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Comment by MrMcCall | Hacker News Reader

Absolutely.

Nepo and Magnus seem to be cut from a different cloth, although Magnus has never had a moment where he could demonstrate whether or not he can be humble, because he has always just crushed.

Anish Giri kind of took a shot at Magnus (with respect to his retiring from classical chess) in his early commentary with Petr Leko a few days ago. People are funny, and one doesn't usually get to be where Ding and Gukesh are without having a bit of an edge to their personality. That's what makes Ding and Gukesh so special to me.

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Magnus doesn't usually direct his frustration at others (except in the infamous Hans Niemann game) but he has been known to storm out of interviews after some of his bad losses.

He sometimes lets the chess speak for itself /s

Everyone looks humble compared to Hans, though.

He certainly has created a bit of buzz.

You are quite the Chess enthusiast; I enjoy reading your comments!

Thanks. My son and I first started watching together for Magnus-Fabi, so it's something we enjoy doing together. I enjoy the sporting aspect of it even though I've never been a particularly good chess player. I'm more interested in the human aspects of it, and I enjoy the commentaries by Leko, Bobby Chess (Robert Hess), Naroditsky, Giri, and Judit. I love learning from people who have achieved greatness.

It was evident to me from the beginning that Ding was struggling physically (he had an occasionally rough-sounding cough throughout) and, perhaps, emotionally. And Gukesh was locked in from go. What a struggle!

Magnus described Ding's abilities as a 4/10 in the lead up to the match. In match commentary he regularly called the games "baffling" (as in baffingly bad) and regularly said they weren't strong grandmaster calibre. He is definitely very conceited and resents not being the world champion, even if it's only because of his absence.

Is it conceit if he's correct, though?

Magnus was just being honest man. You seem to succumb to a common thinking fallacy that people who express criticism or negative opinions about something or someone must be jealous, conceited or just negative people in general. Meanwhile he was just expressing what is obvious to any strong player: Ding's level of play was subpar coming to the match, a league below elite at least. His play during the match was way below his peak level as well. Ding made 3 amateur player level blunders (hanging a bishop, missing basic tactics and missing transposition to a basic lost pawn endgame) in this match. Carlsen himself made 0 of those during 5 matches. Among his opponents Anand made 0 blunders of this caliber, Karjakin made 0, Caruana made 0 and Nepo made 2 (or 3 if you count the last game in which he was already playing for nothing as the match was decided)

Gukesh underperformed massively in comparison to his recent level (at the Candidates and the Olympiad). I am guessing due to nerves. That made the match closer than it should be. At the end of the day much better player won but it was way closer than it would normally be.

Magnus blundered simple Nxe5 in better endgame in the 6th game of the second match with Anand. Anand missed it as well.

It wasn't even so much the blunders as the strategic decisions I think. Like, a blunder isn't in itself "baffling".

Unfortunately Magnus is 100% right. Some of the mistakes and choices that were made by Ding are at chess club level strength. Sad to say but this is the truth. The mistake on the final game is absolutely orrible, something never seen in a WCC before. Another example in game 5, Ding plays brillantly and gains a small initiative and gains a pawn then, instead of trying to press, he gives two pawns back with the intention of entering an opposite color bishop endgame. You are not supposed to play to drawn when you are better. And there are several other instances of this in the match. Gukesh deserved the win for the fighting spirit but honestly the games were not at WCC level. I believe that Gukesh will redeem himself as Karpov did after winning for forfait against Fischer but today it's a sad day for chess.

Magnus is literally ~50 ELO above Gukesh. Do you have any concept of how much that is at the very top?

EDIT: Just to preempt: This is not say that Gukesh doesn't have a very bright future or couldn't surpass Magnus' top rating. Gukesh could definitely do that... but currently neither Gukesh or Ding are even particularly close to Magnus' (current!) level.

Ironically, in the match that Gukesh won and that made him world champion, he lost rating points, inceasing his distance to Magnus.

Magnus is a stereotype of a prima donna. He’s always condescending and tried to destroy Hans Niemann’s career because Hans had the nerve to beat him once. I think he wants to be crowned World Champion without going through all the trouble of playing the games, and he’s annoyed that it’s not turning out like that.

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