next-move-discussion

[river prawn]

Kg2

[crude gull]

Okay

[river prawn]

Anything but g4 but it won’t be enough

The margin continues to increase

I’m disgusted

[crude gull]

Yeah that’s why I asked so I can vote whatever’s second

[river prawn]

We’ve played reasonably well up to this point

And now we get mated in 4-6 moves

Because people are going to vote for gxh5

I don’t care how much spamming you do in the chat, these are 300 Elo players who will take the free rook and get mated

[compact gale]

Kg2. But it is very unlikely to overturn a -600 vote margin in 1 hour of voting

[river prawn]

This is how the game will end: g4 e5 gxh5 Qg4+ Kh2 Nf4 Rg1 Qh3#

Or some other mate

I hope we get an interview after the game

I want to know if he played Nb6 and Rh5 because he thought they were the best moves or because he knew we’d try to attack them with pawns and lose

[crude gull]

They will play Qxf4 at this point and we’ll play a lost endgame down the exchange

[river prawn]

Nope, beginners won’t vote for that

We won’t even be able to get enough votes for “Resign”

[crude gull]

What if we don’t play gxh5?

And try to defend g4

[river prawn]

You don’t understand. People will vote for it no matter how much we tell them not to

We’re already spamming the chat telling people not to vote for g4, imagine how much worse it will be when there’s a “free” rook

[compact gale]

I responded to someone suggesting 21 g4 e5 22 Nh2. But 22 .. Rxh4 and .. Rxg4+ is a powerful attack.

[crude gull]

22. Re4?

[river prawn]

It doesn’t matter

[compact gale]

That is certainly better then 22 gxh5??. But 22 Re4 Nf4 23 Rxf4 (best?) exf4 24 Qxf4 (best) Rhh8 is still a game, but one in which he has won the exchange (R for N+P). That would still be worth playing

[river prawn]

You can suggest anything, 22.gxh5 will be played

There’s no way we’ll ever be able to stop it

Every low Elo player that doesn’t read the chat will vote for it

It will probably get over 50% of the vote

I support 22.Re4 but we’re still cooked

I wouldn’t even bother with recommendations anymore

[crude gull]

If instead of 24. Qxf4 we play 24. gxh5, does he have any immediate threat?

[compact gale]

At some point soon, I will seriously consider not giving any further guidance. There are some lines where we are losing, but not lost.

[compact gale]

That rook is poison, else he would have moved it. 24 gxh5 Qg4+ 15 Kf1 Qxf3 we win the 2 h-pawns and knight f3 and he will be +2 pawns and still batting our king around.

So 24 Qxf4 is better

So, in theory, we could put up some resistance, but I agree that the World is very likely to take take take and get decimated.

[river prawn]

No, 25.Kf1 Nf4 with mate on g2

[crude gull]

Kf1 seems terrible, maybe Kh2 is better?

[river prawn]

Still Nf4 with mate on g2 or h3 if Rg1

[crude gull]

Nah, the knight doesnt exist in those lines

[river prawn]

We would have to give up our queen on f4 and that will never get enough votes

[crude gull]

No, follow this line

[river prawn]

Oh, I’m looking at the wrong line

[compact gale]

In the Re4 lines, he can sac his rook for a knight and pawn.

[river prawn]

Doesn’t matter when 22.gxh5 will win

Like there is absolutely no scenario other than the voting glitching like a few moves ago where gxh5 doesn’t win

We’re cooked

I don’t care what you say in the chat, I don’t care what discussion we make, low Elo players will vote to take the rook, and they will win

[compact gale]

Yes, I agree with your prediction. They will not find the best defense after 21 g4

[river prawn]

And then get mated because they won’t give up the queen on f4 to stop mate

They see free rook they take it

Absolutely disgusting and sudden ending to this game

21.g4 e5 22.gxh5 Qg4+ 23.Kh2 Nf4 24.Rg1 Qh3# is how I think the game will go

[compact gale]

I am planning to recommend the best defense. But at some point I will stop making recommendations if they are rejected.

[river prawn]

The next vote won’t even be close

I don’t see a point in recommending 22.Re4

And after gxh5 it’s forced mate

[compact gale]

Quite likely

[river prawn]

let's just end this game and move on

[crude gull]

I think it’s worth a try with Re4. If gxh5 is played, idk if there’s any point

Even if they do find Qxf4, we are lost against Gotham

[compact gale]

I want to teach whoever is teachable. This is where the World could learn a hard lesson.

At some point, I will stop spending time with recommendation.

[tender grove]

they didnt learn last time

[compact gale]

If you were a chess tutor, this is a very teachable moment.

Some will, many won't. It's for the teachable ones I would stick around for a bit for

[tender grove]

im disowning any student that plays g4 here

[compact gale]

bad tutor!

[river prawn]

the issue is people not reading the chat

[tender grove]

their fault for not listening earlier

[river prawn]

because g4 seems reasonable

i don't blame people for suggesting it, the problem is people playing it without reading the chat which is telling everyone not to play it

that's the issue

[tender grove]

i mean id also have disowned most students for playing h4 g3, i still think pushing pawns in front of our king was dumb

[river prawn]

that was a good idea in theory

but then people were like "hurrr durrr ill play g4"

[tender grove]

pushing pawns in front of your own king isn't how you defend kingside attacks

why would you do that

[river prawn]

engine analysis after the game will show h4-g3 was correct

mark my words

[tender grove]

and his attack was nonexistent anyway

[river prawn]

but we shouldn't have played it

because it encouraged people to play g4

[compact gale]

That is not true. Those were good moves and a solid idea.

[river prawn]

we had a close vote, 15 votes between Qd2 and h4, we supported h4 because it was a good idea in theory

[tender grove]

its just the wrong plan

[river prawn]

but we should have nixed it because it encouraged bad future play

[tender grove]

why are we playing kingside

[compact gale]

wrong given the position or wrong given who the world is?

[river prawn]

let's be real here, we didn't really have a plan after we traded off all our good pieces with Nxf6+ and Bxf6 and then allowed Nd5 with c5

[tender grove]

both

[river prawn]

wrong given who the world is

[tender grove]

i would never play h4 there

[river prawn]

not wrong given the position

[tender grove]

if i was worried about an attack

we should be playing queenside

[river prawn]

we brought h4 over the finish line, 15 votes made the difference

[crude gull]

Does he have that much of an attack though?

[river prawn]

we're at least partially responsible

[crude gull]

I don’t think so

[tender grove]

no

[compact gale]

Can you refute it? I don't think you can.

[river prawn]

but we shouldn't have to avoid moves because of future bad moves

[tender grove]

theres nothing to refute he has no pieces

[river prawn]

now we get mated in the next 5 moves

i will be voting to resign

[compact gale]

I'm talking about before 21 g4?

[tender grove]

back here

a4, b4 both make more sense than playing on the kingside

b4 probably b5 is annoying but still

my point

[river prawn]

yeah, h4 was a bad idea

[tender grove]

im not seeing how black pulls together an attack without some insane risk

[compact gale]

For the position?

[tender grove]

worst case we can reroute our knight to f1

[river prawn]

for our low elo players

we should have gone for Nd2-Nc4-Nd6 but i know the low elo players would never understand that

we made a vote chess team without low elo players

[compact gale]

That is at least plausible. But I think you are too optimistic about their ability to choose incredibly stupid move even with a solid position.

[spring forge]

You’re an excellent tutor David, I certainly learned from your analysis and advice! Please do not be discouraged and keep on giving your view, which is especially important when on the losing side. If we have to loose, let’s do it in style!

[compact gale]

They wanted to play g4 for quite a while now.

[river prawn]

i think if we hadn't blundered now we would have blundered later

if we hadn't picked such a boring, safe opening, we would have blundered way earlier

[compact gale]

Quite possible given that the software does not really support team based play.

[river prawn]

im not playing public vote chess again unless chess.com makes changes

[compact gale]

I actually am thinking along those lines too

[river prawn]

1. Ranked-Choice voting
2. Elo minimum
3. Number of games minimum
4. Chat reading/posting requirement for voting

at least 3 of those

because when the entire chat is telling people not to play a move and that move is still winning, that's not a participatory sport, that's a spectator sport

[potent cedar]

Yes

[river prawn]

and if i wanted a spectator sport, i'd just watch games

there were probably 2 moves where we actually made a difference in the final result

move 5 and move 18

every other move was happening regardless of what we said in the chat

[compact gale]

5 Having multiple coaches having dedicated time to post analysis before world is notified of the game
6 Regular schedule, both sides always take 24 hours.
7 Coaches analysis featured and easy to find
8 Team chat is stupid without search, pinning, easy way to refer to another post, to copy a post with the interactive chess board

[river prawn]

5-7 were all present in Kasparov vs the World

there were IMs and FMs who each posted their analysis

they were not allowed to communicate with each other to ensure several different stances

point is, Kasparov vs the World had the infrastructure to prevent obviously dumb blunders like g4

and i don't want to play a game where on any given move, no matter how much you plead with people not to play a bad move, you play a bad move and lose the game on the spot

even in a winning position

ruining months of effort

[compact gale]

I agree. Magnus game was first one I played and we did surprisingly well after a weak start.

There was respect for high rated players that developed.

I think 200,000 is just unmanageable with lots of new players showing up every move.

[river prawn]

how many voters were there in that game?

[potent cedar]

IMO elo minimum alone would be a massive improvement, but yes all the 8 points above are really good

i hope folk dont start complaining then that its not the whole world...

[compact gale]

Kasparov? 50,000

[river prawn]

no i meant carlsen

[river prawn]

if you're below a certain elo, you have to post in the chat, i think that's a fair compromise

because there were some low elo players in the chat who were confused about why certain moves were being suggested but understood after reading the chat

[compact gale]

143,563

[river prawn]

the issue is not low elo players, it's people not reading the chat

you should have to show that you read the chat

[compact gale]

even reading the chat is insufficient, the darn thing scrolls too fast.

[river prawn]

idk, on most moves the entire chat has been telling people to play a certain move

it doesn't matter how fast the chat is scrolling when everyone is saying the same thing

[compact gale]

We would need a completely different interface to actually promote team play. Team Chat is very broken.

[potent cedar]

Also folk like that pokem guy keep spamming the chat with g4 rubbish

So if folk read the chat at wrong time then we r no help

[river prawn]

yeah

there needs to be better infrastructure

because this whole game felt like we were never really in control

5.Ng3 was the only move we pushed over the finish line

and that was only close because of botting

18.h4 was a special case because there were only 3k votes due to a glitch

[compact gale]

tbh, even here we weren't doing that well.

