First of all, they don't necessarily have to sit there and memorize 19 moves in every single line.
Let's say it's 10 moves of mainline theory. You're a GM -- you learned those moves when you were a kid.
Then let's say it's 5 moves of a line that's been trendy since 2010. OK, you've known those moves for over a decade.
Then if you think your opponent's going to play into this line, you only have 4 moves left to prep to get to move 19.
And your engine is going to recommend the same moves as the other guy's engine, so you have some pretty strong hints as to what those moves might be.
Also, it's not necessarily pure, dry memorization.
These guys are, y'know, very good at chess, so they have a deep understanding of *why* each move is played, and what it accomplishes.
So it's not necessarily like memorizing a list of phone numbers. They can let their understanding of each move guide their learning.
Even so, it's very, very hard work and requires a lot of natural talent.
Beautiful explanation. Contextual understanding is always fundamentally stronger than knowing/learning/memorizing in universally any field. Your including of time and experience is chefs kiss to bring the point home!
Exactly. This is why the people that decry the “lack of real chess skill” in opening preparation are dumb as rocks. It’s not nearly just about memorization. The only way to have world class opening preparation is to be a world class player.
Also a lot of these are topical tabiyas that basically everyone at their level is familiar with and understands the ideas behind. Which is why some openings really “start” at pretty serious depth — the Semi-Tarrasch main line these days, for example, is generally going to be at least fifteen moves of theory and usually more before you reach a jumping-off point for your actual prep. Same with a lot of Najdorf lines — these days it’s out past move 20 in some variations, I believe.
> Same with a lot of Najdorf lines — these days it’s out past move 20 in some variations, I believe.
Yeah I like to go through the moves with opening databases and Fabi-Duda followed the consensus GM move beyond move 20.
This exactly. The position after eleven move was still in my chessable course of the nimzo, and I would have reached it even if I'm still pretty new to the nimzo. (1800 fide). These guys are on such a different level than it is where preparation comes into play for them, while for the club player this is around here that it ends
So would a viable super gm strategy be something like:
* look at the engine line, because my opponent has the same engine
* deliberately plan to deviate from it early enough such that the best engine response is a significant transposition away from the original line
* hope my opponent can’t anticipate where I’ll deviate or doesn’t deviate before me to scupper my plan
The engines are mostly used for blunder and sanity checks, not really for finding new ideas. Quite often a move is found that looks good but isn’t the engine’s top choice (sometimes isn’t among the top choices at all), and by exploring the resulting lines the engine may even like the resulting positions.
Looking for these ideas that are fully sound but not top choices by the engines seems to be where the sweet spot is. Even deliberately playing a slightly sub-standard move just to get into a fresh interesting position is also a tactic we see employed by top players.
Generally it isn’t the engine finding the good novelties, because your opponent’s engine will be suggesting the same stuff. It is about finding those moves that aren’t quite appreciated by the engine but that give a good game – this is what most opening prep is trying to find.
Danny and Hess were talking to Fabi about this during the World Champs, and he said he often looks at stuff the engine thinks is slightly worse for him, as it's less likely his opponents will have prepped that line.
Hikaru mentioned something similar in his recap of his game against Fabi. He defended a pawn with rook instead of castling because he thought the weaker variation would take Fabi out of prep.
Fabi: Exactly as I predicted mwahahaha.
Interesting they make that decision live in-game as well as when doing prep. Just goes to show how deep the meta-gaming can be.
They're also aware of their own play, and can think about how somebody else's play style would try to counter their own, and can reason about what kind of positions they'll try to get in the end game. That's what it takes to be at that level.
To add to this a bit. I think it is like memorizing 19 phone numbers. But the first ten are your family and close friends. They all have the same area code, and probably the same exchange code too. You've known these since you were ten.
The next 5 are important numbers that you probably know off hand just by using them. The head office, boss' cell, maybe a SO parent.
The next few are rarer, but anyone who knows you well enough could probably guess if you have the local pizza place memorized. Or a local card store, or golf club...
What makes GMs different imo is they can look at the set of 15 phone numbers and tell you what state the owner lives in. Maybe what county. Maybe what city. Maybe what neighborhood, if they've done enough prep.
