Just writing for seeking
Team Chess Battle 2: Official Discussion Thread

I don't normally comment on these events, but I think this is a massive step down from the first event. All of the people who were invited here are content creators, which means (by definition) that they create a bunch of content for chess already. I've already seen all of these people dozens of times and when I want to watch them play chess and discuss their approach to various positions, there is literally hours and hours of streams or youtube videos that I can easily find.
The first edition of the tournament provided an actually unique opportunity for us to see how grandmasters could work together with slightly weaker players (who were often still grandmasters or rapidly improving young players) to find the best move in the position. It was very fun to see both strong chess players analyzing the position and trying to find the best move. It was also interesting to see how the weaker player could sometimes propose a better plan or find something that the stronger GM missed.
This second edition provides none of these advantages. There are no super GMs in the tournament and hardly any GMs at all. With this new variant on this tournament, we lose the best players and instead see a bunch of content creators. All these content creators were going to be playing chess and making videos talking about their thought process throughout the entire game and maybe even collaborating with each other anyway. By removing the grandmasters and strong players from the tournament, we have taken away the best players without really adding anything.
It is a great cast of characters for this event. Looking forward to watching how team chemistry influences decisions. In this time format, I think that we can eliminate team Cramling as they have a history of time trouble, which does not bode well for Rapid. If Levy doesn't redline his anxiety, I expect that he and Canty will do well. I perceive that they each bring a different flavour of play and perspective to the game. Which is a good thing. Rensch and Bartholomew, potentially rusty from lack of competitive play, might be sleepers. Sagar and Tania - middle of the pack, could be better or worse depending how they do in game 1. My underdogs are Kavutsky and Preuss, carrying the DojoChess brand on their shoulders. No opinion on other teams as they are unknowns to me.