[river prawn]

yeah

after Nxf6+, Bxf6, and c5

we were on pace to just get gradually crushed

[compact gale]

Much better than team chat, but there wasn't much analysis.

[river prawn]

and it didn't really matter either

because 90% of the time it was "vote for this move or this bad move will win"

that's not analysis

there were several points where we had to recommend moves that we didn't personally support in order to stop a bad move from winning, like when we change our recommendation to b3

[compact gale]

I was referring to our Discord process. Just. Not. Enough. Participation.

[river prawn]

yeah, 500 members and only 20 votes on any given poll

[potent cedar]

Yeah but it doesn't matter how many we get here (ive only joined this week) cos we need thousands more to override the dummies

[compact gale]

Exactly, but there was not enough analysis in the #next-move-discussion

[spring forge]

I found that as well, so not reading it, the discord comments gives me enough feedback.

[compact gale]

However, the game would have gone much much better with what our group was recommending.

[river prawn]

a lot of the analysis was short because any multi-move plan is bound to fail

[potent cedar]

And if we have thousands more here then we have same problems as the main vote

[river prawn]

exactly

like one of the ideas was Nd2-Nc4-Nd6 but that would never work because people don't understand Nd2 without Nc4 and Nd6, and that's only 3 moves

imagine 5+ move ideas

it's a miracle we even lasted this long

GothamChess probably could have won in 7 moves if he wanted to

[compact gale]

Having to post multiple recommendations before we know his move, costs us a lot of extra time. The early voting thing is a serious problem with the game play.

[potent cedar]

Guys how about if the vote wasn't binding and that one of us actually made the move

[jagged bobcat]

Just Wonder, after he takes our knight on f3: what will he play after we play Qd1?

[river prawn]

the main problem is we didn't know when he would move

kasparov vs the world had consistent scheduling

[potent cedar]

Yh so we need the 24 h rule

[river prawn]

plus discussion time after the other side moves before votes can be cast

that's what we really need

[hardy island]

it's more democratic and equitable to play 500-elo moves than the best recommended moves

I haven't seen a single mf voting for g4 that is over 2000 elo

[river prawn]

but then you're not playing chess

you're not controlling the game

[hardy island]

who cares

they're playing Gotham that's all they care about

don't need to win lol

[river prawn]

i wanted an actual game, not this shitshow

[hardy island]

most people have that mindset

[river prawn]

it's a spectator sport

[hardy island]

so you're fcked

think the best move recommended by Coach Dane is Kh2

yeah it is

[river prawn]

this is why i joined a vote chess team, where we can play games without this trash

the chat gave up trying to tell people to not play g4 because it's clear it won't make a difference

[hardy island]

but Kh2 doesn't even make the top 7

instead you got people trying to play a dumbass move me attack rook me happy

Kg2's a bit more reasonable tho

[river prawn]

absolutely idiotic play here

like Qxd5 in Anand vs the World

and it will be followed up by the even worse gxh5 just like Qxd2 in Anand vs the world

[hardy island]

How much are we betting Gotham's gonna sack the rook and we're gonna get a chess.com short a Gotham Youtube video and a bunch of other clips from this position

g4 e5!! gxh5 Qg4+

[potent cedar]

Yeah we know he'll do that

[hardy island]

actually don't think it works

I gave up on the game ever since they played that incompetent Nxf6

[river prawn]

people were saying literally the exact same thing after Anand vs the World and nothing changed

to quote a comment from the blog post on that game:

"During the late 90s-early 2000s when the Kasparov vs World match happened, the only people who could access the game online and find the right place to participate were already ahead of the curve and rather intelligent, compared to now where everyone including their grandmother and dog can go on the internet. Technology has improved but society has been dumbed down"

[compact gale]

It was Kg2

[river prawn]

still as true as ever

[jagged bobcat]

It’s humiliating to watch: his knight and queen alone perform check mate after the rook sac

[slow breach]

Yeah, I kept making several typos. I said Kg1 once too lol. I meant Kg2

[compact gale]

You were mistaken, Kg2 was Coach Dane's recommendation after seeing 21 g4 winning

[slow breach]

That was my fault, I should have communicated more clearly

[hardy island]

I voted for Kh2 already, that's so bad

[slow breach]

lol, no, that's on me. i was trying to just quickly share communication to get people to vote

It made absolutely no difference - the bullet move wave was too strong

[hardy island]

also to be fair I should've actually looked at the message because Kh2 to play Rh1 doesn't make much sense lol

shouldn't change the outcome that much

[slow breach]

lol, Kh2 is equally effective to Kg2, I'm afraid

[potent cedar]

Doesn't matter what u guys did I'm afraid 😥

[compact gale]

That is most likely to happen

[hardy island]

the question is after that entire sequence and say realistically any king move

Black takes the knight then what happens

[river prawn]

chess.com is going to say the exact same things they said after Anand vs the World

[hardy island]

do you swing the other rook over?

[river prawn]

no, Nf4 instead is even better

mate on g2 or h3 unless Qxf4 and i know people won't vote to give up the queen

[hardy island]

ohh you're correct

yeah this game is ending next week

[river prawn]

I'll write their article for them

[hardy island]

SOBB

eh

this entire player ABC vs the world is genuinely so easy to predict

heck even I could play against the world and I'd probably win

10,000 500-rated players don't equal a 2000 rated player

[eternal folio]

so in terms of voting, how boned are we?

[potent cedar]

Same here, average elo out there is less than 1k, u guys up it about 300 maybe, but its still sad

[jagged bobcat]

If he would take our knight, we could have a chance with Qd1, winning a tempo for our king to escape

[hardy island]

the game is gonna end really soon

[eternal folio]

alright, so was it a waste of opportunity?

[hardy island]

g4 e5!! gxh5 Qg4+ Kh2 Nf4 and we're getting matmed

[potent cedar]

The game has ended, this is just formalities

[hardy island]

waste of opportunity about what?

[eternal folio]

cuz we're somehow doing worse than against magnus, and not everyone gets a chance to play against someone like levy

[compact gale]

Kg2 is down 9% and 827 votes

[hardy island]

everyone got a chance to play against Levy because ts is literally massively advertised

if you didn't got the chance you're living under a rock

[eternal folio]

thank you, and i'll see y'all at the finish line with a checkmate at hand

[tender grove]

their advertising lost us the game

[potent cedar]

Could we have a discord only world game, cos c.com just want to bump the numbers up

[tender grove]

that’s called club vote chess

[potent cedar]

Yeah but c.com is just a big club

Essentially

[compact gale]

22 Nxe5 is a reasonable try:

21 g4 e5 22 Nxe5 fxe5 23 gxh5 Qg4+ 24 Kf1 Nf4 25 f3 Qxf3+ 26 Qf2 Qd3+27 Re2 Qh3+ 26 Kg1 Qc3 and Gotham wins material.

Wow, that was not that easy to find.

[river prawn]

i made an entire article on the game that i expect will be similar to what chess.com publishes

They’re going to say that GothamChess won with a brilliant attack but it’s painfully obvious to anyone over 1500

[outer lance]

I think either myself or someone suggested pinning messages to the top of chat?

. We need to put the discord recommendation in the pinned message.
. Combined with people being urged to scroll to the chat section before voting.
. As I think I said before, I don't know how easy it is to do/program this, but sites like youtube and discord let you pin messages???

[river prawn]

People were making the exact same complaints after Anand vs the World ended in basically the same way

What we do on Discord doesn’t matter

Chess.com needs to build better infrastructure for games like this

People said the exact same thing last year

[compact gale]

Even after 21 g4?, the game could actually go for quite a while I think. After 21 .. e5, both 22 Re4 and 22 Nxe5 seem to hold for a while.

[river prawn]

You don’t understand

21.g4 e5 22.gxh5 will be played

[compact gale]

Yes, I do. You should know that I expect that as well.

[river prawn]

I don’t care what you say or suggest, not even GothamChess showing up in the private chat with an alt account and telling people to play 22.Re4 to keep the game going because he finds the game interesting and doesn’t want to win right away would be enough to make a difference

BECAUSE PEOPLE AREN’T READING THE CHAT

[compact gale]

Some people do and are interested. It is for that reason I will do at least one more recommendation.

[river prawn]

this would have been the exact same result if it was GothamChess vs some random chess club

Shame on you, chess.com. Do better.

the stupidest part is we're going to get checkmated in 24 moves just like against Anand

[potent cedar]

We need an elo floor

[river prawn]

we need official recommendations

Kasparov vs the World had that

[potent cedar]

actually we need all 8 points you guys mentioned earlier

[sage gust]

even just 1000 as an elo floor would keep so many one-movers away from the votes

once you reach that stage you start realising how stupid it is to play things like g4 and tear your own structure apart

[compact gale]

Its more important to read and write posts with your team. That is our one advantage over a Titled player.

[sage gust]

True. Very true. But it also stops the group majority getting beaten by poor players' first instincts.

It stops c5 from happening.

[eternal folio]

what if someone is hypothetically 600 elo but thinks like a 1000?

[sage gust]

they should play some games and gain some elo

[outer lance]

Too bad the glitch/bug that occurred on move 18. h4 didn't also happen again here.

g4 is in front of Kg2 by more than the total votes of the winner that round.

. In case my way of writing was confusing I meant, 18. h4 received a total of 831 votes in 24h hours, and 21.g4 has 857 more votes than 21.Kg2 - and there is still about 18 hours left to vote this round.

[potent cedar]

even a 1k elo might play g4, but a floor would get rid of the sheer number of noisy folk down there

[compact gale]

I am not a fan of Elo floors and chess.com will not consider that, in my estimation.

[sage gust]

you are correct in that point. they won't sacrifice inclusivity in a 'against the world' game in exchange for a fighting chance

it would make the game far more entertaining/useful, rather than an inevitable losss though

[compact gale]

But, changes such as in Kasparove against the World would work.

[potent cedar]

over 1000 behind now😭 😥 😢 😭

[pearl rover]

gg

[tender grove]

gg

[potent cedar]

gg @tender grove

[silent cloak]

WE ARE COMPLETELY LOSING NOW

[river prawn]

gg

[silent cloak]

bg

[tender grove]

<@&745328830649991179>

[outer lance]

gg Gotham and the Kg2 voters.

"... it has been a privilege playing with you ..."

. partial quote from the movie Titanic.

[silent cloak]

It's not gg it's bg.