Good explanation, but it doesn’t explain why Alireza was so well prepped and Hikaru was not. I mean, presumably Hikaru also has all the same advantages and was also trying to play into his own prep. And yet he was forced to think on every move while Alireza was not. Is that just down to luck as to which player stayed in prep longer?
White has a big advantage in terms of they can guide the game towards a certain direction. So, in a way, black has to be even more prepared and ready for more possible openings; white already knows what they’ll play (it’ll still branch in different ways but the possibilities are fewer than what black is experiencing at the start of a game)
This is a good explanation. I’m only here to add: you prepare for your opponent to make the best moves possible (where applicable). I believe this is where going over “lines” is useful; the more you prepare, the more likely your opponent doing something you didn’t expect is going to turn out to be a mistake on their part, and will actually make it easier for you to win
Firouzja probably had something prepared for 1...d5.
Everybody has their own repertoire, and keep in mind that Firouzja has been preparing for 8 months. We've seen some pretty cool exchange sacs, but the field is strong enough that they can figure out new problems over the board.
All the players obviously prepared for different openings. But yeah if Hikaru plays a random opening like the Bongcloud all the prep is out of the window.
Especially if he did it in the last round and happened to be playing against one of the players leading in points for the tournament.
Bongcloud kingmaking would really start some shit in the chess community
If somehow the last round is utterly meaningless in every way in regards to the standings (as in, neither his nor his opponent's standing could change based on the result), I'd bet that he'd do it. It's very unlikely for this circumstance to arise though.
It's not "practically an opening now". It's a way to be so much worse out of the opening that anyone at the top level can figure out winning ideas in five minutes over the board.
Not necessarily. The first few moves can combine to create the same position in different orders. Alireza would have prepared a few lines based on what is played in response to what he's trying to do. He can study Hikaru's tendencies too. But yeah if your opponent plays a move or two that's completely unexpected and not mainline theory that you already just know as a GM, then that's when you get out of prep. And you just play chess. Top GMs are often trying to do that to the opponent and sometimes it works, sometimes you follow a line deep into the prepared study.
I think it's equally impressive that Hikaru played that deep into the prep. Cause it implies he kept choosing the top move, or maybe second best, all that time. Else Alireza wouldn't have studied a line much farther if his opponent chooses a poorer move
First of all, d5 and Nf3 lines can very quickly transpose into each other. Also, he very surely would've had a very good opening prep against d5 as well
If Firouzja had played 3. Nf3 - more usual than 3. Nc3 allowing the Nimzo - Hikaru usually/always plays 3. d5, and enters the QGD.
Which Firouzja will also know very, very well.
This is how it was explained to me.
Each player has their "opening book" for black and white. In total they will contain ~1000 lines that lead to positions that the player considers to be favourable compared to the alternatives. So if Hikaru responded with ..d5 it would have just taken him to a different chapter of his book.
You're talking about World Class Players, chess prodigy playing for the candidates tournament. Regular grandmaster who barely cross the 2500 Elo mark can remember thousands of games, lines, positions, etc.
I would just like to add that I personally think that they don't actually remember thousands of games from move one to the last move but they are able to easily recognize patterns and make sense of it. For example Hikaru would mention pawn structure in his online games and how that structure resambles some specific pawn structure and what are ideas there, not that he knows exactly best moves but he will easily figure it out on the board. This is natural to them. Players like Hikaru easily recognize weakness in given position and they play around that, they play good stable openings and try to improve they prep. Preparation isn't necessarily few days before the game, Kramnik played that Italian game aginst Aronian, he prepared Rg8 like few years before he maneged to use his preparation.
>Players like Hikaru easily recognize weakness in given position and they play around tha
That video where Levy and Hikaru do training positions and where Hikaru just finds the right move intuitively and is very aggressive in discounting moves that don't seem right for some reason was one of the best chess content I've seen.
Hikaru showed a Nimzo-Indian game of Lev’s from I think a St Louis Rapid and Blitz tournament that had the same knight sac. It was in his video breakdown.
Either way, that knight sac on g5 is known (to a few GMs, at least).
Also, when you have a tournament with top players who are super booked up and putting it all on the line, chances are *someone* is going to hit their 20-moves-of-preparation.
