see so many players on all levels making this same c5 blunder , but there were a lot of warning signs:

1. Carlsen plays 3...d4 after 3. Bg2, which is absolutely correct. He's not on auto-pilot, dialing in his moves, but takes advantage of the not-so good aspects of 3. Bg2. Now, so many players would go for the sound semi-Slav type pawn structure and just answer with 3...c6, but it's players such as Carlsen who are so strong tactically and do not fear playing 3...d4 and exposing the long h1-a8 diagonal for White to take advantage of. Once he played, 3...d4, I bet he was hyper-acutely aware of his c6-b7-a8 weaknesses for the remainder of the game.

2. Carlsen plays 7...a5. It seems like a very simple, logical, positional move, but it just shows how acutely aware Magnus is in this position. White's dream setup here would be to push a3 and then b4 and set his bishop on b2 and knight on b3, eyeing that weak d4 pawn. Yet, Carlsen is a master of prophylaxis, and stops it all with a single move. Now, the b3 knight becomes so vulnerable to that ....a4 pawn push, which happened later in the game.

3. The next few moves are a skillful display of Carlsen eliminating the White's useful dark-squared bishop that had the ability to stop Black's a-pawn from inflicting further damage on the queenside and mucking up White's pawn structure, where he ends up with 2 hanging pawns on c4 and d4.

4. Carlsen's 17...Qa3 queen incursion is highly unpleasant for Nepo to deal with. White has to be very careful here, as he has a massive weaknesses on the a-file, and there are further possibilities of Black crashing through the a-file and the 3rd rank.

5. I think Nepo's 20. Ne5 is a good move, but is a bit risky. It's safer to just play 20 Red1 and cover his weak d-pawn. But the next several moves are very instructional, where you see how keenly aware Carlsen is of the position and the tactics in it. I really like the exchanges that he initiates to make his life a little easier. Yet, he seems to leave the b7 square unprotected. and Nepo grabs that pawn. But if I were playing Carlsen, I'd be more than a little suspicious that he just left a pawn to take, just like that. Very fishy, indeed.

6. After 26...Ra4, we reach the critical position. The correct assessment is that the c-pawn is going to fail. White can try to defend it, but there really is not a good way to do so, without weakening something else. White's overextended, defending his weak pawns on a2, c4 and e5.

It's really the context of this that leads to that 27. c5 blunder, and one doesn't have to be a titled player to see that Black's play, which has been highly accurate and so good at creating weaknesses in White's camp does not lead to easily exploiting the b7 pawn weakness at all. It just shows that Nepo didn't quite have the most correct assessment of the position, which led to the blunder.

But I think this game just underscores what Kasparov said about Carlsen, and how Carlsen's style is a deadly mix of Karpov's and Fischer's styles. Anyone who's studied a number of Fischer's and Karpov's games can see the influence of those 2 greats on Magnus' style, and how he blends those 2 styles so artfully and skillfully.

Reread what i wrote.  I never said his play was impressive.  I said the fact that he is one of the very few able to challenge for the title is impressive.

#229
His play in game 2 was impressive before he chickened out.

What choo talkin bout Willis?  Hahaha, I use to watch Different Strokes all the time.  Sad how Garys life turned out.

But about the match. I think Nepo doesn't have that drive/ambition to work hard after a defeat like Magnus does. It's as if he was like "aw fuggit, I've lost already so there's no point in trying hard now."  He's gonna get paid no matter what so maybe that's why he's throwing in the towel.