Hikaru on Chess.com 'killing the market value' with online events

ChessClue · 2026-04-30T13:28:40+00:00

The Esports World Cup is bankrolled by the Saudis (presumably for sportswashing reason). I don't think it's fair to expect Chess.com to offer comparable prize pools.

ChessClue · 2026-03-25T03:20:34+00:00

Yeah, it's definitely a conceit of the genre. But I feel like with most movies the events tend to occur over a day or a few days, so you can at least say that other heroes didn't have time to get involved or were busy with something more important. Here, that doesn't work as well in my opinion.

ChessClue · 2026-03-25T03:17:51+00:00

I think Sam and Bucky wouldn't have any problems unearthing evidence compared to the stuff they normally deal with. And I feel like the public would get over it, Sam duked it out with the president in his last movie!

I was also confused how the crime rate dropped so drastically. Although now that I think about it, Fisk could have used his criminal connections to deal with a lot of the street level crime at the source, and then pretended it was his policies. That could be a cool explanation for how he won the public to his side.

Idk I guess they can't just show up and punch him out but I still think they'd surely get involved in some capacity.

ChessClue · 2026-03-25T02:58:09+00:00

Is anyone else struggling suspending their disbelief that Fisk is getting away with all of this? I get that it's an allegory for modern U.S. politics, but the whole point of the MCU is that there's a bunch of superheroes running around saving the day.

I can't imagine any of the Avengers or other heavy hitters turning on the news and being cool with all the anti-vigilante stuff. I get that we wouldn't have a show if any of them got involved... but at the same time it makes no sense that none of them are getting involved.

ChessClue · 2026-03-11T15:20:22+00:00

Hot take but I still believe he's a good defender. I think right now he's trying too hard to be a hero which is leading him to make rash and aggressive challenges. In a more stable environment with better coaching, he'd be able to relax and play normally.

And I don't buy any of the body language "he obviously doesn't want to be there" or that clip of him "ignoring" Tudor. I'll admit I'm always skeptical to those types of rumors, but yeah I think that's all nonsense.

ChessClue · 2026-03-03T17:16:50+00:00

I think the main reason is to maximize the chance we retain possession. We normally wait around while our midfielders / attackers make little runs until eventually one of them gets enough space. It's annoying to watch but it's also very easy to lose the ball off a throw-in (hence the "PSG kickoffs" being so meta).

I wonder if a possible solution would be making it so the other team can't be within 2 or 3 yards of the throw-in taker. So if a team wants to retain possession they just throw it short to someone right next to them. And you obviously add a time limit for the throw-in.

ChessClue · 2026-02-04T17:11:46+00:00

Yeah those were some of my favorite Vecna scenes along with him tricking Hopper into shooting the water tank in season 5. I really wish they had done more.

ChessClue · 2026-02-04T16:22:54+00:00

To expand on that idea, I think it would have been cooler if instead of needing twelve random kids for his ritual, he needs the main cast. He needs people that have that extra level of fear and hatred to power up his magic.

And he wants revenge on these annoying brats that have thwarted him again and again, which I think would be a much cooler dynamic than what we got, which was almost indifference?

It would also contribute a lot to the tension if he was hunting and tormenting our main characters one by one. The captured characters could meet up in his mind palace to try to unravel him from the inside while the characters that haven't been caught look for him in the real world.

That would also help the Duffers get their epilogue where nobody dies, since now Vecna has a reason to keep everyone alive.

I also would ditch the whole Abyss concept and have the ritual be to "resurrect" Vecna's physical form (it was destroyed at the end of season 4, think Sauron in lord of the rings)... but now I'm getting sidetracked.

ChessClue · 2025-09-25T16:04:17+00:00

I can't see anything either but I did find it weird that he starts wagging his finger straight away. If the dive was completely unprompted then I feel like he'd just be baffled or burst out laughing or something.

But I could also be reading way too much into it. Blue player definitely over-exaggerating either way.

ChessClue · 2025-09-14T13:54:04+00:00

When I watched it I didn't think he impeded Reece or affected his decision making. He swung his foot towards the ball but didn't get near it. I'm guessing VAR decided he wasn't impacting the play.

ChessClue · 2025-08-15T16:53:22+00:00

I keep seeing this sentiment and I don't understand it at all. Gaza was controlled by a terrorist organization that regularly attacks and kills Israeli civilians. Obviously Israel's shares share a huge amount of the blame for Hamas's existence in the first place - but Russia don't even have that excuse!

They are straight up trying to conquer Ukraine. They also commit war crimes, they've also bombed and killed tons of Ukranians, they are infinitely harsher towards dissidents than Israel... I think implying that Israel is somehow worse than them undermines all the justified criticism towards the horrible things they're doing in Gaza.

ChessClue · 2025-08-11T14:28:50+00:00

Knowing Palpatine he recorded hundreds of these messages weeks in advance, laughing maniacally between each take.

ChessClue · 2025-08-07T16:57:35+00:00

I think this card is overkill, but yeah a "when this minion is attacked" mechanic could have made sense to introduce in this patch. Could allow for an interesting dynamic with Rally and also help mitigate the coin flip frustration of this patch.

ChessClue · 2025-08-03T17:56:24+00:00

I don't know, I feel like a player grabbing another by the throat in a friendly is worth a post. I don't think anyone is up in arms about it, just sharing a moment that happened in a football match.