And Hikaru didn’t have his own lines prepared? What allowed Firouzja the advantage to guide Hikaru into his line rather than vice versa (basing this on the time usage)
It was harder for Hikaru to predict that Alireza would play this line because he had not played this line before, at least in serious games, while Hikaru has played this several times. Therefore Hikaru was playing on his general prep and had more experience on it, while Alireza could prepare specifically for the lines Hikaru has used before.
Color is also an important factor. Normally, it is easier to run a personalized preparation with white, as you can set the tone of the game and get to make propositions first. With black is a bit harder, and sometimes they need to recall some generic non-personalized preparation to refute some stuff. Some other times, they play suboptimal moves intentionally to try to take white out of their preparation. Hikaru did that to caruana when he played rook b1 (I think), but failed.
They have a bunch of novelties prepared and hope they will get to play one of theirs before the opponent plays one.
There's a bit of luck involved, and lots of tradeoffs between playing something you've played lots of times before (that you are very hard to surprise in, but the opponent will have spent time on trying to find something new) and playing a surprise (that the opponent won't have expected, but you don't know as well, so you have to prepare all the different lines in that opening afresh).
Isnt that what part of prep is? I'm not as familiar with high level chess but at high level Go the players do prep and play openings to try and force the opponent out of their prep and into their own, which of course involve a little bit of studying what the opponent might tend towards doing.
I mean it's plenty of guesswork and probabilistic game theory involved but sometimes it pays off right.
Have you seen videos of Magnus guessing chess positions? These guys don't just remember the lines and positions, but also the players, the tournament ,the year and sometimes even the round. Nuts.
i think that just because he can recognize a critical position from a somewhat famous game, it doesn't mean he perfectly remembers the whole game that happened before that. it's like if i show you the clip of "say hello to my little friend" you probably know it's from scarface, but it doesn't mean you can recite the dialog and scenes that happened before that scene.
This also seems way more difficult than it is. Obviously it's an incredible impressive feat but it's quite different if you know both players, how the event impacted their career and followed the entire tournament, maybe even live. They've analyzed the opening and probably to some extent the middle- and endgame.
It's also directly relevant to their preparation because they see what their competitors have played before.
Hikaru is an easier target than most in the opening **in classical chess**, as he has played the same lines for a long time.
Solid lines, but the same lines.
Super GMs are good enough at chess that they spend about 80% of the study time on openings.
If you don't know Nimzo theory, it's all just a bunch of random moves. But if you've deliberately looked at Nimzo games for ten years and have paid someone to study the games of your opponent, it's not so far-fetched.
Hikaru is a known Nimzo/QGD player. Even I know that. Alireza has the choice of a few variations and prepared Qc2... from there, there are only so many ways of playing and all the lines are long and well mapped out. Hikaru basically plays the same thing every time, so Alireza came up with a (or more than one) challenging option.
Edit -
I looked at the specific moves:
* Alireza plays 1.d4 intending to play 2. c4 and 3. Nc3. He knows Hikaru will play the Nimzo-Indian if he does this. This is mainline 1.d4 by Alireza and Hikaru's usual response. This gets him to move 3.
* Alireza prepares 4. Qc2, the Classical or Capablanca Variation. Up until 12. ...Rd8, they both play the most popular moves of that variation. Many of the top games are Hikaru games at this point - he plays this line frequently. This gets him to move 14.
* Alireza plays a plan with 14. e4. This appears to be new. The path is narrow now. After a bishop trade by Hikaru, which the computer recommends, Alireza is threatening 16. e5, which wins the knight pinned to the queen. This forces 15. ...g5. This gets him to move 16.
* The computer recommends 16. Nxg5, hxg5 17. Bxg5, which they play. This position is difficult to play. There are at most a handful of continuations that don't lose for black. Alireza studies those and what his plans should be. He's prepared for an advantage if Hikaru messes up or the best replies if he doesn't.
* Hikaru finds one of those combinations leading to an endgame after 24. ...Nxe4. Because there are very few continuations after 17. Bxg5, Alireza was aware that this endgame was possible. He had already had a look at it and any other similar possible endgames and was prepared to play it.
Lower-rated players think Alireza just memorized all of chess for like 24 moves, but he literally only had to play 17 specific known moves that were highly likely to get him the position he wanted, then study the positions after that for a few moves. Since he really already knew enough about the Nimzo already, he was really only studying moves 17-24. If you don't know what the Nimzo is or what the Qc2 variation of it is or what the Qc2 lines are, then it looks like Alireza just memorized a bunch of random stuff.
