Tata Chess Wijk aan Zee 2010

Actually Corus had more women in the past - I don't mean to imply that the change of sponsor or name plays a role. This year, the top women (8 out of the top10, only Polgar and Muzychuk missing) all play Gibraltar which has generous women's prizes and overlaps with Tata.

Technically top 4... no karjakin.

For Tata, the issue may be that organizers don't dare to invite her for the B group? After Timman was no longer strong enough for the highest group, he returned only once (in 2008 for the honorary group with Korchnoi, Ljubojevic and Portisch), and this year he'll actually be a commentator. Maybe Nigel Short is the only former world top player who didn't mind being degraded to the B group?

After the first round today, Sachdev already has 1 point more than (you) predicted - from what may have been the craziest game in all three GM groups.

she'll have to lose 14 of her remaining 12 games for that to happen ;P

Yeah, i can only imagine how Pono was/is feeling...

It is not so much a blunder on move 41 as a wrong concept of his queen going on a solo fighting mission.

Sensation Tania is Chess Base's favorite!

The World Champion has not yet played the former World Champion (Kramnik). Oh yeah! You must be talking about the winner of the funny FIDE knockout tournament a few years back. There's nothing really to distinguish that tournament above other high-level tournaments. In fact, the knockout format is a bit more random and less likely to pick the strongest player in the world than, say, a strong round robin like Corus or Linares. Enough of the BS about WC Ponomariov, Kasimdzhanov, Khalifman, etc.

Quite correct. Someone has mentioned it at last, and finally we've got this long overdue topic out in the open!
What we need is a good discussion of WC formats and legitimate champs. Uff da, please inform us in detail of your opinions on the matter, including a list of whom you consider to be true champs.
If you want to discuss matches that didn't take place, we're all ears. I've left some space for you below to fill all that in.

Looked at FIDE's rating list. Niznik is number two under 16. Who is number one?

Richard Rapport is rated one point higher than Nyzhnyk.

"Winning chances" is quite an understatement, white had a forced win after 31.-Qb5 32.Nd2! (opening the third row for the rook and - in case of need - defending against -Qf1+). So 31.-Qb5?! was rather "a brilliant blunder"!?
Chessvibes has a short audio of Maxime after the game, I like his "franglais"!

If you logged on ICC you will see that Migs commentary got absolutely hammered with criticism. Sadly justified the dream team is yermo and Ronen 2 chess experts. Migs chuckly non chess compere routine is not appreciated after the experience of having 2 GM's commentating

For crying out loud, it took two days for one of chessplayers to notice that? Embarrassing.

chessplayer: "I predict a (-13) score for IM Tania Sachdev in the C group (all losses)."

---

Typical moronic, sexist comment. Glad that after only one round its already been proven how dumb this statement was.

Try this: For crying out loud, it took two days for one of the many supposedly critically-oriented chessplayers perusing this blog to notice that?

Tunnel vision.

Yeah true but only some of the time. I read the 2010 and assumed that someone had dug up an old thread heading.

Well, you have a few extra brain cells and photosensors in the eye.

I had personally read "Tata", stopped, and as I skipped to the blog text thought "Finally, a name change. What took them so long? Very tactful corporate PR."

Her opponent gifted her the win 5 times in that game, every time she somehow contrived to return the advantage by her woeful play. Only in the end when her opponent literally self destructed did she finally get the win.

I think her sex actually helped her in that game - distracted her opponent, or maybe he felt really bad for her...I don't know. Replay that game, it's tough to explain how a 2600 GM plays like that.

Giri may have thought: if I can't acore full points against the Dutchies, I need to (grab my sole chance to) beat a Norwegian ... . Who's that Magnus Carlsen? ,:)

himo: "5 times in that game, every time she somehow contrived to return the advantage by her woeful play. Only in the end when her opponent literally self destructed did she finally get the win."
-----

Winners win, and losers make excuses. Period. She was the better player on that occasion and deserved to win.

BTW, that's a misquote -- its from Scarface, no the Godfather.

Why would I make excuses for Ivanesevic. I'm not a fan, before yesterday I thought he was a tennis player. I'm just saying based on her rating and actual evidence of her play Sachdev is a pretty weak player.

Ivanesevic's loss may have been normal.

But, going by my list of rules above, I think he may well have alternated between "crashing through like a caveman to impress the girl" and the chivalrous "going easy on the fairer sex". All while in a state of hormonal delirium.