[outer lance]

Sorry I didn't say it but that was implied by only including Gotham and the Kg2 voters in the gg part.

[wraith ravine]

maybe Gotham misses e5 hopium

[silent cloak]

Actually, even though e5 is a brilliant sacrifice, Rh7 is a fine move for him too, and we have no hope.

[thorn yarrow]

I haven't voted yet. But I take it 21 g4 is winning the vote. Is that correct?

[outer lance]

Yes, I also think 21. e5 and any safe R move along the h-file is good for Gotham.
I think we will be forced to Sac the R, if e5 is played and we want the game to go on as long as possible - see possible line below:

... 21.g4 e5 22.Re4 Nf4 23.Rxf4 exf4 24.Qxf4 ...

. Our position was fairly calm the last couple/few moves, but with g4 and e5 being played, it would become very sharp IMO.
. At least the game should be over very quickly for us, if the World plays 22. dxe5 against 21.e5 ,

[outer lance]

Yes, I think it was in front by over 1000 votes, last time I checked.

[thorn yarrow]

I knew chess.com's method of vote chess was going to be interesting. And from what I read in this forum, it is not the first time.

[dim girder]

What about Nh2 and f3 (and a2 in the future, to allow our heavy pieces to protect the king)? It looks really dangerous, but maybe it can work. For example: 21. g4 e5 22. Nh2 Rxh4 23. f3 Rah8 24. Re2 Nf4 25. dxe5. Or maybe I missed something, I don't know. But I don’t believe we can draw this after losing the exchange. Or if Nf4 comes before doubling the rooks, then Rd1 with the same idea of dxe5.

or resign 🙁

no - because of 25. dxe5 Nxe2+ 🙁

but it doesn't matter, after 21. g4 e5, the move 22. gxh5 will be played. Why not just grab the free rook? After all, that's the whole reason we played g4. 😢

[compact gale]

Against best defense, I don't think this is a trivial win for Gotham.

Or even good defense.

[dim girder]

but what is the good defense? After g4 e5 it seems like we’ll be an exchange down after a few moves and in a worse position. We’re not Stockfish to defend that to a draw.

[river prawn]

g4 e5 and unless the game glitches and makes it so only 3k people vote, gxh5 will win and it won’t even be close

we had a good run

[compact gale]

Re4 is a best defense. Nh2 and Nxe5 are "good" relative to gxh5.

Also there is Rh7 defense we could prepare for. We could just do a recommendation against 21 .. e5! and do a quick poll Re4 or Other.

[dim girder]

but after Re4 Nf4 there seems to be nothing we can do - the g4 defender is blocked, and if we play Nh2 then Rxh4 simply follows, after f3 comes Rah8 and we’re a whole knight down.

[silent cloak]

Noobs won't be able to unite when we play move 24
21. g4?? e5!! 22. gxh5 Qg4+ 23. Kf1 Nf4

[silent cloak]

That's why we should play 22. Re4 Nf4 23. Rxf4 exf4 24. Qxf4 and lose 1 point

[dim girder]

ok, but then we are exchange down and our position is still not good

[river prawn]

That’s what’s going to happen

[river prawn]

22.Re4 will never win over 22.gxh5

In fact, I will vote for 22.gxh5 just to end the game quicker, because it’s over

[tender grove]

let’s push for a random move to see how many people are reading chat

Rb1 perhaps

Rab1*

[dim girder]

like even after Re4 and everything, the e file is open and we’re left with only a backward pawn on the d file. that extra rook will be much stronger than our knight, which can’t even move because of the d pawn.

[vagrant pelican]

Well, we know they are not. That’s the biggest thing we’ll be discussing with chesscom - if that happens

[dim girder]

backward d pawn created by c5...

[compact gale]

But we also have an extra pawn with that knight. I don't think this is super easy to win.

[dim girder]

I don’t know, maybe. I just don’t like it because the e and d files will be easy to double on, the rook exchange will come, but okay, maybe I’m just frustrated. You’re probably right, it’s still somewhat playable…

[compact gale]

Its not so easy. An IM with time, yes he will find the win, but it is a grind.

[tender grove]

we know not many people are but I want a number

[river prawn]

Don’t let chess.com change the narrative

Because after 21.g4 e5 22.gxh5 is played, they will say that 21..e5!! was a brilliant move that the World team never saw coming

They’ll try to pretend that the game was a civilized affair instead of what it was

The people deserve to know the truth

[compact gale]

The players who played 21 g4 never saw 21 .. e5 coming

[river prawn]

When they make a blog post on the game, I want you all to flood the comments and tell chess.com that we won’t put up with this method of vote chess, we won’t put up with them rewriting the narrative to glorify their site, we won’t put up with their claims that we never saw the sacrifice coming

Yes, but the chat did

To be fair, I didn’t see 21..e5 until someone told me, but even without that 21.g4 is still bad

When we get checkmated on move 24 with Qg2# or Qh3#, we need to tell chess.com that we saw it all ahead of time

[compact gale]

I am planning a poll for a recommendation. If 21 g4, what do we play?

[river prawn]

I even wrote an entire article in the chat in the style that chess.com will use

Glorifying GothamChess, making it seem like the game wasn’t a farce

We know the truth

It’s a miracle the game even lasted this long

If GothamChess had played 1..e5 the game would be over by now

We won’t even be able to convince people to sac the queen when any other move is mate in 1

this game is over

[river prawn]

Don’t even make a poll

21.g4 e5 22.gxh5 will be played and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it

[compact gale]

I saw that, can you post it here https://discord.com/channels/387637011965804544/1424181632998445227 ?

[river prawn]

I want you to ping people and say that

Tell them we couldn’t stop an obviously bad move from winning

Tell them GothamChess will sacrifice THE ROOK

[thorn yarrow]

I agree with @river prawn don't make a poll.

[river prawn]

Tell them low Elo players will vote for that because they don’t know better

The game is over and chat knows it

I will vote to resign

[compact gale]

Lily, you are preaching to the choir. But I do intend to give them a chance to surprise us by giving a recommendation.

[river prawn]

It’s pointless

[thorn yarrow]

I agree, what is the point?

[compact gale]

It won't reach quorum of 60%

[river prawn]

Of course not

But the game is over

There is absolutely no way gxh5 doesn’t win

We’re not going to have the votes to resign

[compact gale]

So, being a glutton for limited punishment, I'll do some light recommendations, probably for only one black move

[river prawn]

So we get checkmated on move 24

[river prawn]

I mean you can tell people to play 21.g4 e5 22.Re4, the clear best move. We didn’t do polls for clear best moves earlier like with Bxd3 Qxd3, so don’t bother with a poll

[thorn yarrow]

I don't feel like this forum has any say. The bulk of the players will simply play what they want to play. What is the point?

[river prawn]

Exactly

Not even the chat on chess.com had any control

We influenced a total of 2, maybe 3 moves

The rest were just whatever the low Elo players who weren’t reading the chat wanted

[thorn yarrow]

Lily knows I was ready to drop out much, much earlier. I came along for the ride. if the majority of voters are between 900 -1100 then that will be the level of play.

[river prawn]

Oh, it’s worse than 900-1100

Median is 600

Median is what really matters, not average

Half of the voters are 600 or less

And that means they control what happens

There was exactly one move where the vote was within 5% and the top two options were both reasonable. Every other move was either a clear win for one move or one of the two options was obviously bad

[thorn yarrow]

I just asked AI what the average elo of the majority of chess.com players. and That is what it gave me. Doesn't matter. Whatever is the average will be the quality of voting. I was hoping to learn strategy from whatever masters are in this group.

[river prawn]

Most of the game was spent saying “don’t play this move because it’s bad, play this other move because it’s the only move that can beat the bad move, not because it’s the best move”

[river prawn]

This game’s player base is not representative of the entire chess.com player base, most players are lower rated than average because it’s GothamChess

Also average is not the relevant metric, median is

We’re not masters but even we can tell when the moves played are bad

Shame on chess.com for creating a farce of a game

[thorn yarrow]

Sorry this format was not what I was expecting. I was hoping improve my chess a little. But I felt like part of a team and came along. But Vote Chess is not the same as club versus club ... before online. But I met some nice people.

[river prawn]

Oddly enough this game will be exactly the same number of moves as Anand vs the World

[river prawn]

Vote chess in club vs club is so much better because you actually listen to each other

If there’s a bad move, someone can share that with everyone else

There’s no need to vote for a move just to stop a bad move from winning

[thorn yarrow]

Yeah, let Gotham knbow he can beat the majority of chess players where the rating is between ... something low. read this was more of a social experiment. And I understand that.

[river prawn]

The problem is chess.com will try to rewrite the narrative

They will claim that no one saw 21.g4 e5 22.gxh5 Qg4+

We did see it, we screamed about it in the chat, but people didn’t listen

[thorn yarrow]

Yes club versus club we would master / state chmps explaining why a move was good. So there was discussion and an agreed upon reply.

[river prawn]

We have titled players explaining why moves are good

But people aren’t listening

[dim girder]

i just don't get that mentality, you come in, look at the position for three seconds, see a pawn that can threaten a piece, and you push that pawn. the problem isn’t low elo, the problem is that these guys think they’re playing bullet...

[thorn yarrow]

Yeah ... the message is not being seen or being ignored. Well nice to met you Lily, David. and others,

[compact gale]

Are you interested in club v club vote chess games?

Also it is interesting to do the post-mortem with the analysis engines after the game terminates.

[river prawn]

This is why the golden age of games between a titled player and the world are over

Kasparov vs the World was probably the only good example

[dim girder]

I'm really curious about the move 18. b4. On the next move I'll vote for resign and go check it out, and I won’t comment on it anymore after that.

[compact gale]

Careful, when you resign you are still playing. You can't resign all by yourself.

[dim girder]

I understand, but I won’t be playing anymore, I’ll just leave the game after my vote.

there is leave button

[compact gale]

It is called Withdraw (X) which permanently removes you from the game.

You would lose access to team chat and the ability to vote for a move for the remainder of the game.

[dim girder]

y, this one 🙂

[thorn yarrow]

Kasparov vs the world Irina Krush saves team!

Well, almost saves the day

[dim girder]

i red something about it and it seemed to me like it was like 90% krush and 10% world

[thorn yarrow]

I learned a lot in club versus club matches. We had two master and a couple of experts. And the game was duscussed within the club.

Dicussed

Still can't spell ...