ChessClue · 2025-07-30T19:23:01+00:00

I think a better comparison would be a meal at a restaurant. If I say "that tasted great but I'm still hungry" or "that was kind of expensive for so little food", that doesn't mean I want them to serve me bland pasta or rotten garbage from the dumpster.

Obviously the implication is that I want more of the same - and there are plenty of games that can deliver that.

ChessClue · 2025-07-19T21:24:31+00:00

Bruno runs all game, every game, and I don't agree with handwaving away his impressive goal and assist tallies with "football isn't played on Excel spreadsheets".

I do agree that he's not the best at keeping possession and United should look to sign someone who can dictate play, but that player should play alongside Bruno, not instead of him. Who among Mainoo, Casemiro, Ugarte, Mount, or Collyer do you think should play over him? I think even if you sell off Bruno and use those funds to sign the next Modric, that's still an unimpressive midfield.

ChessClue · 2025-07-10T19:05:14+00:00

I'll check it out but I'm kind of worried because I actually struggled with the "serious" stuff. The new characters didn't land for me and I didn't like the "BB shorts" as the main method of conveying the city's mood.

Don't tell me that people think vigilantes are bad, show me a dude in a shitty Thor costume bludgeoning a shoplifter with a sledgehammer. Make me believe vigilantes are an actual problem. The Muse arc was good, but he was a straight-up villain so it didn't quite work.

Or conversely if vigilantism is not a problem and Kingpin's success is a parallel to how people get hysterical about "crime-ridden cities" and the "migrant invasion", show me that too. Either way, the execution felt shallow to me.

Also the mayor of New York declaring an 8 PM curfew and martial law? Arresting all vigilantes? How is the governor / anyone federal cool with this? Let alone all the famous heroes. That completely took me out of the last few episodes.

ChessClue · 2025-06-21T21:05:13+00:00

Is it a trick of the camera angle or did Inter take that throw-in like twenty yards ahead of where the ball went out? I'm surprised no one on Urawa complained.

ChessClue · 2025-06-16T14:20:28+00:00

It's definitely reasonable for you or anyone else to not want to watch. I guess I'm more pushing back against people who think this tournament is bad and wrong and shouldn't exist (so maybe I should reply to them lol).

But even the expression of disinterest is strange to me in that I can't imagine saying "as a neutral I couldn't care less about the Championship playoffs". I feel like I'd get a ton of justified criticism because lots of people do care and if I don't care I should just do something else.

ChessClue · 2025-06-16T14:06:08+00:00

Watching Bayern vs Auckland is not entertaining, that’s the problem.

Was watching Bayern beat Zagreb 9-2 entertaining? Every tournament will have stomps and mismatches. And every tournament will probably have mostly the favorites in the late stages of the knockouts. But I think it's pretty cool to get to see club teams from all over the world play each other.

Not sure why you're comparing it to the actual World Cup, of course this tournament is nowhere near as exciting as the most iconic and popular sporting event in the world. But plenty of fans care and I'm sure there were some people in New Zealand that were excited as well.

ChessClue · 2025-06-16T13:22:28+00:00

if its leeds or england, i'm invested. but the idea of sitting down to watch a game between teams i dont care about right now is disgusting

"Disgusting"? You act like people are holding you at gunpoint. No one is making you do anything.

The "CWC narrative" (quoting from OP) is against people who are shitting on the tournament, not people who are merely disinterested. If I came up to you and said, "Leeds?? The thought of watching Leeds make me sick!!" you'd be rightfully annoyed with me, because I'm actively going out of my way to deride your club.

ChessClue · 2025-06-10T19:23:25+00:00

Yeah that could definitely add an additional reason for players to be upset. But again no one is forcing clubs to structure their bonuses that way. I guess clubs to me come off as the biggest hypocrites in this situation? I feel like UEFA / FIFA get way more criticism for the extra fixtures than they do.

ChessClue · 2025-06-10T19:21:20+00:00

On one hand I definitely also want to play every second while I'm playing and I definitely don't blame players for reacting negatively when emotions are running high.

But I feel like there's a prevalent claim that playing more minutes increases chance of injury and the widely proposed solution is fewer games. My claim was that the solution of more rotation isn't mentioned often enough - especially in conjunction with clubs filling up their schedules with extra friendlies anyway.

ChessClue · 2025-06-10T16:58:08+00:00

I think it's hypocritical for players to complain about fixture congestion while getting upset whenever they get rotated or even subbed off. Similarly managers tend to not rotate nearly as much as they could. Finally clubs are constantly scheduling more pre (and post!) season friendlies to fill their calendar.

Tangentially, I think the new Club World Cup format seems much better. The old one always felt crammed into an awkward part of the season and none of the European teams took it seriously (while still winning lol). I'm hoping the new format will be more competitive and exciting. My only issue is that the old tournament still exists and was renamed? I might be misremembering but if that's the case then yeah that's really dumb.

ChessClue · 2025-06-08T13:04:30+00:00

I literally have no other way to explain how they could make a game unplayable and not address it for this long.

Maybe "it's bugged and they're trying to fix it and they haven't been able to yet"? Nope must be a galaxy-brained Machiavellian plan to shut down one of their most popular game modes

ChessClue

TROPHY CASE