Really!? You are able to make such a myopic statement on the basis of one game?

Then what about Kramnik allowing mate in one against Fritz? Take it easy against the kid. Just because he put himself ahead of chess and withdrew from the WC cycle doesn't mean we rip him apart at every opportunity. Give him a break. Anand & Kramnik will retire some day and Magnus may well become WC then.

What is this fuzz all about? Yes, Sachdev is relatively weak, and at least some people also consider her pretty ... ,:) . Ivanisevic-Sachdev was a comedy of mutual or reciprocal errors in a crazy position - engines laughed at both players and had no clues that hormones may or may not have been involved.

BTW, Sachdev's final score will be at least 1.5/13, probably 2/13 or better. Currently she has a very favorable rook endgame against Swiercz, using some nice tactics to get there. Maybe the Polish teenager was distracted, or maybe she simply played well.

BTW, years ago two Dutch players rated about 2200 lost almost everything in the C group (they drew against each other, one of them got another half point). They had qualified from the highest amateur group the year before, maybe it was still the tournament of their life ... .

Draw (after black's 62nd move).
http://www.k4it.de/index.php?topic=egtb&lang=en

nice site! thanks!!

She could have been 3/3 had she been able to covert her advantage yesterday against Lahno..anyway, 2/3 doesn't look too bad either for the lowest seed, does it?!

And in that game no hormones were involved, unless Sachdev happens to be lesbian ... (disclaimer: that wouldn't at all be a scandal). The way things went, Lahno is in shared first with 2.5/3, and the Elo favorites Ivanisevic and Kazhgaleyev have 1/3.

one game?

tell me, who does carlsen have a career plus score against - shirov and topalov?
thats the benchmark for superstardom?

when was the last time carlsen beat a top 5 player. please ... remind me
kaspy shared a few tricks that remained unused in the closet, carlsen flashed some brilliance.

now he earns a livin outplyin 2700 GM's otb after trying to create risky complications. today he ran into someone young enough to not need to spend 50 minutes analyzing his 'novelty'

and to top it all - he chickened outta the wch playoffs. ptui..

You're the sort of person, George, who would say something deplorable like that here, but if given a chance to meet Magnus Carlsen face-to-face, would be all over him with effusive praise.
Who's the chicken?

u've got no valid point to make to contradict my argument. and im sorry, unlike u im not a carlsen fanboy. no go refresh his twitter (or blog or whatever) diatribe and continue salivating muppet!

Good for Luke. To be fair, he has been bottom-feeding, and the tougher opponents are yet to come, esp. if Woj wakes up. But given his London performance, you would expect him to shine in Wijk aan Zee.

Nakamura? East Indian or American Indian?

"Nakamura is half-Indian."

Not sure how you came up with this.

We'd all like you, Pioneer, to get quieter and quieter by the tournament. How old are you? 15?
Am I guessing too high?

Re Desi`s: India rules: Notice top 3 @ Curus A standings have indian blood. ....

I disagree. By the way, it`s `Tata` now.

Nakamura`s step-father is Sri Lankan, I think.

And Anish Giri`s heritage is from Nepal.

Last I checked, both Nepal and Sri Lanka were independent countries.

Ravi

u sound grumpy enough to be losing all ur teeth. cant see why else u'd be trying this hard for attention

I'm not sure a Sri Lank step-father counts as having "Indian blood" ;-)

I believe hype about Nepomniachtchi is unnecessary, and prefer to wait for results before proclaiming him [world champion/top-10 player/the next Fischer].

I am a Nepomniachtchi-hater.

No, a hater is someone who is irrational and continues to spout garbage doubting a player's ability despite clear evidence that they: a) can play with super-GMs on a consistent basis, and b) are world top-10, or c) have other strong results against super-GMs.

That's a hater...someone who, for example would act as though its a HUGE surprise for the #10 player in the world to be leading a premiere super-GM tournament after beating the world #7 and a player outside the world top-20...especially when this same player with far less experience a year ago finished equal fourth with the world champion in this same tournament. That's a hater.

Given that Nepo has just won the Russian championship and has had almost zero invites to super-GM tournaments, to repeatedly trash his potential and abilities would be something a hater would do...no top player has been trashed more on this forum than Naka. If you were to trash Nepo as much as many on this forum have trashed Naka, then yes you would be a Nepo-hater. Are you?