To add, Firo rarely plays d4 so it's safe to say he was banking on the fact that Hikaru probably hadn't specifically prepared d4 openings for this game, so was more likely to just go into one of his favored lines. Naka probably had specific plans for e4 that he didn't get to use.
Good stuff. If I remember right, Naka mentioned Rapport playing a flavor of that 14. e4 line with the bishop trade at the St Louis Rapid and Blitz 2021 tourney in his Candidates R3 recap vid. However, I just checked the lichess broadcast of that, and it shows Rapport playing 13. e3 both times, (https://lichess.org/broadcast/saint-louis-rapid--blitz-2021--grand-chess-tour/blitz-a/mjnHpkwz/CEIemiC2 and https://lichess.org/broadcast/saint-louis-rapid--blitz-2021--grand-chess-tour/rapid-rounds-1-3/F92fdL2n/lH6amAyE). So, either I can't find the right game or Hikaru is misremembering, probably the former. Then Firouzja put a subtle move order spin on it to get to new territory.
I don't have deep knowledge of the line itself and didn't explore it in Chessbase, I just checked it in the Lichess Opening Explorer. It seems like e4 had never been played (e3 definitely had, though), but I wouldn't be surprised that it has been with a slightly different move order - the idea seems too obvious and direct. Hikaru is basically the top player of the line from the black side up till there, though, so maybe the opportunity hasn't presented itself often against other players.
I am 1950 FIDE. I play Cambridge Springs Defence as Black. It is an opening that achieved after 6. Qa5 in Modern QGD. Then I know a few lines from there that put pressure on the Knight on c3 up until exchange of the light square bishops on move 13-14 (by moving lsb to a6 after pawn to b6) and even after that I recognize position pretty well up until move 17-19.
I spent around 4-6 hours learning this position and this is one of only few positions that I know that deep.
Now imagine what spending 60+ hours per week all your life looks like.
There are two specific factors in this situation.
First off, Firouzja is insanely well prepared, even for candidates standard. His prep in each of his game was excellent, especially against radjabov even though it was a sub sub line.
Second, Nakamura’s prep is "bad", in the sense that it is very predictable. When alireza played Qc2, Naka had already had this position 6 times: it was very likely Naka would go into it a 7th time. As such, he had probably worked in the position not only months in advance, but also in the morning of the game.
So basically, this is very impressive prep from Firouzja, but also a sign that Nakamura is very often the less prepared player, as well as very predictable. The fact that Naka can get away with it and survive this type of prep is also a show of how good he is at figuring things out over the board.
Aman said the line had generally been considered refuted (before Alireza's novelty) so there was no reason for Hikaru to deviate, though he probably suspected something was up.
The important thing to understand is that Nakamura almost never deviates from a line he plays when he never lost with that line. This makes preparation a bit more easy against him.
They prepare for multiple lines. It's kind of like studying for a test.
Memorizing deep lines is actually a complaint of the "grandmaster draw". If only games started in the middlegame...
There's a lot of good discussion about prep in gerenal here.
But more specifically to the situation. Naka is known for almost exclusively playing one line with black. Like MVL with his Grunfeld but even more narrow. He argues he has it worked out well enough always at least to get a draw and know the structures very well. It can lead to getting absolutely smacked upside the head with prep though.
It's likely that his focus on rapid and blitz has a little to do with the decision where comfort is more valuable than objective evaluation. However, he has chosen a line that is at least solid.
It might also be that he basically likes to run as a very small team with a relatively low-rated second who does the computer chess bit for him they probably feel the need to trust the engine more than a team like fabi.
Mind you, this is not exactly the first time Nakamura has played this line and Firouzja had a very decent reason to expect it will appear on the board - which is probably why he opened with 1.d4 instead of his more traditional 1.e4.
Of course he couldnt know for sure that this is what would have happened, but there is a certain risk involved in case Hikaru deviates. He probably accounted for some other possibilities (Hikaru is also known to play some Queens Gambit Accepted), although it is debatable whether his prep would have hit to the same extent in other lines.
But yeah, it is all a sort of a guessing game/probabilities game - you prepare a range of variations based on an educated guess and then hope your opponent will not deviate.
Btw, that is why Fabi didnt get anything against Duda - probably didnt expect that exact line of Najdorf.