[dim girder]

I’m going backwards, I was a lot stronger when I was 10 than I am now. 😄

[thorn yarrow]

Post motems. It's like a lesson on how to annotate a game. And it's a game one played in . .... club versus club

Mortems ... darn those tiny keys

[dim girder]

This looks better than Re4.

It seems to me that even after Rxe5 there’s no checkmate there.

okay, maybe I won’t vote to resign yet

but Rh7, Kg2, e5 looks nasty

Because Kg2 blocks our heavy pieces from defending the 2nd rank. Maybe Nh2 is better after Rh7?

[compact gale]

Tactics aren't over yet: 5 .. Qxf3+ 6 Qf2 Qd3+ 7 Re2 Qh3+ 8 Kg1 Qc3!

And it isn't checkmate, but Gotham is up a knight.

[dim girder]

I meant e5, Nxe5, and then Black's rook takes on e5

both e5, Nxe5, fxe5 and e5, Nxe5, Rxe5 looks good

Now I’m worried about this: g4, Rh7, Kg2, e5, Nh2 (defending g4) and now Nf4+ comes with check

[silent cloak]

Hey, Levy won't play 21...Rh7. That's not the best move! I promise.

He will SACRIFICE... THE ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK!!!!!

[compact gale]

But we can decline the sac

[silent cloak]

That's what we do

He does not

[compact gale]

Depends which line we are talking about ..

[dim girder]

i think after Rh7 we should play Kf1 rather then Kg2

[compact gale]

Let's analyze 21 g4? e5! 22 Nxe5 ...

[silent cloak]

Oh, no, that weakens the kingside. Kg2 is the best of course

[compact gale]

I think that Gotham should play 22 .. fxe5 23 gxh5 Qg4+ 24 Kf1 Nf4 -- OK so far?

[silent cloak]

Oh, why 23. gxh5?

[dim girder]

but it leads to this:

And then what? We still need to move our king and we are one tempo down.

and it blocking our queen from guarding that knight

[silent cloak]

Don't play 23. Nh2??
Play Kg3 instead.

[compact gale]

He was talking about the 21 .. Rh7 line where the e5 break hasn't happened yet

[dim girder]

ah, ok, sorry, looks good

[dim girder]

me too, 21. ... Rh7 22. ...e5

[silent cloak]

Guys, 21. g4?? e5!! 22. Nxe5? is refuted.

[dim girder]

how?

[silent cloak]

Read the comments in chess.com

Oh wait, almost there

[compact gale]

It looks like #next-move-discussion message

5 .. Qxf3+ 6 Qf2 Qd3+ 7 Re2 Qh3+ 8 Kg1 Qc3! 9 Kh2 Nxe2 10 Kf1 Nf4 11 dxe5 Nxh5 (not Qh3+) 12 Qxf7+ Kh6

[river prawn]

who cares

gxh5 is unstoppable

[dim girder]

😄

[river prawn]

mockery of a game

[dim girder]

do you think that could be true?

that his fans are trying to sabotage the game?

[outer lance]

Stuff like this nearly always sounds plausible.
No way for anyone to know for sure, unless we could ask most to all of the g4 voters and they answered truthfully?
. Just my opinion, OC I don't know either way.

[dim girder]

https://www.chess.com/votechess/game/386700?page=1#comment-121470102

[compact gale]

Team chat links are not good for very long. What are you referring to?

[dim girder]

This

[compact gale]

There are at least two points where this can be improved for Levy. He won't play 22 .. Rxe5, instead fxe5. And instead of 22 .. Re8, he should play Qh3+ 23 Kg1 Qc3!

[jagged bobcat]

I have trouble understanding why people vote for moves that suck, as they can’t see the votings standing before they vote. People Are herd followers (sheep), so I would understand if they knew the bad move was in the lead.

[potent cedar]

They don't understand that it is a bad move

[storm grove]

i should have listened to my intitution and not voted for a mistake/blunder 😭

[lime parcel]

how to vote guy

pls help

[eternal folio]

for what purpose exactly?

[slow breach]

Thanks to everyone who participated in the team discord and positively engaged in the game chat. I'm proud we were able to rally the team and positively influence the direction of the game. I can imagine many of us are feeling the frustrations of seeing the "bullet moves" without any team discussion or engagement completely overwhelm the voting process. There's definitely quite a bit to reflect upon here and I hope you share your feedback regarding your experience with the team! 🙂 There's quite a bit of potential to harness the positive energy of these discussions / team engagement with future activities, so definitely quite a bit to explore here. Thanks again - you're all amazing and I am thankful to have interacted with all of you.

Please stay in touch and you can find me most active in the "Improvers Club," especially the "Ask Coach / Community" forum and monthly group classes that I offer in the Improvers Club 🙂

https://www.chess.com/club/improvers

[vagrant pelican]

Thank you, Coach Dane for your positive guidance throughout this game. We hope to engage with Sam to brainstorm ideas to encourage people to read the chat before voting in the next World game. Hope you can share your thoughts on it as well

[slow breach]

Will do - really appreciate your continued enthusiasm and support here. Cheers! 🙂

[storm grove]

i am not making a move before talking to players here from now on

or crazy deep analysing myself

[compact gale]

So are you withdrawing now? If the world listens to our advice this morning, the game could go on for quite a while!

[slow breach]

I didn't say anything about my participation, just merely thanking everyone for their efforts and encouraging people to stay in touch after this match concludes.

[compact gale]

We will advise playing 22 Re4 against 21 g4? e5!

[storm grove]

k

[slow breach]

It's easy to get wrapped up in responsibilities, especially as the game spirals toward its conclusion, so I wanted to take a moment and "zoom out" and say thank you. I really appreciate everyone putting in so much effort and helping improve upon our vote chess process. 🙂

This is my first time using Discord - perhaps call me a "Discord boomer," so I have quite a bit to learn here and appreciate everyone's support and encouragement. 🙂

[river prawn]

chess.com needs to apologize for this farce of a game

we were basically bound to the whims of low elo players who weren't reading the chat

[river prawn]

yeah we're cooked

[dim girder]

probably, if he chooses the e5 line, there’s no way we can stop gxh5. We should resign after that, as there’s nothing we can do

[river prawn]

yeah

[compact gale]

This is posted now.

[potent cedar]

Honestly how do we decline the rook when we couldn't even sway the last move

[compact gale]

I feel we have to try.

I don't want to give up on the World and feel we owe them our best advice.

[river prawn]

it's going to be 60% for gxh5

[compact gale]

I am prepared for them to fail to heed our warning.

I just posted to the public chat as well.

Due to a very possible team chat archiving "glitch"

[slow breach]

Thanks for the positive communication, David. It's nice to share an invitation to learning opportunities.

[river prawn]

yeah this game is over

we were never really in control

it's just that the particular variation we played was one where the low elo moves were mostly correct

shame on chess.com for making a mockery of the game with the largest correspondence game ever

[compact gale]

21 g4 is on the board

[river prawn]

We deserved better than this

90% of the game was spent yelling at people not to vote for a bad move and vote for the one good move with a chance of beating the bad move

No real analysis, just screaming into the void

Why bother analyzing which of two good moves is slightly better when only one of them has any chance of winning and the alternative is a bad move?

That’s not chess

[dim girder]

There are plenty of improvements that chess.com could implement, but I don’t think it would actually solve the problem that most people think they’re playing bullet

[compact gale]

If you think of what we do as coaching, and get our ego out of wanting to win so badly, there is a segment of the World that will learn some chess here.

[compact gale]

Yes. Exactly.

[slow breach]

Positive perspective, I appreciate it! I'd love to find a balance where people can vote as they choose, but also find a way to increase team discussion / awareness. I think one fun idea would be to have a number of coaches (like Aye and myself), as well as a "Discord" captain and "Game Chat" captain meet to discuss the top three candidate moves voted by the team and decide which move we will ultimately play.

[compact gale]

I don't think that works. The players want to be the deciders. But changes to Vote Chess to actually support and emphasize team play, would make a huge difference. Do use the lessons from Kasparov against The World.

---

Don't allow instant moves. Don't make it so easy to move without reading team chat. Team chat needs a major overhaul - it is ineffective as is.

Require some kind of participation in team chat, at least one or more emoji reactions. Give rewards for participating in team chat.

We need search, the ability to feature posts that have high upvotes or come from coaches or from titled players.

[slow breach]

No easy answers here. I personally would prefer to find a way to structurally reinforce team discussion engagement, but this will also contend with "participation friction" that I imagine may not be supported from another community perspective. It would be nice to find a world where g4 can very much be voted for independently, yet there are potential safeguards to preserve the intregrity and relevance of team discussion.

[compact gale]

The changes we are describing would increase engagement. If chess.com is concerned about disallowing instant moves, maybe they should exit public vote chess.

[slow breach]

Yes, increasing meaningful engagement, but it would prevent ease of access to organic participation - that's the balance to strike. I definitely would personally support the former and am just sharing my own personal statements and opinions here.

[compact gale]

Team chat is up!

[inner iron]

You have to remember though who you are dealing with when implementing rules like this... If we tried to make it MANDATORY that people participate, I can see our discord server flooded with spam by newbies just to be able to vote. Chess. com has pretty much proved this by making achievements for posting a certain number of times in the forums... People go in just to spam the heck out of the forums for the sole purpose of getting an achievement... So you have to be careful when setting rules that require engagment from people that aren't willing to even read the chat in the first place.

[slow breach]

Just spitballing ideas here, but it would be interesting moving forward to only allow "open voting" so people can see the voting trends prior to voting. When a move is played, it would be great to have an automatic 60 minute "team discussion" period where no votes can be cast. That way, we can both promote team discussion, prepare an early voting initiative, so that once the "polls open" our informed voting choice can try to outpace any "bullet moves" that would otherwise flood the polls.

I don't think open voting would have saved us in this game - g4 would gain an immediate early lead and it would be hard to stop it.

But, if we had a built-in "team discussion" period of something like 60 minutes, no one is allowed to vote for the first 60 minutes. Sure, people will jump in later and completely ignore the team discussion, but the open polling would at least give a "target" for the bullet movers to follow if the team choice gains an early lead

[river prawn]

Kasparov vs the world had a far longer discussion time

[slow breach]

Yes, I'd rather have a much longer discussion period, but I think even a 60 minute discussion period will be a hard sell...just spitballing what might be possible here - just my own personal opinions so I don't know how it may be structurally received / supported.

[compact gale]

That sounds like an idea with merit. I think one hour is too short though. Perhaps 4 hours?