Naka said to an interviewer in JAL (Japan Airlines) in-flight magazine January2011 that he was feeling more Japanese as he aged. Something like he is more and more interested in his Japanese roots and Japanese culture, language etc. He didn't mention any connections to India, just that his father is Japanese and mother is American.

I think it is not just that. I tend to think their surroundings allowed them to reach their potential that most of the top Russian players are playing at their optimum level. But this is not the case with players from less popular chess playing nations like Anand, Nakamura or Carlsen. There is always a "best is yet to come" in them! And people are not unaware of that.

Thank you. I had so much fun following that today.

What crow would that be, ELO king? I said something positive today about Hikaru before anyone else did. You were just late to the party.

Did anyone spout garbage about Nakamura in this thread? At earlier occasions, it may have been more a matter of opposites attracting each other - Nakamura also has his (very) eloquent and (overly) enthusiastic fans on this forum.

"no top player has been trashed more on this forum than Naka" - I didn't count the posts over the years, but Kramnik also had an (un)fair (over)dose of hatred here ... .

On yesterday's game: Well done by Nakamura, but in this tournament it just took (Smeets') Elo 2662 to beat Shirov more convincingly in the same variation ,:) . I rather feel a bit sorry for Shirov - well, after the first round he said "last year I did well in the first five rounds, this time I want to do better in the final eight rounds", so the tournament isn't over yet for him.

P.S.: For what it's worth, my national Elo is close to 2000 and was 2100ish at some earlier stage ... .

Hmm, will you also claim Indian blood for McShane?

I fear dejection may have set in! At least we've already got to the bottom of the whole catastrophe. Nepo was simply supposed to play 9...Qb6 but mixed it up and played 9...cxd4 first - which sadly is enough to make 10...Qb6 a losing blunder.

Well, he successfully extended the game beyond Carlsen-Giri yesterday! :) I must admit personally a short game is a relief after yesterday's marathon...

Just read Mig's - It's very early, but what will the haters say if Naka wins Tata? "Oh sure, but Shengelia and Charbonneau weren't there"? - tweet.

And if Naka lovers like Mig had their way they'd shut shop and go home calling the tournament over as soon as Naka gets into the lead! :)

For what it's worth, my national Elo is close to 2000 and was 2100ish at some earlier stage ... .

Thomas, you need to reassess your game. Read Silman's book, work on your middlegame structures and swot on de la Villa's endgame book..

himo wrote, "Sachdev is a pretty weak player". I would say, she is a "pretty, weak player". :)

It's true. Sachdev doesn't seem to have much upper-body strength at all. She probably struggles with 12-lb weights. She is most likely pretty weak.

However, she is a pretty damn amazing chess player.

Nepomniachtchi must be feeling blue, and I also feel a bit blue as I went to Wijk aan Zee today (where the decoration is all blue).
Showing off some Russian I learnt from commentator John van der Wiel - or reporting on him showing off: Nepomniachtchi actually means "I don't know my name". He was joking that someone generations ago had gone to the city hall mumbling "Neeeeepoooomniachtchiiiii", and the person on the other side of the table - rather than politely telling him to come back once he recovered from his Vodka hangover - wrote this down ... .
The Russian word for move is "god", sometimes during analyses with Sosonko van der Wiel would say "Good god!". And he wondered whether Nepo thought "Negodniachtchi" (I don't/didn't remember the right move) when he realized that things had gone awfully wrong in the opening ... .

The above is true only to a small extent. Ian's last name means "not remembering" or "forgetful", but there is no part of the word "name" in there. That the Russian word for move is "god" is a very big stretch. The pronounciation is quite different (not to mention the spelling). No Russian would think that "Good god!" is a pun on the Russian word for move. Finally, the closest "Negodniachtchi" comes to a Russian word would be a word for "no good". Which I guess fits with the gist of the comment about Ian's thoughts about the game, but that word definitely does not have anything connecting it to the Russian words for remembering or move. The leading "ne" is a negation and replacing "pom" with "god" is replacing the root of the word "memory" with the root of the word "good". The unpronouncable rest of it ("niachtchi") is just a grammatical construction.

Actually we had the Nepo discussion here at the Daily Dirt! http://bit.ly/fJnARK

Move is "(c)hod" (the ch something like in loch).

