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I guess it kinda depends what one means by overrated and underrated - Nepo is a top 5 player in the world by both rating and consensus who has placed top 2 in the last three candidates tournaments - no one thinks he's the best in the world (because he isn't) and people think it's pretty unlikely he'll become WCC (because winning the candidates is really fucking hard and he's already beefed it twice) but I don't think he's like... disrespected, at this point. Magnus, Fabi, and Hikaru are all better than him but I don't think there's anyone else that most people would say is definitively better.

Alireza... I mean, he bears the weight of Magnus' expections, of being the youngest player over 2800 and (briefly) the #2 in the world, but I don't think anyone denies his recent results have not been good. With Alireza it's really a question of "living up to his potential", and right now, he isn't. He's outside the top 10 and plays very unreliably.

So you could say that, in the short term, people (including Magnus pre-most recent candidates) are too optimistic about Alireza and too pessimistic about Nepo, and I'll agree, Nepo is top 5 and Alireza isn't even consistently top 10, but in the long run it's still a lot more likely that one day Alireza will be the best player in the world.

My hot take is that Firouzja is really quite overrated and Nepo is really quite underrated. Send tweet

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spoilers

Alireza massive losers bracket run, tilts Hikaru out of his fucking mind, wins the entire event.

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heartbreaking interview

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Outcome 2. Kinda sad Fabi didn't make it to tiebreaks but it could have been a lot worse

Thoughts on the Candidates? The final round? Alireza?

Absolutely insane situation! I watched the last couple hours of the games today (specifically Fabi and Gukesh). Easily the most intense and fun chess we've had in a long time. It's crazy that we have four potential winners tomorrow.

In terms of how I rate the outcomes:

Fabi wins. I'm a huge Fabi fan and I think he deserves to be world champion as the number two player of the Magnus era.

Gukesh wins. I like Gukesh a lot and having a teenage world championship challenger would be really exciting. No doubt in my mind that he's earned it.

Hikaru wins. I find Hikaru a bit insufferable but it would be phenomenal content.

Nepo wins. Please god not again.

In terms of Alireza's performance, well. I think he'd previously been anointed as the leading light of the post-Magnus generation, especially after he hit 2800, but he hasn't lived up to that since then. I think maybe that was an unfair amount of pressure to put on him. I don't know if his problems are psychological or if he's hit a wall, but he certainly seems far weaker than he was just a couple years ago. He was rank 2 in the world not so long ago, and he's fallen to rank 16 in the live ratings.

The result is still up in the air, but Gukesh is making a very strong case for himself as the strongest player of the new generation, at least at the moment. If he can seal the deal and triumph first over Fabi, Nepo, and Hikaru and then over Ding, it'll be a real changing of the guard. Easier said than done, though.

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Nevermind it's so over

Legalize Caruana baby!

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#your post jinxed him /j

Check now, we're so fucking back Fabi bros

Legalize Caruana baby!

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Legalize Caruana baby!

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what's wrong with nepo?

He massively outperforms his normal results at the candidates and then proceeds to regress to normal at the WCC. He's had his chances, I don't think he deserves a third one

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Thoughts on the Candidates? The final round? Alireza?

Absolutely insane situation! I watched the last couple hours of the games today (specifically Fabi and Gukesh). Easily the most intense and fun chess we've had in a long time. It's crazy that we have four potential winners tomorrow.

In terms of how I rate the outcomes:

Fabi wins. I'm a huge Fabi fan and I think he deserves to be world champion as the number two player of the Magnus era.

Gukesh wins. I like Gukesh a lot and having a teenage world championship challenger would be really exciting. No doubt in my mind that he's earned it.

Hikaru wins. I find Hikaru a bit insufferable but it would be phenomenal content.

Nepo wins. Please god not again.

In terms of Alireza's performance, well. I think he'd previously been anointed as the leading light of the post-Magnus generation, especially after he hit 2800, but he hasn't lived up to that since then. I think maybe that was an unfair amount of pressure to put on him. I don't know if his problems are psychological or if he's hit a wall, but he certainly seems far weaker than he was just a couple years ago. He was rank 2 in the world not so long ago, and he's fallen to rank 16 in the live ratings.

The result is still up in the air, but Gukesh is making a very strong case for himself as the strongest player of the new generation, at least at the moment. If he can seal the deal and triumph first over Fabi, Nepo, and Hikaru and then over Ding, it'll be a real changing of the guard. Easier said than done, though.

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Starting to believe there's a connection between being in a country with mandatory military service and being good at sc2

Anyway this is cutting short a 2018-level run of dominance by Serral over the entire scene for the past six months so. Bummer

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If Alireza keeps getting his ass beat this bad I'm gonna have to retitle this blog

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come on man

please god do not let Nepo win the candidates again i can't fucking do this again

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RED ALERT: DO NOT FUCK THIS UP FOR US PRAGG

please god do not let Nepo win the candidates again i can't fucking do this again

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please god do not let Nepo win the candidates again i can't fucking do this again

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wow

Hikaru as white losing to a player 50 points lower rated in the candidates? brutal

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the new sethbling vid is killing me like, I had no idea that there was a entity where you could use NBT to control its transform matrix and it's fucking hilarious to me that data packs have THAT but not 'multiply two numbers'

this vid?