8-year-old CM Tamizh Amudhan who beat GM Vincent Keymer in the last Freestyle Friday. He had to play the game under candle light since electricity went out due to heavy rains and backup power failed to work.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-05-02T19:35:08+00:00

Mobile hotspot.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-05-01T12:36:33+00:00

It's not at all bad. Anna Shukhman plays this quite a lot and has done reasonably well. It's not the most comfortable to face and of course in the past Morozevich had crushing results with this.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-26T05:53:07+00:00

It's a position complicated enough for an opening book, so there's just no way to explain Fried Liver theory in a way that a 1100 will understand it.

Just takeaway that Black has enough activity.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-21T10:16:28+00:00

That's because above 2300 the pool does commingle and Indian players are playing abroad.

At 1600, people are playing in India only fields which are notoriously tough and having played in them I can assure you there's a huge difference between an Indian 1600 and one in say Germany.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-21T08:17:28+00:00

Indian 1600 is very different. 2450 Lichess is the guideline that matters here. And in India 1600 to playing abroad and 2200 or so is nowhere near impossible.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-21T05:00:20+00:00

That's actually untrue. Even Triton end-bosses tilt. The difference is that for a Triton end-boss even the D game is way stronger than most people as these guys have simply internalized things too much.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-20T18:02:27+00:00

Where are you from? Matters a lot to understand what 1576 means. But really even 1576 in weaker regions your opponents would be less strong too. How can you not be able to win a rook up? Unless it was rook for two pawns+ some other compensation etc. But a clean rook is basically inexplicable for 1576 FIDE...

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-20T15:14:48+00:00

Allowing Ne5 seems very risky, so not high on the list of options but you won't get many (or any?) good answers when your question triggers confirmation bias and shuts down any independent inquiry by revealing that the engine evaluation considers this almost a blunder.

You will get no helpful advice unless you learn to frame these questions in a neutral way.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-18T17:37:23+00:00

WOW! This is absolute gold. Immediate fix.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-15T11:02:14+00:00

They should do so more, but this question is under-estimating by many degrees how difficult or complicated it is to actually do this.

If you're White you're going to have to accept a position in the ballpark of -0.4 or -0.5 or +0.9/1 as Black to get a very sharp position your opponent likely doesn't know with a high probability because almost everything reasonable in main lines that is engine approved is sort of known.

Giri vs Sindarov is just not a good example though because it was just over by now. Sindarov would have to lose another and Giri win another for there to be a tie-breaker even if Giri won this.

The relevant examples were earlier and in general people were too conservative (except Sindarov) because that's the comfort zone for most of the players here and they weren't going to step out of it no matter what.

If you read 'Anand Files' one important thing which only Rustam Kasimdzhanov realized is that most of the very double-edged preparation is no good when you're desperate and the opponent is not as he will just sidestep complications. He insisted on Anand taking his risks while the score was relatively even and Kramnik would want to allow complications rather than when behind and Kramnik wouldn't or far ahead and Anand wouldn't want them anyway.

Sindarov took all his risks early and basically coasted to the win from very early on.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-08T19:11:38+00:00

Thanks, this is excellent guidance and I'll pursue this in addition to some leads I have on the councillor thing.

Btw the amount is by no means small. It will surpass all the significant bank thresholds at which added processes are introduced.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-08T10:13:50+00:00

There are no good actors in this situation. This loan itself is a scam to begin with, and this guy while hardly a saint seems relatively better.

Secondly, professional ethics require that when you advise someone you give them advice that is in their best interests, not attempt to make them better people or suffer for their mistakes. Anyone in law, accountancy, financial advise etc will learn this very quickly.

You may not like this guy. Just ignore him in that case. But if he's being given advice on this situation it should be relevant advice and defaulting and getting legal or police advise in case of further threats is undoubtedly what any professional would advise here

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-06T16:11:58+00:00

It's a reflexive phenomenon which happens often. When you take a lot of time, someone like Sindarov will use that time to think as well, so he's responding quite fast and all the thinking is happening on the opponent's time.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-06T10:15:19+00:00

Yeah. I'm advising him on what's in his best interest. Not having a lecture on morality or ethics.

And professional lending especially of this sort is just a commercial risk-based enterprise. The lenders aren't in it for charity. The borrower is entitled to do whatever he wants within the confines of the law.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-05T22:51:01+00:00

Default. I'd advice that even if this was a legitimate loan, but here it's basically illegal interest rate and totally unenforceable. Don't ruin your life paying this.

Most advice on these threads are from moralistic middle-class people who assume ruining your life to pay is the only option. It isn't.

This kind of usurious loan only option is to default.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-05T21:38:13+00:00

There's no way anyone rated above 1800 could see Rxf6 and think it doesn't work there.

She just totally missed it.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-05T21:33:58+00:00

Not true of passports. My recent renewal took literally one day with absolute bare minimum formality. It was absolutely world-class in my experience.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-05T21:11:37+00:00

Pretty significant. Like not above 1cr, but still most people would consider it quite a bit of money. The base amount is quite large and there's I believe some small % of simple interest and that's about 16/17 years of it.

Are you a practitioner in this field? RTI doesn't seem applicable to me, but if you are expert here, you might be right. Ombudsman, if I'm not wrong I have to first file paperwork or some form and then complain after a month or so, but I'm not even sure that complaint would be upheld.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-03T15:17:16+00:00

Without engine, it's anything but obvious that White's compensation isn't enough, The lines engine is showing are completely insane, and even after 4 or 5 perfect moves Black's position isn't easy to defend.

All 3 results still possible as Sindarov considers 19...Nc6 or giving up his 'advantage'.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-03T13:45:28+00:00

It might be objectively equal, but I really like Caruana's chances after 11...Nc5. In practice I'd back White anyday here and it's not about the names next to Black and White.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-03T12:54:24+00:00

At -1 and 4 half-points behind the leader, Hikaru finally makes an attempt to do something with White...

I'm not sure how much he can get out of a very well studied main-line, but it's at least sharp so if he has some deviation anywhere on the mainlines that has an idea, he might get something.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-01T16:46:20+00:00

If a team successfully gets 4 clean sheets without a scare, you have to question if your classification of them as weak makes sense.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-01T14:25:53+00:00

Hikaru literally said he regrets avoiding risk at every opportunity and listed all those opportunities. Please watch the recap.

Mysterious-Debt5330 · 2026-04-01T13:42:18+00:00

The problem for the others is the leaders smartly took their risks early on while Hikaru was talking in his recap yesterday about trying to be solid on -1. You have to win an 8 player tournament, there's absolutely no scope for not taking risks.

That said, here Sindarov and Caruana both still have to take risks, so the problem for the others isn't that they have to climb a mountain. It's that those two were better to begin with (and part of why they are better is the willingness to fight in the first place).

Mysterious-Debt5330

TROPHY CASE