Anyway, this is my final translation of Shipov's commentary on the game: http://bit.ly/fQ48Ws

I'll probably change it in a while to add some more details. Shipov got to the bottom of what happened (he asked Nepo). It seems Nepo didn't simply misplay his preparation, but actually decided to play an improvement on the previous game (with 8...Qb6), that he thought up at the board. He saw 10. Qxa8, but was planning 10...Qxb2.

The minor fly in the ointment was that he'd missed that after the pawn exchange the f4-bishop is now defending the c1-rook, so Qxb2 doesn't threaten anything... and its curtains!

When Magnus realized he was losing an important blitz game earlier in 2010 or late '09, he raised his arm and lowered it quickly as if he was slamming a piece into the ground. At the same his face grimaced, and you could almost hear a grunt. I don't know if that's what he did during this game, but it might be close.

I just tried it out - on an underpowered laptop with Deep Fritz 12 - and it found 16. Nd4 in 21 seconds. So probably not an enormously difficult move to find with better equipment! Besides that it's also very much a human idea.If you see it at all then White's position does look close to overwhelming (and 2 pawns isn't that great an investment).

Anand said afterwards that he'd found it for the Kramnik match, by the way.

Giri was referring to Carlsen's reaction after he lost the day before! Still not clear what the gesture was :)

Okay mishanp, mine was a old fritz 5 in depth 11 or 12. Also true Anand will be having much better equipment. Yeah I was guessing this must be from the Kramnik match when I saw the f3 stuff. But what is amazing is the depth and the amount of preparation! You go into some hardly played lines, prepare a novelty and be prepared for any eventualities in that position and then you recall and play God knows when.

Ok, one day late but Aronian is now #2 - ahead of Magnus at #3. If these rankings hold certainly nobody will miss his withdrawal at the Candidates.

Ah, sorry about that misunderstanding. I hope y'all are enjoying the tournament so far!

If Carlsen will be missed in future top events or not will hardly depend on if he is a few points ahead of or behind the A's on the live rating list. Some would probably miss Kramnik if he refused to play even if he is many points behind Carlsen on the list.

I'm afraid to say that if you don't haff excellent endgame technique by now, you will never have such. (You think we aren't watching from on high? Oh yes we are!)

Naka, consider switching role model from Bart Simpson or Beavis & Butthead to Bond, James. Or pick a house of royals - the ancient ones - and pick up their best practices.

Please switch from impestuous to imperial, if you will.

Otherwise you're gonna end up like a male Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan, who live their whole life in a perpetual teenage state.

Nice game by Anand, but your comment is (not for the first time regarding Anand's games ,:) ) a bit too enthusiastic:

- The line isn't that rare, once white decides to play 4.f3

- It probably wasn't such a big deal for him to remember or "reload" his preparation for the WCh match. I guess it's still in his notebook, and he may have revisited it the evening before while prepararing for Wang Hao.

- Most important [and that was new to you and me, but maybe not to Anand]: While 16.Nd4! is new in the given position, the idea of the knight sacrifice isn't in this variation. Check Dennis Monokroussos' game analysis ( http://www.thechessmind.net ): He gives three predecessor games and writes that "Moskalenko's _Revolutionize Your Chess_ ... has a mini-chapter ("A Trojan Horse in the Nimzo War") on this very idea." He calls Moskalenko "one of the main specialists of the 4.f3 Nimzo" - the book itself had mixed reviews partly for its overly zealous title, but that mini-chapter may have been quite useful ... . Initial credit for Nd4! may go to Mamedyarov who first(?) played it in 2005 when his rating was a comparatively modest 2646.

To take a good old quote, "if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all."

First it was that I was fat, (true) then it was that I am only a blitz player (somewhat true) and now it is that I'm still the 14 year old jerk who used to hide behind screens and insult everyone on the face of the earth. What's next?

Grow up and move on! Stop trying to hang onto the past.

While it's true we do watch from on high, I think I know a little bit about endgames. I've learned much more since my, er, passing, than I ever knew before. The Rubinstein post is a fake.

Quiet, you, your endgame book is well known to be riddled with mistakes! Back to sleep!

Go home and get yer shine box, ya punk!