[compact gale]

The coaching blackout was 6 hours long

[river prawn]

We need official recommendations like in Kasparov vs The World

[compact gale]

The World did not know what ws played until after the coaches had analyzed for 6 hours

[slow breach]

Yes, I would personally advocate for a much longer discussion period - definitely worth suggesting. I imagine pausing immediate participation for even 60 minutes will be a hard sell, but that's just my own personal assumption. Definitely makes sense to advocate for several hours. If we had a four hour team discussion period, and then a 20 hour "open poll" voting session that would be nice!

[river prawn]

Because clearly the World can’t be trusted

Also, GothamChess’s moves should always be 24 hours

[compact gale]

Also, using coaches under 18 has a lot of merit.

[compact gale]

Yes!!

[inner iron]

Not trying to play devil's advocate, but I think in this scenario, newbs that don't read the chat are just going to wait out the four hours, then swoop in and vote crazy, and that's going to give us even less time to try to turn the vote around. Its a good idea in theory, but I think my idea is quite likely to occur and the longer we wait, the worse it'll be for us... I think instead of "The World" playing Levy, they should make different types of events.... Lets say.... a team that is more put together.... They could look at the leaderboards and whoever is in first place for that month ends up getting a game with Levy... (Levy vs the Chess School) or (Levy vs Chesskid). They could even have matches that teams could sign up for and winner of the tourney could play a game vs Levy, Magnus, Hikaru, etc..... I think doing something like this would allow the game quality to be a lot better. They could still hold The World matches, but I'm just not that sure about winning a world match anymore...

[slow breach]

For sure, there's definitely an element to that which we cannot avoid. That being said, by using "open voting," voters who refuse to participate in the team discussion and just want to make bullet moves will see the most popular moves already voted for prior to making a vote. The top move, as we learned from the Magnus game, can very much sway "copycat" voting

[inner iron]

Also, there's the issue of open poll vs closed poll voting.... I think closed poll is actually better, (if you could call it closed poll) I think that in order to have a true closed poll, that chess.com should make it where you cannot see the votes until AFTER the move has been played... That would be true closed poll... Having one voter go vote, and then tell the world what the results are is pretty much open voting imo...

[slow breach]

So, after the discussion period ends, as long as there is enough team effort to immediately vote, the team should be able to create an early lead with an informed move to counter any "bullet move" waves.

[scenic nest]

Yes

[slow breach]

It's funny, as we were analyzing different options like ...Rad8 and ...Rh5, I just didn't consciously think ...Rh5 was a forced win as there was no way to prevent the g4 bullet vote. I think I was naively secured by seeing h4 + g3 make it across the finish line that we wouldn't be overwhelmed with g4?? votes. Even a 60 minute team discussion with open voting may have given us a chance this time around as Kg2 would have a great chance to gain an informed, early lead that can then attract "bullet move voters" to the top voted move.

[inner iron]

We tried playing with open poll voting in the last match El David vs El Mundo... people basically just looked at the arrows and then played the brightest arrow it looked like... With a audience this size, our team is basically too small still to get the majority. esp with 200,000+ people playing. I DO think that open poll voting is good in the fact that we can see what bad move is going to get played and try to stop it as fast as possible, but again, I'd rather try to vote on a best move rather than just base my vote on trying to prevent a disaster.

[slow breach]

Yeah, it's definitely interesting and complicated to anticipate. I think even a surge of 50 to 100 votes at minute 61 (after the 60 minute pause) would give the "brightest arrow" immediately to an informed move, thus increasing the chances of attracting "bullet moves" to something sensible. Definitely not perfect, of course!

[inner iron]

I do think a hour delay minimum would be good before you could vote... At least then, if Levy played some obscure move, then we could react and draw up recommendations that people could read instead of getting into a frenzy and trying to throw something together real quick... I think the team has done pretty good though predicting what levy would play.

[slow breach]

As noted by others, a four hour discussion period would be even better (which I would strongly support), and that would hopefully attract more informed voters to immediately rush to the polls, so to speak, in order to create an informed "instant vote" to help contend with the detrimental g4esque bullet moves that ruin the game.

[slow breach]

Definitely! I remember we were thrown off by, I think, Nb6, so we had to scramble and support the less harmful bullet move b3 to try and prevent c5?? (which worked for one move)

[inner iron]

Yeah, I am very curious once this game is over, about how levy will review the game... I would very much like to know if he played Nb6 as "bait" thinking that we'd play the dreaded c5 move.

I don't think Nb6 was the best move, but turned out very good for him because he predicted that c5 would get played. At least that's why I think he played it.

[potent cedar]

Fine but all this doesn't matter until we deal with all the low elos who don't read the chat

[tribal stirrup]

I definitely understand the desire to decide a move before reading. If I'm just copy pasting other people's moves, then I'm not really learning anything. I need to try to figure out, then check to see if I'm right, then vote.

[tender grove]

ok pushing for Re4 right

funny that people are voting for de

they literally just see a pawn move and instantly want to take it

[tribal stirrup]

I don't think I would see Re4 in a game, but after it was suggested I can see why it is good.

Since the one movers played g4, I think it will be even harder to get them to not take the rook

[tender grove]

the game is over

[tribal stirrup]

e5 has been played

I locked in Re4

I have enjoyed this game, getting to see the analysis of moves I wouldn't normally consider is neat. I was looking forward to seeing how we navigate a game after C5

[river prawn]

We were already cooked at that point

No attacking potential, no ideas

d4 is a permanent weakness

At least this way we lose quickly

[tribal stirrup]

I don't think losing quickly is good. I'm pretty bad at fighting back after I blunder, so seeing all the analysis of ways to defend and fight back are arguably more helpful to me than winning.

[jagged bobcat]

Re4 Nf4, then we play Nxe5 both threatening his queen, guarding g4 and taking away his knights support pawn. Then he plays fxe5, we follow with Rxf4. If he then takes exf4 I think we can take his rook (gxh5) Qg4+, Kf1 Qxh4, f3

[tribal stirrup]

what if he plays f5 after we play Re4? That position makes my head explode.

[tender grove]

doesn’t matter we can’t stop gh

[jagged bobcat]

Nxe5 (threaten his queen)

[pale rover]

everybody sacrificing the king 💪

[compact gale]

I don't think he would purposely bait us. We will see when he reviews the game.

[compact gale]

After 22 Re4 Nf4, we play Rxf4! This is the key.

[compact gale]

Or Rxe5 or gxh5 even.

[spring forge]

It does matter! You don’t give up just because your position is less comfortable, no, it should inspire you to flex your muscles and start fighting. I think this situation will help you improving your “chess vision” more then when it is just plain sailing.

[tender grove]

it doesn’t matter what we say, it’s almost at 50% of the votes

also I’m double your rating I know how counterplay works

[compact gale]

You would actually resign the position in normal chess? Against what opponent?

After 21 g4?

[tender grove]

I mean if someone possessed me to play c5 and g4 id be pretty tilted

but I would probably play Ne5 here to cause chaos in a blitz game

the point is we can’t stop the team from playing gh

so there’s no point trying

[compact gale]

That is why I said the position in a normal game

[tender grove]

right but this isn’t a normal game

[compact gale]

Why aren't you answering the question I posed?

[tender grove]

^

I feel like a strong enough GM still finds a way to beat levy specifically here

because his nerves are terrrible

[compact gale]

or Stockfish, right?

[tender grove]

leela maybe

I don’t trust stockfish

[potent cedar]

nah

we want this game to end soon so we canprove the point that world chess format needs attention

[tender grove]

I don’t think we can convince the team to play Qxf4, not like it would make a difference

[slow breach]

I agree. I think he played ...Rh5 was objectively a very strong move AND it also has the bonus that the "bullet move" magnetism is incredibly strong.

[tender grove]

yeah Rh5 was the right plan

[slow breach]

As long as "hoping" an opponent blunders is only, at most, the SECOND most compelling reason to make a move, it is perfectly fine

[tender grove]

The inclusion of Qd7?! does indicate that he had planned this somewhat

[slow breach]

I anticipated ...Rh5 as a likely move, but since we played g3, the "bullet move" g3-g4?? was a complete shock to my system (it shouldn't have been based upon previous voting behavior).

[potent cedar]

we want this game to end soon so we canprove the point that world chess format needs attention

[spring forge]

I respectfully disagree.
Ratings are very subjective, it doesn’t say anything about your real strength. . .

[tender grove]

??

this position is pretty unrealistic anyway, no competent person would play c5 g4

[outer lance]

We needed the bug / glitch to happen this turn and last last turn now, since it looks like gxh5 is going to win by a landslide.
. In case you don't know what I am talking about, look at the vote totals for move 18.

[scenic nest]

yes

[potent cedar]

i cant even view the game now its crashed for me 😥

[dire wave]

so are only way to prolong this is a queen sac right or am i missing something

[dim girder]

Just create a yes/no poll: ‘After gxh5, should we resign?’ That way we’ll end the game by resignation.

[tender grove]

i want to push for Rab1 after Nf4

[potent cedar]

resign isnt gonna get a majority, they all think were a rook up

[dim girder]

Yeah, but it could be our (discord) last "move"...

[tribal stirrup]

I'd still try for the queen sack.

[jovial magnet]

hehe

[dim girder]

Stockfish on the same hardware is far superior to Leela

Even if you give Leela a decent GPU, something around 1k USD. Stockfish running on a 100 USD CPU will still win.

[tender grove]

I mean the leela trained to beat humans with material odds

le fish just trades down if it thinks that’s the way it can survive the longest

[oak cloud]

why the actual fraud are people voting gxh5

[outer lance]

Because a person can be smart, but people are usually dumb?

[heady plover]

gxh5 Qg4+, Kh2 Qxf3. some serious problems but its not checkmate quite yet

not really sure what he would play after if we played Re4. Maybe Rh8

heres how i think the game will go for the next few moves: g4 e5, gxh5 Qg4+, Kh2 Qxf3, h6+ Kh7, Rg1. from there I have no idea what Gotham could play

[outer lance]

If we played Re4 here I think he would play Nf4 next, as it pretty much forces us to sac the exchange to prevent a devastating attack.

. See line here ...20.Qd2 Rh5 21.g4 e5 22.Re4 Nf4 23.Rxf4 exf4 24.Qxf4 ..., if what I said above didn't make enough sense, or whatever.

[dim girder]

yy, after Nf4 we are forced to take knight by our rook

exchange down with extra pawn

[crude gull]

Instead of Qxf3, Nf4!