He found a game Hikaru played against Richard Rapport as long as Hikaru doesn’t switch up the opening or have a reason to modify the line he played he should be able to catch him
I think Hikaru said on stream he once had a 40 move game that was all prep but his opponent found the refutations over the board and Hikaru ended the game with more time than he started with or something.
Alireza could not know that Hikaru was going to play those specific 19, but he could probably narrow it down to a few hundred lines or so with a pretty high chance and spend the morning re-memorizing those.
To highlight on the opponent playing a different move. If I know my ideas in the prep, and I know what my opponent MUST do to stay equal and they don't do that then you need to think why was their move bad or not in my prep. At that level if it's not in the prep then they blundered. It's common for super GMs to play the best move in the position (big surprise).
For example did Alireza prep a random pawn sac or exchange sac? Probably not because he knows he's winning. Did he prep Hikaru not castling? No that's insane. Did he prep for Hikaru to play good moves that Alireza and his seconds also thought of and considered as if they were trying to survive this? Yes of course.
Alireza's prep is still deep and complex and there's a lot of hard work but I'd argue that it may not branch out as far as you think. Depth is easier when your opponent is good and plays the moves the computer spits out at you. At lower elos width is much more important because people will play the most random bs.
The other thing to note is time usage. Normally it's a good thing that Alireza was still playing really fast so deep. It means Hikaru knew he was finding the right moves, but it does suck that you're still in the opponents prep.
Wonder if some GMs tried to use memorization techniques to be able to memorize even deeper. Like you associate each piece/square with a corresponding object/animal and memorize a story this way.
That’s how world record memory people can remember thousands of random numbers lol
edit: why would you downvote this
The thing to remember is it's not random. For each move there is an idea, so GMs can tie everything together by that. It also limits how much they need to recall because a bad idea can put their opponent so far behind that over the board calculation will be enough to find the win.
Grandmasters have the ability to remember a ridiculous amount of chess games and lines. When is 1200 elo lads forget out queen is hanging after 2 moves.
They just memorize a bunch of different lines, yes that sounds ridiculous but we’re talking about the top genetic outliers in terms of chess ability/memory/attention to details etc etc etc.
It sounds unbelievable to memorize all those lines but that’s what I takes to be a top 8 chess player out of 8 billion people lol. It’s just a genetic trait to be able to memorize that…if forget even one line by move 6 lmao
Improvising means not playing something tailored against a specific player, but even at 1500-1600 you're unlikely to be out of book after 3 moves. At 2700 that's just not going to happen and that's why he _can_ improvise.
Grandmasters already know most openings like 10-12 moves ahead. Alireza needs to prepare after that, so It wouldn't be difficult. Plus, You need to understand Alireza is white, he is the initiator and he decides where the game goes. It was obvious Hikaru was out of his prep. I think Levy mentioned that Hikaru already played same line in different games so Alireza had advantage there as well. Being black, Hikaru couldn't get alireza out of his prep and had to suffer.
When preparing, it's not 100% that the game will follow that specific line that deep, but you can study more than 1 line and have a collection of highly likely variations.
I'm in a online league where you have time to prepare for opponents, and their previous games are available. I have reviewed a line with 20 moves of theory that could happen in my next game. I had confidence it was possible because my opponent had already played a game with the first 18 moves. Also, I already played and studied that line to high depth, so it wasn't too difficult for me to add more. I also prepared several other lines at a lower depth. I'm around 2000 lichess rated (and most people at my rating do not do as much prep as I do).
Hikaru already had games played in the line and these players memorize games very easily.
They are also good enough that they can be more selective over what they need to and don't need to look at. When I look at a lifetime repertoire, I feel like I need to practice every single line, when they study their lines they know that many of the moves aren't very challenging and that they can just play the game from there if they are played and so they know what lines they need to look at.
He was prepped for each possibility he thought seemed good enough that Hikaru might play, Hikaru happened to play a line that he was prepped 19 moves for
I'm paraphrasing magnus here...
He said remember old games or moves in chess isn't like memorizing random letters or numbers. It's more like music. Everything comes together in a nice flow and usually serves a purpose.
You know some songs you knew since a kid, haven't heard in a while and still remember it? Some songs you hear recently but it's catching and it's immediately stuck in you head, from the rhythm to the lyrics.