Absolutely right GM Yermo and good luck for continued success to GM Nakamura.
Thank you Alex for writing Road to Chess Improvement. It has helped me tremendously in the analysis of my games. You were right...I did not like what I saw, but slowly I came to terms with it. I go back to this book over and over, and I highly recommend it to all readers here in the Dirt. Writing is difficult, and I know you plug away off and on with an Endgame book, but if it is half as good as RTCI then it too will be a golden classic. Keep up the great work on ICC commentary too!

Voor - although I agree with what you said, are you certain that the comment you replied to is actually from GM Alex Yermolinsky? Does he read this blog? I guess I need some sort of identity proof for any of these posts... I've gotten a bit wary, y' know.

(Now don't all you imposters chime in at once.)

Don't be too hard on yourself Hikaru. Be assured that you have a lot more fans than haters in the chess world. And we do forgive geniuses a dose of eccentricity. Personally I think that when you were around 16 or 17 those ICC antics "BEND!" and logging out when you were losing were rather funny, and nothing too serious to condemn a teenager for the rest of his life. If someone like Shipov in the chess world still wants to remind people of it, who cares. Good luck in winning the tournament.

My own kids at that age would do similar antics playing competitive video games like StarCraft. A lot of trash talk went on, and mostly in good humour for them. Some people didn't get it and would get angry.

The chess community is an older crowd on average, so you're going to see more stuffiness from some people like hcl and Thomas, that tend to take everything literally.

Naka, naka, naka, naka... how soon are you gonna get down and lick my boots?

Quite a bit of endgame accuracy was needed to secure the draw against Giri, methinks.

Th fk?

Whether they should be taken literally or with a few grains of salt, Nakamura's comments on his game against Giri also imply lack of respect for the opponent. The one above may or may not be authentic, his own twittering ("Incredibly bad game, but I drew it somehow. Hopefully I will remember how to play chess for the last 9 rounds!") and Macauley Peterson quoting him on uschess.org ("I just played it like a complete idiot") are.

Maybe he expected an easy draw or a win with black against Giri - but it's still rude to suggest that 'even an idiot' won't lose against him. For what it's worth: even Carlsen in top form (Nanjing 2009) had one game - black against Leko - where he needed to hold a somewhat inferior endgame.

If something was idiotic, it was rather Nakamura's opening preparation or lack thereof: he sank in deep thought already after 4.Nf3 (I was watching live at the venue).

Well, just one time I'd like to see Nakamura lose and say "What can I say? I made mistakes, but ultimately he played better than me."

It's his failure to credit his opponent for any achievements, and rather blame everything on his (temporary) "stupidity" that's grating.

No, I'm not certain. Mostly I just wanted to encourage my fellow chess players to check out his writing. With so many useless books out there it is so nice to find a gem like RTCI. And in listening to his broadcasts, and the praise from other GM's, it is obvious that he really knows his endgames. In an interview with John Watson (another great ICC show btw) he had said he was going to try and work more on an endgame book he previously started and put down. If he does read this I want to thank him and encourage him to keep up his writing and publishing. He is one of a kind. His writing about treands and shifts in play, emotional ups and downs, etc. are quite interesting and instructive. He is not just cranking out garbage or milking the cash cow.

Thanks macuga, but it seems you missed one "detail": Nakamura did NOT lose his game against Giri ,:) - even though his quips leave the impression that, to him, a "difficult" draw with black against Giri (65 points lower-rated for the time being) is almost as bad and unforgivable as a loss ... . To my knowledge, no other top GM makes similar comments: Carlsen would have every right to call himself an idiot after his loss against Giri but for the moment just remains silent on his blog.

It's a matter of taste but for me some comments by Nakamura fans are more absurd, e.g. one at uschess.org commenting on Macauley's article: "for me, another great moment was Hikaru's Qa8 against the kid (trading queens) because it showed his maturity to play for a draw". That was Jay Stallings, actually a fairly strong player (USCF rating 2072). Hmmm, even a weak and immature player should realize that the position - simplified with a healthy extra pawn for the opponent - offers no winning chances whatsoever, and that a queen exchange gets you closer to the best possible result (1/2).

Yes... Yermolinsky reads this blog and used to be quite regular contributor here. You must be new to this blog.

Carlsen tweeted a comment about the game with Giri.

"Always nice to confirm that I'm still capable of blundering a piece in one move!"

And did he call himself Yermo in the past here?

May be not. ;) Check out l'Ami-Giri first round game. Giri's 51.Kd7 may not be accurate, and could be losing too to 53.Ka5. It costs f7-pawn but l'Ami didn't play it. I've seen some 2100 rated kids play superb end games in par with 2600 GMs.