[heady plover]

oh wow i didnt even see there were 2 checkmate threats with that move

i only saw 1 which is countered with Rg1 so i discarded the move

[compact gale]

We had included warnings in our recommendations to not move g4 or h5.
We have warnings in our current move 22 recommendation to not play gxh5.

[silent cloak]

We did our best

[compact gale]

There are 17 hours remaining and Re4 seems to be gaining. It has a lot to make up at 2688 votes to go. 48% vs 22%. Not impossible

[silent cloak]

Yes it is impossible, I gave up

Would 24. Qxf4 win the vote?

Then maybe a lot of noobs will yell "NOOOO! WE CAN'T LOSE OUR QUEEN! HOW IS THAT DUMB MOVE WINNING THE VOTE?!", wanting to lose our king

[thorn yarrow]

As part of the team, I voted for 22.Re4. It is the best move under the circumstances. But this has been a frustrating experience. Is Chess com simply using this format as some kind of propaganda? What will be the caption on this game? Githam chess beats 160,000+ chess players? as in ... The biggest chess game in history has concluded. In just 24 moves, GM Viswanathan Anand convincingly defeated nearly 70,000 opponents in the game known simply as Vishy vs. the World.

Gotham chess ( pardon the misspellings)

[compact gale]

212,983 players

[thorn yarrow]

I stand corrected Gotham Chess has beaten 212,983 players. Many of those players frustrated that it was not a collaborative effort.

[thorn yarrow]

Hmmmm ...I just got finished reading some of the comments on the Anand game. Not surprised. Chess.com needs to find a better way of doing vote chess because it is not fun nor entertaining. I am not sure what chess.com's real objective is. I imagine Gotham Chess versus the World comments will follow the same comments.

[tender grove]

riot!

[thorn yarrow]

I see two representative comments about the Anand game ... one from a member of "the world" ... " We lost because everyone voted for Qxd5 instead of Qg5 on move 14." and another from Anand ... " 14 ... Qxd5?? A pity that such an interesting game is decided by a blunder: after this move there's no hope .... " mmm what will Gotham Chess write?

[river prawn]

the poll says gxf5

it should be gxh5 but it doesn't make a difference

im not saccing my queen just to drag out the game when we're dead lost

[pastel onyx]

bruh it's so trudeauver chat

[storm grove]

lost

[hardy island]

We’re gonna see chess.com twist the narrative and be like

[river prawn]

don't let them do that

[hardy island]

The World put on a great fight but then Gotham sacrifices THE ROOOOOK

[river prawn]

yeah, this was not that

[hardy island]

and checkmates the world in 29 moves

[river prawn]

24 actually

[hardy island]

In his fcking signature and irony

[river prawn]

same as Anand 😭

[hardy island]

Wait that soon?

Tf?

[river prawn]

yes

[hardy island]

Wow I’m disappojnted with all these 600s

[river prawn]

22.gxh5 Qg4+ 23.Kh2 Nf4 24.Rg1 Qh3#

Anand also won in 24 moves

still beats the correspondence tournament i had with 202 moves across 10 games

only 3 of those games even made it to 30 moves, 31, 32, 33

[dim girder]

I think they should make it paid. For some tiny amount − like 0.5 USD to participate. Anyone who’s just clicking random moves probably wouldn’t pay, and anyone who takes it seriously wouldn’t mind. And chess.com would likely benefit from it too. win - win - win

[river prawn]

god no making it paid would kill the number of participants

it should be free

[storm grove]

after qg4 by gotham is it possible to be less worse and not sac the queen by kh1 instead of f1

[river prawn]

besides, that would not improve player quality, if anything it would probably make it even worse

[river prawn]

Kh1 Qxf3+ Kh2 Nf4 gg

[tender grove]

titled players get in for free

[river prawn]

at least in that case we get checkmated on move 25 instead of 24

but id rather we get checkmated on move 24 for two reasons

[hardy island]

That’s a horrible idea from a corporate point of view

[storm grove]

i forgot the knight was undefended, i just woke up 😔

[river prawn]

1. I want this mockery of a game to be over
2. It will be the exact same number of moves as Anand vs the World

[hardy island]

It’s much better to not care about how the game goes and just focus on the advertising

[river prawn]

make sure chess.com doesn't rewrite the narrative

[hardy island]

They will

[river prawn]

spam the comments section on the blog post

just like people did on Anand vs the World

[tender grove]

anand is the same strength as levy?!?!

best clickbait ever

[river prawn]

we voted to stop giving recommendations

[hardy island]

Hold up lemme pull one of my copypasta again

[tender grove]

I vote that we should recommend Rb1

[hardy island]

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve accomplished a feat that not even the greatest player of all time did. Not even Fischer, not even Tal, not even Capablanca, not Hikaru, and not even the greatest player in chess history Magnus Carlsen. As a matter of fact, I’m the third person to accomplish this feat before me. The first is the legend, arguably also the greatest chess player of all time, Garry Kasparov, and the second is an Indian legend, massive influence, Vishwanathan Anand. And I am the third person to do it. I just beat the entire world in a game of chess. Eight billion people. Something Magnus couldn't even do. Suck it you bozos. GM Levy is on the way."

[outer lance]

I will still probably enjoy the video, even if he is putting on an obnoxious or gloating persona.

[river prawn]

listening to "Komm, susser tod" rn, it's very symbolic

you know what i think would be fun? starting the game in an extremely complicated equal middlegame

with somewhere between a week and a month of prep time

something like any of these, with The World playing either side

i assure you, all of those positions are dynamically equal with best play

and all of them have occured at high level multiple times

and all but the last two have occured in one of my correspondence games

the first one at least 5 times

[outer lance]

I could see something like the names below for his video titles.
At least before he settles on one he likes the most, eventually.

. Why is everyone doing this garbage 2: Electric Boogaloo
. Magnus ! < "the World" !! < Levy !!!!
. Blunders. Blunders Everywhere!!!
. Chess is easy. you bozos just make it look hard .
. and oc any variation of "Sacrificing Da RooooooooooooooooooK"

[hardy island]

not clickbaity enough

it should be more like

“I BEAT THE WORLD”
“I BEAT 8 BILLION PROPLE AT CHESS”
“GM LEVY IS BACK”
“Domination.”
“Magnus couldn’t even did what I just did”

[outer lance]

Yes needs more !!!! and ??? at a bare minimum
. I am not a pro youtuber, so I don't know what is best for the algorithm???

[hardy island]

just gotta be all caps idfk

[river prawn]

gothamchess probably put in almost no effort

just play logical moves

wait for the World to screw up

Rh5 wasn't even baiting g4, it was just preparing for Ne7-Rd5-Rd8-Nf5, targeting d4

[compact gale]

The 4 team members that voted to continue making recommendations, what are your thoughts?

[tender grove]

Rb1

the a1 rook specifically

[river prawn]

can we do a poll after 22.gxh5 Qg4+ if we want to recommend resigning?

[vagrant pelican]

Resigning will remain a personal choice

[cosmic kindle]

Chess.com could improve our chances next time by adding another banner/prompt saying "Make sure you read the chat below before voting." or "Have you checked the chat below?" which would be covering the Vote button and which the players would need to confirm/close first. An invitation to the discord channel would be a nice bonus. This way the players are constantly reminded they have the option to consult/discuss with their teammates and potentially unify around the same plan, before they cast their vote. They could ignore the prompt but I assume more players would start participating in the chat/discord channel.

Anyone having a more direct channel with them besides sending an enhancement request mail?

[vagrant pelican]

Have taken a note of it. Thank you! We’ll try to have a discussion with them after the game

[compact gale]

1st Draft of Farewell message to the World Team.

Farewell to The World Chess Team for The World vs GothamChess!  The chess.com Official discussion forum has decided not to continue to spend lots of time and energy recommending responses after 22 gxh5?. For IM Levy Rozman (GothamChess), winning from this position is just a matter of technique. Many of us will choose to continue participating as individuals in the team chat.

Regarding the question of resigning: we are neutral. If you understand how to win the game from our opponents side, it is reasonable to vote to resign. Otherwise, we recommend you don't resign and learn how an IM wins a won game. This isn't always so simple.

When you vote to resign by clicking the Resign flag just below the movement buttons,  your resignation vote is recorded and combined with other resign votes, but votes for resign are not binding unless 60% or more of all the players voting on that move choose to resign. Otherwise, the game continues with the most voted for move other than resign. Note that you cannot make a move and resign, you must click the resign option and confirm it, then that is your move.  You can see how many players are voting to resign in the vote tab. It may take many moves for the resign vote percentage to become equal to or greater than 60%.

When the game finally does officially end, let's do a post mortem breakdown of the The World vs GothamChess game using our human thoughts, impressions and analysis enhanced by chess engine based game reviews.

You can join the Official Chess.com discussion forum to discuss and analyze future vote chess games, including participating in polls to select the best moves to recommend for The World Team, as well as promoting them in the GothamChess game team chat! Link: https://go.chess.com/PlayGothamDiscord

---

What changes should be made? I am thinking to post this tomorrow morning just before and after our turn ends.

[outer lance]

Just did a quick first pass look, and this is the only small mistake / typo I noticed:
" When the game finally does official end".
It should say officially.

[compact gale]

Thanks, fixed!

[oak cloud]

not really

I don't think people are doing that because they're "dumb"

they just don't want to invest much time into this and basically play like hyperbullet

that's the problem with worlds, it's basically (65% people who don't care)+(5% stockfishers)+(30% actual players)

vs a gm or an im

[potent cedar]

Whats the odds this is how the game ends?

[wraith ravine]

Low, we're not playing Re4

[pearl rover]

I’m also not happy with how the noobs ruined this game for us, and how Chess.com failed to create a good platform for voting chess.

[sharp magnet]

high

Kh2 doesnt work either

[crude gull]

What I don’t understand is why so many people voted for dxe5

[sharp magnet]

everything loses after Qg4+

[river prawn]

This is partially chess.com’s fault, we just wanted a good game

[potent cedar]

this is completely c.coms fault for advertising so much with no elo floor

[silent cloak]

That's because this is vote chess

Unlimited

for everyone

[potent cedar]

yeah but it was ok for kasparov and magnus

but games like this and vishy are a waste of time tbh

[compact gale]

Kasparov was not chess.com, it was MSN (Microsoft)

And we probably were lucky that Magnus did not take the game seriously

---

**Our poll on discontinuing recommendations is currently 24 in favor and 12 against. I'd really like to hear more from the 12 who want to continue. **

[compact gale]

@sick quiver @cosmic kindle @flint cipher Please tell us what you are thinking regarding continuing to publish recommendations. (This is a non-random ping!)