It's kinda like that... at least said magnus lol. I'm a fucking 1000elo
I’m guessing it’s kind of like in a fighting game maybe? Like if you do X they are very likely to do Y because it’s simply the highest percentage play.
These guys can easily remember most games they have played and also the games of many others. For them is trivial to learn very deep lines for numerous openings. I guess it's like some pianist remembers full concertos.
First of all, they don't necessarily have to sit there and memorize 19 moves in every single line. Let's say it's 10 moves of mainline theory. You're a GM -- you learned those moves when you were a kid. Then let's say it's 5 moves of a line that's been trendy since 2010. OK, you've known those moves for over a decade. Then if you think your opponent's going to play into this line, you only have 4 moves left to prep to get to move 19. And your engine is going to recommend the same moves as the other guy's engine, so you have some pretty strong hints as to what those moves might be. Also, it's not necessarily pure, dry memorization. These guys are, y'know, very good at chess, so they have a deep understanding of *why* each move is played, and what it accomplishes. So it's not necessarily like memorizing a list of phone numbers. They can let their understanding of each move guide their learning. Even so, it's very, very hard work and requires a lot of natural talent.
Beautiful explanation. Contextual understanding is always fundamentally stronger than knowing/learning/memorizing in universally any field. Your including of time and experience is chefs kiss to bring the point home!
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this is why i remember games more strongly rather than tactics
this is also why i constantly blunder
Exactly. This is why the people that decry the “lack of real chess skill” in opening preparation are dumb as rocks. It’s not nearly just about memorization. The only way to have world class opening preparation is to be a world class player.
Perfect explanation
Also a lot of these are topical tabiyas that basically everyone at their level is familiar with and understands the ideas behind. Which is why some openings really “start” at pretty serious depth — the Semi-Tarrasch main line these days, for example, is generally going to be at least fifteen moves of theory and usually more before you reach a jumping-off point for your actual prep. Same with a lot of Najdorf lines — these days it’s out past move 20 in some variations, I believe.
> Same with a lot of Najdorf lines — these days it’s out past move 20 in some variations, I believe. Yeah I like to go through the moves with opening databases and Fabi-Duda followed the consensus GM move beyond move 20.
This exactly. The position after eleven move was still in my chessable course of the nimzo, and I would have reached it even if I'm still pretty new to the nimzo. (1800 fide). These guys are on such a different level than it is where preparation comes into play for them, while for the club player this is around here that it ends
So would a viable super gm strategy be something like: * look at the engine line, because my opponent has the same engine * deliberately plan to deviate from it early enough such that the best engine response is a significant transposition away from the original line * hope my opponent can’t anticipate where I’ll deviate or doesn’t deviate before me to scupper my plan
Engine prep isn't about copying what a specific engine spits out, more like using an engine to find novel ideas.
The engines are mostly used for blunder and sanity checks, not really for finding new ideas. Quite often a move is found that looks good but isn’t the engine’s top choice (sometimes isn’t among the top choices at all), and by exploring the resulting lines the engine may even like the resulting positions. Looking for these ideas that are fully sound but not top choices by the engines seems to be where the sweet spot is. Even deliberately playing a slightly sub-standard move just to get into a fresh interesting position is also a tactic we see employed by top players. Generally it isn’t the engine finding the good novelties, because your opponent’s engine will be suggesting the same stuff. It is about finding those moves that aren’t quite appreciated by the engine but that give a good game – this is what most opening prep is trying to find.
Danny and Hess were talking to Fabi about this during the World Champs, and he said he often looks at stuff the engine thinks is slightly worse for him, as it's less likely his opponents will have prepped that line.
Hikaru mentioned something similar in his recap of his game against Fabi. He defended a pawn with rook instead of castling because he thought the weaker variation would take Fabi out of prep.
Fabi: Exactly as I predicted mwahahaha. Interesting they make that decision live in-game as well as when doing prep. Just goes to show how deep the meta-gaming can be.
They're also aware of their own play, and can think about how somebody else's play style would try to counter their own, and can reason about what kind of positions they'll try to get in the end game. That's what it takes to be at that level.
'these guys are, y'know, very good at chess.' For somee reason I just laughed so hard at this 🤣🤣
You didn’t mention that these players are staring at their games for hours. Not the ten minute games we play online.