Thomas, I'm looking at Dennis site, don't see the game analysis?? I agree with what you say that he said that it wasn't a new idea. But the idea has to be supported by well rounded and in-depth preparation. I wouldn't be surprised if Anand plays black and beats an well prepared opponent in that line!

Yes I've been reading this blog for a year or so...but I'm never certain if the GM's are really the actual GM's or just pranksters. Often the level of discourse here is more rude than I can endure.

But let me say that I REALLY enjoy your Chess Drum blog very much professor. I have learned a lot about the African diaspora and chess history from other areas of the world. I hold your work up there with Professor Henry Louis Gates and Professor Cornel West. Your efforts are not wasted. Thank you so much.

You know what, Anand was somewhat weak in end games when he started out but now he is arguably the best end game player ever! It is not just the calculating ability that you don't expect to improve over time, which will remain the same whether you are 2100 or 2600, almost the same when you are 20 and when you are 40, but you will get to learn many end game patterns as you get more experienced. That will improve your calculating range so accuracy I think will automatically improve.

You're right--my mistake. However, I was mostly thinking about a case from a month or two back, when Nakamura tweeted something like "Played like an idiot and lost to Ivanchuk." It's just an issue of sportsmanship: when you lose (or draw from a superior position), don't make excuses. Give your opponent his due.

Yes. He used "Yermo".

What I meant was that I'm hoping Magnus isn't #1 on the official March 1 list. Because regardless of who it is, the world number one not being part of the cycle does take a little bit of gloss off the title. The FIDE maybe imperfect, but clearly Magnus has put himself ahead of chess.

However, if a world number one has to miss the cycle, then it'd rather be Carlsen - for he's the one guy with the least credibility among the top-4 because of how consistently he keeps losing to the big boys.

I will agree. The Daily Dirt is not for the faint of heart. There are far too much venom inside of otherwise very spirited debates.

Well... I will not compare myself with Dr. Gates and Dr. West, but I do have a few scholarly writings on chess planned.

No doubt you are one the guys who looked away any time R. Fischer uttered something completely inane or insane. Go right ahead and hang on to those "Naka" coattails. Maybe he'll throw you a bone for your blind defense of his behavior, of which you don't know everything about. Believe me on that.

The good news? Naka, as you call him, appears to be taking hints and acting a bit more the gentleman he should be at this level. I'm personally happy to see that - judging just by the interviews I've seen lately. So I have hope for him there, as the rep of America that he happens to be. It isn't fun being American and holding your breath that he doesn't do something stupid - esp in these high level events.
Again, I refuse to defend the bad behavior of anyone in this game; whatever their achievement. It is what it is. You can't throw a rug over it.

As always, Dennis' game analysis is linked at the end of the report on the frontpage, where he writes "The group A games are _here_, with my comments."
Or try http://www.thechessmind.net/storage/chess-posts/waz2011_rd4.htm .

Actually, in the press conference "Vishy says that when “we” – his team – looked at the knight sac in the past, they just concluded that the resulting position was “very pleasant” and hence did not need to work out all the continuations exactly." [quoting Calvin Amari on Chessvibes here, as I don't want to watch the entire video again]. So it seems the preparation wasn't _that_ deep - was it more a matter of finding the Nd4 idea, or knowing it and being confident that it works in this particular position? Of course Anand might win such a position with the black pieces - I never said he isn't a strong player ... ,:) .

Sigh. Kenh, if you really think that Nakamura (if you insist, sigh again) throwing some jibes at his competitors (like a young professional sportsman of many other sports) is in any way comparable to Fischer's hate-filled, racist, mentally disturbed rantings, I'm not sure there'll be any way for us to communicate meaningfully.

But I highly recommend avoiding 1) newspapers, 2) television, and 3) the Internet, because all three will show you Americans competing at high levels and not limiting their quotes to friendly compliments of their opponents--as badly as that may reflect on you and me.

I'm not sure how being self-critical is necessarily a slight or insult against an opponent.

Comparing Fischer post-career comments with Nakamura's career comments is a bit presumptuous. If you want to talk about Fischer during his playing years, he was a gentleman at the board.

Nakamura is a far different person than detractors imagine. Many are still stuck in a time of Nakamura's ICC "Robocop" days. Move on.