@median wraith @tender grove @crude gull Please tell us what you are thinking regarding continuing to publish recommendations. (This is a non-random ping!)

@sharp palm @bronze meteor @vague condor Please tell us what you are thinking regarding continuing to publish recommendations. (This is a non-random ping!)

@agile isle @fiery cliff @spring forge Please tell us what you are thinking regarding continuing to publish recommendations. (This is a non-random ping!)

---

3 hours until our turn ends

[crude gull]

I’m conflicted. It’s a lost position but with the right moves it can be somewhat playable. We’re practically down the exchange.

Ofc if Kf1 and Qxf4 are not played, there is truly no point.

[compact gale]

Thanks for responding! So there still a chance to play on after 22 gxh5 Qg4+ 23 Kf1 Nf4 24 Qxf4 exf4 where we have R+B vs Q, right?

[potent cedar]

yh but we're playing levy, not one of those noisy 100 elo voters, we gonna have no chance with that

[crude gull]

Yeah that’s what I meant

If Kh2 is played, gg

If Kf1 and anything other than Qxf4 is played, gg

[compact gale]

That is a compelling argument.

[vagrant pelican]

You mean R+N

But how are we saving that knight?

[compact gale]

It certainly isn't obvious to many that we are doomed from that position.

[crude gull]

Ah, I just saw it now

If we move the knight, f3 is coming

If we play Ke2, Re8+

[vagrant pelican]

Exactly

[crude gull]

But after Re8+ 26.Kd2?

[compact gale]

Gotham can easily force the loss of our knight or a rook

[crude gull]

Can he after 25. Ke2?

[compact gale]

25 .. Re8+ 26 Kd2 Qxf3

[vagrant pelican]

He exchanges rook and the knight is gone right?

[crude gull]

27. Rxe8

[compact gale]

oops

[vagrant pelican]

Rxe1 Rxe1 Qxf3

[compact gale]

Rxe1 Nxe1

[vagrant pelican]

Ah right

So if Kf1 is the only move in the position, should we do a yes/no/dont care poll?

[compact gale]

So I think 25 Ke2 Re8+ 26 Kd2 Rd8

We can hold the knight and rooks, but we lose so many pawns and the 4 king-side pawns will be unstoppable

[median wraith]

Many people have not been following the move recommendations; however, there were a few - including myself - who were. While I like calculating on my own, I loved being a part of the team, even if that meant losing the game against Gotham. It's been an honor. If, based on the number of votes, recommendations should be discontinued, I'll still do my best to vote for reasonable moves (not that anyone could save the position) and lose with dignity. I've learnt a lot from this game that I'll be taking with me.

[compact gale]

I'm running out of time this morning. 108 minutes until our turn ends

I think we should continue and see if the world can sac our queen to survive

So need a quick recommendation then

[median wraith]

Absolutely agree with you on that. We won't go down that easy, we'll keep fighting, though it's likely still losing.

[compact gale]

So we can do a normal recommendation that after Qg4+ we play Kf1 (best of our options I think)

Any objections to publishing that?

[potent cedar]

yeah thats fine, though i think that will be picked anyway

[compact gale]

Recommendation for our Move 23 response to GothamChess's expected reply to 22 gxh5? from discussion and polling on Chess.com's Official discussion forum

If GothamChess plays 22 .. Qg4+, we play Kf1 which is the best retreat option for our  king. We are in big trouble now.  After 22 .. Nf4, our best option is to sacrifice our queen to avoid checkmate!

You can join the Official Chess.com discussion forum to help discuss and analyze the game, vote in polls to select the best moves for The World Team, and promote them in the GothamChess game team chat!

Link: https://go.chess.com/PlayGothamDiscord

It probably will, but I think we will stick with the world a bit longer to see if they can sac our queen to avoid mate.

corrections:

Recommendation for our Move 23 response to GothamChess's expected reply to 22 gxh5? from discussion and polling on Chess.com's Official discussion forum

If GothamChess plays 22 .. Qg4+, we play 23 Kf1 which is the best retreat option for our king. We are in big trouble now.  After 23 .. Nf4, our best option is to sacrifice our queen to avoid checkmate!

You can join the Official Chess.com discussion forum to help discuss and analyze the game, vote in polls to select the best moves for The World Team, and help promote them in the GothamChess game team chat!

Link: https://go.chess.com/PlayGothamDiscord

I am out of time, so I will post that now.

[vagrant pelican]

Thank you David

[tribal stirrup]

I had a blast in this game. I wish more of the players came here to interact.

[spring forge]

I agree, carry on, you often will learn more from a loss than from a win.

[compact gale]

We are continuing recommendations.

[spring forge]

Thanks David!

[bronze meteor]

kf1 nf4 how do we stop mate

[cerulean python]

Sac the queen.

[bronze meteor]

how do we stop mate in a way were we dont resign after

[compact gale]

After sac'ing the queen we are only 1 point down in material .. and mate has been averted ...

[jovial magnet]

I wonder how many people actually see Nf4, I imagine many voters are expecting queen takes knight

[bronze meteor]

so kf1 qxf3 h6+ kh7 qe2 praying for a trade

[jovial magnet]

that would be pretty funny yes

[dim girder]

I’m curious whether after Nf4 they’ll notice the checkmate and take knight with the queen, or if they’ll just ignore him.

[vagrant pelican]

They’ll probably see the checkmate and move the rook. Only to delay it

Wait. Are there any free captures?

May be h6+

[jovial magnet]

Is Nh4 possible? I don't remember the board well

Oh no, pawn

Because we had f2 g3 h4

Pawns

Then g4, gxh5

Yeah

H pawn has not moved

I honestly expected king h2 to try preventing mate on g2 by playing Rg1 and getting checkmated on h3 instead

But if You didnt see Nf4 and instead expect Qxf3 then I guess Kf1 somehow makes sense

Apart from those who voted kf1 to then go qxf4 ofcourse

Although

After kh2 Qxf3 it feels like it's not so clear anymore

You can't play Queen or rook to e3 because the knight controls that

But You can go Rg1

Huh

Well yeah

Weird

Or is kf1 no longer winning and Im going on mindless rambling for nothing

@elfin rapids man do You know what the voting is at?

[heady plover]

ggs guys we got sold by the greedy players

[heady plover]

Kh2 Nf4 with 2 checkmate threats, and we would have to sac the Queen with Qxf4

[jovial magnet]

I know, I am trying to discern why kf1 is winning the poll

I thought most people that took the rook were expecting queen takes knight

instead of Nf4

so I expected Kh2 to be winning the poll, but it seems now all of a sudden everyone sees Nf4 an so we are going Kf1 to survive a little longer

[heady plover]

its just lost either way. we should resign

[jovial magnet]

we should

or play rook b2

b1*

anyways

I'm at my pc now

so I will see if kf1 is still winning

ah, yeah

landslide

hm

kh2 Qxf3 is still loosing because we can't hold our rooks together well while covering all the important squares

and also, we run out of space so we have to give the exchange back

[drifting kiln]

i know people are saying after Nf4 and QxN we are only down a pawn but... after exf4 i dont think theres a way to save the knight. wherever you move the knight, the queen will either win it immediately or checkmate. moving Ke2 also doesn't work because of Re8+

so i guess we are down a pawn and knight :/

[sharp palm]

Hi! I think that doing so would really be helpful, as we would be able to see better moves in different perspectives

[undone zinc]

There is a way to save the knight. Ke2 works because after Re8+, Kd2, the black rook is hanging. Rxe1 is followed by Nxe1.

[drifting kiln]

Ohh I see, I didn't realize knight can take. Thanks :)

[vagrant pelican]

Sure. We’ll recommend Qxf4 tomorrow but if it’s not voted, then it’s a forced mate

[sharp palm]

Thanks

I think main issues arise because a lot of beginners vote a lot of the time, affecting the votes

[dim girder]

Yeah, we can save the knight, but our position is just terrible. There’s no way we can defend that. QxN is the best option, but it’s completely lost anyway. We have no counterplay, we’re barely defending, and he has an active queen in our camp.

[jovial magnet]

yeah but after Ke2, Re8+ Kd2 there is Rd8 and it's goodnight.

can't move the knight or the rook comes in, but it might just be the best option.
if we try moving the king back then just Rxd4 and we can't take because the knight is pinned.
the threat is Re4 which will win the knight now. It is pinned so we can't do anything about it.

so after Rd8 we just have to move the knight and give up the pawn anyways.

we will be two points of material down, but now both the rook and the queen will be hunting our king

sadly, Ke2 is the only option to save the knight, we can't protect the knight so we can only move it to g1, h2 or d2

upon g1, pawn to f3 forces us to take the pawn, if we don't and instead move the rook to avoid checkmate, then Re8 seals our fate, we have to give up the knight

if we instead move the rook along the e-file to avoid checkmate, then Qf2+ the king moves, he takes our knight and skewers the king and the rook, we are down a full queen

so Ng1 loses the knight

upon Nh2, Qh3+ forks the knight and the king, if we move to g1 to defend it then again f3 and we have to give up the knight to avoid checkmate

upon Nd2, it's a bit longer but we lose our rook

Qh3+ Ke2
Re8+ Kd1
Rxe1+ Kxe1
Qh1+ Nf1
Qe4+ and it's over, the following move will be Qxd4+ forking the king and the rook

if after Nd2 Qh3+ we play Kg1 then f3 is the same thing again

we have to play knight takes pawn to avoid the checkmate on g2

the question is what do we want to play at move N° 27 if the next few move go
23. Kf1 Nf4
24. Qxf4 exf4
25. Ke2 Re8+
26. Kd2 Rd8

[compact gale]

Nh2 I guess., It's quite grim.

[jovial magnet]

Qg2 I think, he may just go for the jugular tho

no way anything but Nf1 is winning the poll after that

Qxf2+

he would just grab all the central pawns and hunt our king down

man this is not going to be fun

[dim girder]

Kf1, Nf4, Re3, Qg2+, draw offer since there’s no danger for the white king and it’s clearly drawn position + Ke1, Qh1, Ng1, Qxg1# these moves will be played 100% sure.

