2026 FIDE Candidates - Round 4 (April 1, 12:45 UTC)

OPEN:
Sindarov 2.5 (W) vs Caruana 2.5
Bluebaum 1.5 (W) vs Praggnanandhaa 1.5
Esipenko 1.0 (W) vs Giri 1.0
Wei Yi 1.0 (W) vs Nakamura 1.0

WOMEN'S:
Muzychuk 1.5 (W) vs Lagno 2.0
Assaubayeva 2.0 (W) vs Tan Zhongyi 1.0
Divya Deshmukh 1.0 (W) vs Zhu Jiner 1.0
Vaishali 1.5 (W) vs Goryachkina 1.0

>>2371320
>chess
>strategy
Top level chess is just memorized shit.

Yesterday’s decisive games:

>>2371329
Yeah bro parroting oversimplifications you heard once abour a subject you know nothig about makes you sound so smart and knowledgeable, not a dunning kruger retard at all

https://lichess.org/broadcast/fide-candidates-2026-open/round-4/97di6JjX/Jzyakrf4

The game to watch this morning

>>2371329
Maybe in the opening this is the case but the role of memorisation diminishes once the game is out of book. Pattern recognition and memorisation do still play a role in assisting overall strategy as they give you insight into which moves are generally the strongest to play in a given situation in order to achieve your strategic aims.

In any case memorisation is hardly unique to Chess, meta builds and performing specific actions in specific scenarios are present in every strategy game.

>>2371329
TRVKE

>>2371368
At some point this was the case, but modern high level chess is a game of who can play the most memorized engine moves. For an immediate example of this just look at Nakamura yesterday who got mindbroken by castle kingside of all things because it wasn't included in his prep.

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>>2371329

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>has won the world championship only once
>was afraid of a match against Karpov
>amerimorons call him the greatest chess player in history only because he was from murica

The most overhyped player in the history of chess and a little circumcised crybaby. Fuck him and fuck usa.

>>2376781
>has won
you don't need the "has," ESL bro
he's not alive anymore

>>2371329
Good thing I only play bottom level chess heh heh heh.

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Chess is about as much of a strategy game as memorizing digits of Pi is

>>2376842
I... don't think that's how it works.

>>2377419
not him, but it's sort of an esl mistake if you knew he was dead, it's not an esl mistake if you didn't
with "has" there's an implied "so far" as in "he's won only once so far" which makes sense only if he's alive. just saying "won" is more final and acknowledges the fact he can never win again.

Competitive chess (with a clock) is about gook click and apm spam, not memory. It's an RTS

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The best variant for casual play is the 960 variant. You don't need to memorize anything, all that matters is your skill and analysis. And they're so popular now that you don't have to wait long for an opponent on lichess. Play 960, anons! 960 is the future of chess!

>>2371320
Is premium chess.com worth it?

>>2382309
Not really.
You can use a regular chesscom account for unlimited games
lichess for free unlimited puzzles
Chessigma for free unlimited post game analysis
Free learning resources across the web for learning

Only get the premium if you want the little flair, really like the UI or want everything in one place. That's my opinion at least, hopefully some anons will tell you the benefits of premium so you can see both sides of the argument

>>2371329
Lmao

>>2382309
maybe for the bots if you play those

online chess is retarded, if you happen to be over 2k elo rating suddenly your account goes into review and "oh we used ai to determine youre not well known so youre getting banned"

>>2376781
Actually we like him because he denounced Israel. I like him because Fischer random is fun.

>>2394026
based

>>2382347
>hopefully some anons will tell you the benefits of premium so you can see both sides of the argument
There was an anon who did a deep dive on lag (which plagues bullet). He 'discovered' his lag was greatly reduces with a premium account. Same device, same connection.

It was pretty anecdotal and chess.com denied favortism for connections when it was raised but it was not the first or last time such allegations had been made. Similar allegations are made about professional games which, despite, allegedly, using the same servers, also lack the same lag issues commonly reported.

>>2393213
I just play as a guest.

>>2394026
Like Dan the man?

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fortunately, better chess just dropped, so we don't have to play some 500 year old game anymore

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>>2403093
Uh anon... I think you posted the wrong picture

Realistically speaking why would anyone under 2200 ELO ever play E5 in response to E4? You're just letting them dictate the opening. Like oh wow I can't wait to play the Italian, Spanish, or Scotch as black. Now the Caro-Kann? The Sicilian? These are openings White has to respond to.

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>adds roguelike elements to your chess

>>2406599
Honestly, honestly. I controversial opinion. I like 960 and I think it does wonders to reduce the amount of memorisation in chess. I think it does nothing but benefit the strategy involved.

>win a blitz game on the subway
>finish
>lean back
>guy next to me is doing a chess.com tutorial on his phone
I wanted to say something like "I won mine bro" but then I saw it was a lesson and I didn't want to interrupt his train of thought

>>2408837
I've been on a massive losing streak on bullet recently and I've been posting the pettiest shit to people I beat and I'm not even sure why

>>2409061
>I've been posting the pettiest shit to people I beat and I'm not even sure why
If you're getting outplayed that's just petty.
If you're losing due to lag its fairgame. Game was stacked from the onset.

Chess.coms servers are all based in California. Westcoasts and Pajeets have an inherrant lag advantage. It also means the US gov can spy on users without jurisdiction restrictions if you care about that shit.

>>2409300
>Chess.coms servers are all based in California. Westcoasts and Pajeets have an inherrant lag advantage.
Well that explains it. I thought it was suspicious that they always seemed to have a lag advantage, I figured they were just prolific cheaters using lag-switches and bots from call centers.