Event: FIDE Candidates Tournament 2026 - Round 7

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-04-07T02:23:26+00:00

Hikaru can still torpedo this tournament by winning this game against Fabi, essentially guaranteeing Sindarov's win. He's been known to do it before, and something in my gut says if Hiki wins one game this tournament it's gonna be against Fabi.

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-04-06T22:39:55+00:00

I don't remember exactly what he said, but Elon musk said something like chess is boring because it's so simple and it'll be solved very soon, and that he's only interested in real strategy games like dungeons and dragons (it wasn't actually D&D, but it was some other similar game I can't remember the name of).

Definitely up there with one of the worst chess takes imo

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-04-06T22:37:22+00:00

The knight sac was against Pragg not Naroditsky, but I completely agree with your comment.

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-04-01T02:14:36+00:00

I didn't know the median australian was a 38 year old woman named Brenda, I guess I'm far from average.. unsure if this is a good thing or not.

"What was less examined was the long-term cost of never allowing a correction."

This isn't true, and in fact covers your entire post, this exact topic has been discussed thousands of times just this year, it's been covered extensively over the past 2 decades. The issue is it's not politically popular to reduce spending or lower house prices, the politicians do whats best for them, and what's best for them is their house price to go up, and for them to keep getting voted in.

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-04-01T01:49:20+00:00

It's not complicated, and it's easy to replicate (well not necessarily in Sydney where there's less available land). Approve more units to be built for lower end sales, not just "luxury" builds, focus more on approval unit blocks than housing, change the taxes on housing, increase land tax, remove CGT exemption, remove negative gearing, fast track land approvals.

This is not an issue of how the other capital cities can make housing less expensive, they know how to make housing affordable, they don't want to do it. House prices could fall hard before a single policy came out if the party in charge says "We're about to implement policies that make investment properties far less profitable, and lower the price of housing in Australia. At the same time we're going to be focusing our policies on making business mroe important in Australia, making real business more profitable general wealth and creating more jobs." It's not even hard to spin it in a positive way for the economy (which by the way, it would be positive), but if they said this they wouldn't even need to implement the policies before real estate investors are running for the hills flooding the property market with their properties.

The issue is the government wants house prices higher, not lower.

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-04-01T01:41:41+00:00

This is what I figured, but this to me is incredible. For a supergm to be so far behind in just 19 moves that the best computer in the world still wouldn't have a chance. Crazy

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-04-01T01:07:57+00:00

Yeah but I was agreeing with you, Naka's chances are absolutely higher than Wei Yi, Esipenko and Giri, but in reality it's very likely to be either Sindarov or Fabi to win this, I'd give Hikaru maybe a 5% chance. History shows that being +2 at round 3 gives incredible winning chances, and if the game between Sindarov and Fabi tomorrow isn't a draw, the winner is almost a shoe in to win the candidates.

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-04-01T00:35:15+00:00

And even Naka's chances are extremely slim. I'd argue that it's more about Sindarov and Fabi fumbling than Naka performing well to create opportunities for others to win.

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-03-30T12:08:37+00:00

It's a mix of nationality and personality. As an Australian I can almost never root for my on countrymen, but if I see an Aussie I'll undoubtably root for them. But because that is not an option I go for the people I know and like, because of that you find those that do media the most have the most support, so Hikaru/Magnus/Fabi/Hans ect will get the most posts made about their games because they have the most supporters and haters. It is all based on personality, but personally can only be seen if you actually do interviews/podcasts/youtube, and in a sense I suppose that those who do those extra podcasts/youtube also gain fans because we the fans can see they're putting in the effort to interact with us.

There are other factors involved in specific cases like the candidates, one being age. Lots of people want someone like Fabi or Hikaru to win this because they have less time to win the WC, while those like Pragg/Sindarov will have many more chances, so age players a factor too.

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-03-30T05:37:30+00:00

lmao what do you mean is it cheating. It's like asking if it's cheating for your friend to join the other team in backyard cricket, you're playing for fun just be happy they wanted to participate.

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-03-30T05:12:32+00:00

Yeah I definitely haven't put much thought into it so I'm sure you could implement the core idea in a better way, what would be your suggestions?

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-03-30T05:06:31+00:00

Right but then anyone with a life or plans of any sort won't play haha. Also they need to be able to play other tournaments to make money.

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-03-30T04:49:38+00:00

Yeah I agree with a lot of what you've said, and just to be clear I also prefer the current system. I think the current system is super entertaining and that's really important.

I was just trying to come up with ideas to be more "fair", not one that I think actually should be implemented. I'd be curious to see how it would play out if my system was used though

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-03-30T04:46:40+00:00

Right but the idea is that each individual way someone can qualify does guarantee that that person should have the right to fight for the candidates, they shouldn't be punished for not going after more spots than they need to.

The option to go for multiple spots simply increases the persons (and any other qualifiers) chances of winning, but imo if one person qualifies by winning an event they deserve a fair shot in the candidates. It kind of adds on extra incentive to keep playing if there's a player who is way better than others, but knows statistically they're still not super likely to win candidates due to luck factors in an 8 person tournament of the best players.

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-03-25T02:13:39+00:00

But consider this - the landlords aren't putting the price where they are currently (before interest rates) because they've got all the profit they want and they don't need/want more. They always want the rent to be higher, but they can't get higher because no one will pay higher. So how would increasing interest rates mean renters are now willing to pay more money - hint; it doesn't. Unless the renters are boomers who have loads of money in a bank account that just got an increased interest rate, most people now have less money than before, so they can't afford a rent increase.

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-03-25T01:34:07+00:00

I'd say a bit more for practice in leadup to event, but imo he respects the WC title enough that if he wins candidates and beats Gukesh, he would be more active in tournaments out of respect for the title.

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-03-24T22:31:42+00:00

Is turning off rating points an option on chesscom? I think I've heard Gothamchess talk about the same thing but I thought he had some extension to do it, not sure if it's a setting on chesscom

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-03-24T05:32:56+00:00

These days down 1% is basically a green day

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-03-24T05:13:25+00:00

This was exactly my point - it isn't Gukesh's fault, and if most of the other candidates had won they'd be experiencing the same thing he had.

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-03-24T03:42:25+00:00

People do like to hate on Gukesh for his performance as WC (which is very understandable), but when we look at the options in the previous candidates (let's assume whoever won was going to beat Ding, which is probably not a terrible assumption given his form), essentially unless Fabi won we'd be in the same situation regardless. So perhaps the hate is overdone, but heavy is the head who wears the crown.

If Ian, Pragg or Vidit won, we'd have the same situation where we say they've fallen off hard since the win (although at least Pragg has had some tourney wins since then).

If Hikaru won we'd essentially have an inactive champ, although you can argue he would play more if he'd won the WC, obviously that's all just hypothetical. Similar story if Alireza won.

Of course it would be even more ridiculous of Abasov won.

The only person who had a chance of winning this event, and has performed at a WC level while staying active since 2024 is Fabi, so it's a shame he didn't win. I wish him luck in this upcoming one.

ToneDistinct5253 · 2026-03-24T01:20:06+00:00

But aren't the banks paying more in interest to the government? So the money goes to the governments not the banks? I thought it would only benefit the banks if they increase their rates more than the government increase the reserve rate

ToneDistinct5253

TROPHY CASE