[storm grove]

im shocked how the world managed to draw against magnus carlsen lmao

[silent cloak]

It's really annoying to watch people chatting about which ones we should and shouldn't vote for among Kf1, Kh1, and Kh2

[crude gull]

It’s not that annoying, Kh2 and Kh1 lose immediately

Kf1 loses… in a while

[oak cloud]

queen dies if kf1, if kh2 or kh1 you get beamed

u lose no matter what

[crude gull]

She dies but we’re only down 1 point of material

With a terrible position that we probably can’t defend

But it’s worth a try

If Kh2 or Kh1, it wouldn’t be worth it

If anything other than Qxf4 is played next move, it’s not worth it either

[oak cloud]

btw how do you get the world team role?

[crude gull]

Go to #info-vs-theworld, scroll to the section on joining and tap the !! emoji

[dusky mountain]

Can we just resign after Nf4

[inner iron]

I don't think Levy wants us to resign. He'd rather see it play out... Why else would he be posting shorts and telling people to join the game because "the world" needs their help?

[dusky mountain]

After Kf1 Nf4 our only move to not get mated is to just sac the queen.
ig you're right tho

[vagrant pelican]

Who doesn’t love to checkmate your opponent?

[crude gull]

Tbh I would probably be able to beat “The World” too

[tender grove]

nah i still want to play Rb1

[compact gale]

Posted

[crude gull]

I am very curious if they will play it

[compact gale]

The 23 .. Qxf3 line is worth adding to this. I think (not yet verified) that we should play 24 dxe5 then .. Nf4 then 25 exf6+ Kh6 26 Qxf4+ ...

Anybody up to checking that? I have to go now ....

[vagrant pelican]

Perhaps… 24 dxe5 looks right. but that’s why he won’t play 23… Qxf3

There’s some post on team chat spotting the vulnerable e pawn even after 23… Nf4. They still don’t see the checkmate threat

[potent cedar]

How dumb can they get

[cobalt lintel]

#🔖〡roles

[compact gale]

Some tweaks

[compact gale]

Poll to make a recommendation against 23 .. Qxf3? or just do it? Feedback please.

[vagrant pelican]

For this we should do poll

[compact gale]

Poll to recommend: if Gotham plays 23 .. Qxf3, we play 24 dxe5 ?

yes/no/other poll?

How quickly can we decide? 1 hr, 4 hr?

we could give choices h6+, Qc2

[heady plover]

I vote to resign immediately

Even if we survive this attack, we have 0 piece activity and down material. No chance of winning at all

[compact gale]

In order for the team to resign, 60% of players voting on a move must vote to resign, otherwise, a highest voted move other than resigns is accepted

---

The 23 .. Qxf3 poll shows 6 votes to post a recommendation for 24 dxe5. 4 voted not to recommend anything. 3 voted for 24 h6+.

With only 13 hours left in Gotham's turn, I'm planning to post the 24 dxe5 recommendation against 23 .. Qxf3 in the next 15m. Objections? Concerns?

If GothamChess plays 23 .. Qxf3, we play 24 exd5 intending exf6+ and hxg6 in order to trade off Gotham's king side pawns, making it significantly harder for Gotham to win. We will still need to sac our queen against Nf4 to avoid checkmate.

Thinking to use this explanation in our recommendation

Posted

[vagrant pelican]

Some of the comments on team chat are delusional!!!

[vagrant pelican]

Qxf4 is leading by a big margin

I guess this game will go on for a bit more

[crude gull]

Yeah, the world woke up

A bit too late though

[pastel onyx]

chat it's so trudeauver

we're so cooked

[potent cedar]

wow, how did the world get this bright all of a sudden

also why do folk say we'll only be one pawn down when we'll have a n and 3 ps all under attack 😭 🤣

[vagrant pelican]

He’ll definitely go exf4. So how do we save the knight? Is Ke2 the only move or we can play Nh2 and take King to the corner?

[crude gull]

25. Nh2 Qh3+ 26. Kg1 f3

And we have to sac the knight to survive

[vagrant pelican]

Oh right. So Ke2 is the only move

[crude gull]

I think so

[vagrant pelican]

Well, only moves in the position is saving some time with the polling

I don’t know this new found wisdom of sacking the queen to survive is a one time move thing

[compact gale]

It will be true after Gotham recaptures. That is what a noob will see. It takes more advanced players to realize what you say is true. I was trying to keep the world playing the best it can, so using some psychology.

[compact gale]

Some candidates for us: Ke2, h6+, Nd2, Ng1, Nh2, Ne5, Ng5. But Ke2 seems to be our best try.

[compact gale]

I wouldn't say its the only move, but it is our "best", I think, but not by a lot. The world might enjoy playing h6+ and then Ke2.

[compact gale]

Probably not, but the message about imminent mate vs survival seems to have gotten out.

[vagrant pelican]

But how? These same people voted for g4 and then gxh5. This confuses me a lot. They are suddenly reading the chat now?

Someone had sent a script to get list of people who are voting for a move. If I had time, I would want to compare the number if common voters for these moves

[compact gale]

With no evidence to support this, I think it is probable that players do talk to each other outside of chess.com. Checkmate might have inspired more communication.

[compact gale]

So some diffusion of knowledge from team chat to outside team chat.

[crude gull]

Imo it may be that the checkmate is now visible to everyone except complete beginners, so they vote for the only move that prevents it

[potent cedar]

theres no serious team chat we dont know about, surely

[zinc mauve]

What are we actually thinking here

[inner iron]

They're watching Levy's shorts. Maybe we should ask levy to tell "the world to look at the discord recommendations before they vote on a move since those recommendations are based on a team or group that have discussed, polled, got input from titled players etc to avoid blunders, etc..." I don't really know if this would even work... The only think I think that would possibly work is only allowing them to vote on recommended candidate moves made by the team. (Force them to choose from a list of moves put together by the team or candidate moves.) Sure, if they came up with a better move, then they would need to discuss with the team to get it added, but otherwise, they'd be SOL. This is IMO the only way they could practically "fix" vote chess... for WORLD matches... We wouldn't want this for regular team vote matches, and if you change it for world matches, the same rules would most likely apply for ALL of vote chess team matches... That's why I dont think they implement stuff like forcing people to read the chat, etc...

[compact gale]

The Kasparov game did not require them to play one of the coaches recommendations, but there were the first thing everyone saw with 6 hours of analysis before you got a chance to vote

[inner iron]

This was a different generation of people that were playing... In today's world, if you delayed voting for 6 hours, all you would get would be people popping in 6 hours later to vote their bullet move. It wouldn't force them to read the chat or even look at recommendations for that matter... Today's generation doesn't even neccesarily WANT to win... They will play moves like the Alien Gambit or the Bongcloud for the memes or for content against an IM.... Not really sounding like someone who wants to win if you ask me...

[crude gull]

What’s the difference between the generations

I mean, they were both the same age at their respective times

What changed

[inner iron]

Too many variables that are different between Kasparov vs the World and Gothamchess vs the world.

[crude gull]

I think the main issue is the ease of access

[crude gull]

Which is good

But also makes pretty much everyone able to vote

[potent cedar]

How did we draw against magnus

[inner iron]

People in that generation weren't voting for memes or for content.... they were voting because they were interested in chess. I would bet that many of the voters now are casual players that aren't really interested or don't have the time to put into chess. You have more people that know HOW to play, but aren't playing better. They make moves today for the LOLS, and not because they want to win a chess match against the best.

[crude gull]

That’s partially the reason. I think though it’s not a problem with this generation but with the ease of access. Most children were unable to vote in 1999.

Tbh I wasn’t even born in 1999 but, even when I was born and for the first years of my life, we had a very slow dial up internet connection. I was one of the only children experimenting with the PC, the others had no idea how to even turn it on.

Now every 9 yo has their own smartphone

[pale rover]

were xooked

[inner iron]

I agree that ease of access is a big part of the problem... I think that's Fabiano's idea too. I guess it's a blessing and a curse... The point I am making is mainly that comparing how votechess is played today in 2025 is WAY different than how it was played in 1999 and prior...

Average rating in the Kasparov vs the world match? Somewhere between 1200 and 1600...
Average rating in the Gothamchess vs the world match? Somewhere between 900 and 1200...

Numbers derived from chess.com forums, google, ai, etc.

[tender grove]

mode is like 400

[compact gale]

We should move this to #theworld-general

[compact gale]

24 .. Qh3+ 25 Ke2 right?

24 .. Qxf4 25 Ng1, Re3, h6+

OK gonna throw up 3 polls

[drifting kiln]

if QxQ maybe Kg1 is better than Re3

[compact gale]

24 Qxf4 Qxf4 25 Ng1 e4 26 Re3 Rh8 27 hxg6 Rxh4 28 gxf7 Rh2

[drifting kiln]

hopefully with this we wont be forced to move our knight this way to so it can defend the h pawn and delay the blacks rook from joining the attack

[compact gale]

24 Qxf4 Qxf4 25 Re3 exd4 26 Rd3 Qf5 27 Rad1 Qxh5 28 Nxd4 Re8

The 24 .. exf4 and .. Qh3+ polls have clear leaders in the early going with Ke2, while the 24 .. Qxf4 poll has a narrow lead for Re3 over h6+. Keep those poll votes coming!

[potent cedar]

Bro the average rating is way less than 900 here 😭😭😭

[compact gale]

Recommendations for our Move 25 responses to GothamChess's expected replies to 24 Qxf4 from discussion and polling on Chess.com's Official discussion forum:

If GothamChess plays 24...exf4, we play 25 Ke2 protecting our Nf3 and running to relative safety on the queen-side. If 25...Re8+ 26 Kd2 we hold onto the knight after 26...Rxe1 27 Nxe1.

If GothamChess plays 24...Qh3+, we play 25 Ke2, protecting our Nf3 and running to relative safety on the queen-side. If 25...exf4 26 Ng1.

If GothamChess plays 24...Qxf4, we play 25 h6+, checking Gotham's King so he knows we are still around, and then follow that up with Ng1 or Re3 after to protect our knight.

You can join the Official Chess.com discussion forum to help discuss and analyze the game, vote in polls to select the best moves for The World Team, and promote them in the GothamChess game team chat! Link: https://go.chess.com/PlayGothamDiscord

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About to post this. Any quick feedback?

The 24.. Qxf4 25 h6+ line is not our best try, giving up the h-pawn up for just a 1 move delay. But it does let out a little emotion?

[compact gale]

Reposted this after archiving in the new team chat.

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24 Qxf4 is on the board.
I believe we are expecting 24 .. exf4 to which our polls show we should play 25 Ke2.

[compact gale]

Can we move some of the h6+ votes to a better move, please? It is hard to explain why we chose h6+ on one of our recommendations but not the others.

h6+ makes our defensive task harder.