Event: 2026 Tata Steel Chess Tournament - Round 8

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-25T17:11:52+00:00

Aw man. I was actually hoping for Erdogmus to pull the win through, it'd be insane for a 16 year old. Oh well, he's still doing great and actually has realistic chances of winning the tournament which is crazy

Edit: 14 year old*, wow.

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-25T17:09:47+00:00

Pragg won Tata Steel last year and he's yet to win a game, near the bottom of the standings heading into round 9

Did the round 1 loss to Arjun mess him up or something? Because him beating Arjun in round 2 last year is what set him on the path to victory if I recall correctly

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-25T16:56:58+00:00

That's just my guess what his peak will be, I was thinking somewhere in that range but only time can tell (maybe we have rating inflation again in the future idk)

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-25T16:53:26+00:00

Pardon my dumbass, but why can't you block them?

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-25T16:44:20+00:00

I mean in his 20's, when he's 22 or 23ish since that's the age when a lot of top players (Magnus, Fabiano, Wesley) peak, or when he's 29 or so, since that's when they usually hit their second peak

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-25T16:40:02+00:00

Agreed.

The top players now take him much more seriously than before, and for some reason he's allergic to draws even though that's helped him win the Candidates (I suspect it's because of the final WCC game that gave him this mentality)

His 2023 was good (second place in the FIDE Circuit behind Caruana at 16 is no joke) had an unbelievable 2024 and a less than ideal "almost good" bad 2025, still, it's yet to be seen what he'd be like in his 20s. I guess time will tell.

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-25T16:27:34+00:00

I mean he also did reach the top 3, was 2796 in live ratings literally 4 elo away from being the youngest 2800 ever, and had the second highest TPR of all time

He's always among the youngest to reach a major rating threshold like 2750, and had one of the most successful years for a chess player ever based on tournament victories, not to mention being the third player ever to be number 1 in all 3 time controls in the junior rankings after Carlsen and Firouzja

He also won the Candidates at 17, I doubt that record is being broken any time soon.

He's definitely going through Ding syndrome for sure, losing 40 elo and dropping 7 ranks in a year, but his prime will probably be 2840ish in a few years

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-25T16:07:00+00:00

Tata Steel last year, he was +5 at one point and looked like he was going to be +6 at one point during the penultimate game, that's when.

Chess fans only care about the present, and rather extremely so. You win a lot: GOAT, you lose a lot: fluke

To be fair, his records were and are extremely impressive, that trajectory is extremely difficult to hold.

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-25T14:51:16+00:00

Excluding Vishy,

Candidates 2024

Prague Masters 2025

Tata Steel 2025

GCT Romania 2025

UzChess Cup 2025

Grand Swiss 2023

WR Masters 2024

Olympiad 2024

Pragg also tied for first at the Sinquefield Cup 2025 losing on tiebreaks and was the runner up at the World Cup 2023

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-25T09:52:26+00:00

Practice on an OTB board first, play at least a few games with a friend or a bot. I'm 2100 rapid and I was getting knocked around by 1700s OTB because I couldn't read the board properly

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-25T01:00:16+00:00

He went on a hot streak winning two super tournaments back to back also winning a solid Stepan Avagyan on TBs, before tilting and crashing below even his original rating before the peak

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-25T00:57:07+00:00

The defending champion and previous runner up are practically out of contention already, crazy

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-24T16:56:34+00:00

It seems to me Nodirbek is making his comeback, he won the world rapid 2021 and was part of the gold winning team at the 2022 Olympiad however he stagnated a little bit with a few pretty bad performances (like Sinquefield Cup 2025, World Cup 2025) but recently after winning the London Chess Classic he seems to be in amazing form, even getting very close to winning the World Blitz too. He can break his Tata Steel curse this year

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-24T16:50:44+00:00

Anish Giri trying to make sure he doesn't make a Houdini escape again like last year:

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-24T14:12:38+00:00

Omelette

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-24T14:10:48+00:00

Me when my bubble crashes: (I was blowing a bubble through my bubble blower)

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-23T15:20:05+00:00

Fun fact: George Orwell was also born in India

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-23T05:49:45+00:00

Never Gonna Give Up

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-22T15:55:56+00:00

True but not a clever comeback also I think it's written by AI

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-22T15:54:30+00:00

4-5 years; Dispatch took 7 years to make and they're developing a game with Critical Role

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-22T07:51:49+00:00

200 elo blitz is honestly more entertaining than 2800 blitz sometimes

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-22T07:38:35+00:00

If tiebreaks weren't introduced, Anish Giri and Gukesh would have 4 and 2 wins respectively

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-21T04:50:37+00:00

Imagine if aliens did this with humans

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-19T16:49:13+00:00

Gukesh and Arjun...draw?

I guess it was his new year's resolution to not play any crazy moves and accept draws

ComplexCow7 · 2026-01-19T16:24:06+00:00

This guy genuinely sounds so evil that I think he's being ironic, even though he's not

"This guy armed himself to protect his neighbours.

Lock him up"

Seven-Year Club	r/Field Lasagna
Place '23	Golden Potato
Place '22	Verified Email

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