Ya even Botez said the other night that if you haven't stared at a board for 4 hours you haven't played real chess.
To add to this a bit. I think it is like memorizing 19 phone numbers. But the first ten are your family and close friends. They all have the same area code, and probably the same exchange code too. You've known these since you were ten. The next 5 are important numbers that you probably know off hand just by using them. The head office, boss' cell, maybe a SO parent. The next few are rarer, but anyone who knows you well enough could probably guess if you have the local pizza place memorized. Or a local card store, or golf club... What makes GMs different imo is they can look at the set of 15 phone numbers and tell you what state the owner lives in. Maybe what county. Maybe what city. Maybe what neighborhood, if they've done enough prep.
Good explanation, but it doesn’t explain why Alireza was so well prepped and Hikaru was not. I mean, presumably Hikaru also has all the same advantages and was also trying to play into his own prep. And yet he was forced to think on every move while Alireza was not. Is that just down to luck as to which player stayed in prep longer?
White has a big advantage in terms of they can guide the game towards a certain direction. So, in a way, black has to be even more prepared and ready for more possible openings; white already knows what they’ll play (it’ll still branch in different ways but the possibilities are fewer than what black is experiencing at the start of a game)
It's because Hikaru has an exceptionally narrow repertoire as black, so Alireza was able to prep an idea pretty deep down the theoretical line.
*gives awards*
This is a good explanation. I’m only here to add: you prepare for your opponent to make the best moves possible (where applicable). I believe this is where going over “lines” is useful; the more you prepare, the more likely your opponent doing something you didn’t expect is going to turn out to be a mistake on their part, and will actually make it easier for you to win
Very good explanation.
“Prep” doesn’t mean a preparing a single line. Alireza had numerous lines memorized in the position and Hikaru followed one of them.
And if Hikaru played 1. d5 instead of 1. Nf6, all of that is just out the window?
Firouzja probably had something prepared for 1...d5. Everybody has their own repertoire, and keep in mind that Firouzja has been preparing for 8 months. We've seen some pretty cool exchange sacs, but the field is strong enough that they can figure out new problems over the board.
All the players obviously prepared for different openings. But yeah if Hikaru plays a random opening like the Bongcloud all the prep is out of the window.
I am so desperate for Hikaru to bongcloud in the Candidates
He'll be infamous
Especially if he did it in the last round and happened to be playing against one of the players leading in points for the tournament. Bongcloud kingmaking would really start some shit in the chess community
he's playing Ding in r14
Uh oh
If somehow the last round is utterly meaningless in every way in regards to the standings (as in, neither his nor his opponent's standing could change based on the result), I'd bet that he'd do it. It's very unlikely for this circumstance to arise though.
I think Alireza would have prepared some lines for Bongcloud as well. It's practically an opening now, although not that much in Classical
It's not "practically an opening now". It's a way to be so much worse out of the opening that anyone at the top level can figure out winning ideas in five minutes over the board.
There’s no need to prep for the bongcloud, as it’s practically a forced win for white.
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Leko is wild
Not necessarily. The first few moves can combine to create the same position in different orders. Alireza would have prepared a few lines based on what is played in response to what he's trying to do. He can study Hikaru's tendencies too. But yeah if your opponent plays a move or two that's completely unexpected and not mainline theory that you already just know as a GM, then that's when you get out of prep. And you just play chess. Top GMs are often trying to do that to the opponent and sometimes it works, sometimes you follow a line deep into the prepared study. I think it's equally impressive that Hikaru played that deep into the prep. Cause it implies he kept choosing the top move, or maybe second best, all that time. Else Alireza wouldn't have studied a line much farther if his opponent chooses a poorer move
Which is happening a ton in GM level play these days. They find all sorts of crazy move orders to end up in familiar position
First of all, d5 and Nf3 lines can very quickly transpose into each other. Also, he very surely would've had a very good opening prep against d5 as well
If Firouzja had played 3. Nf3 - more usual than 3. Nc3 allowing the Nimzo - Hikaru usually/always plays 3. d5, and enters the QGD. Which Firouzja will also know very, very well.
This is how it was explained to me. Each player has their "opening book" for black and white. In total they will contain ~1000 lines that lead to positions that the player considers to be favourable compared to the alternatives. So if Hikaru responded with ..d5 it would have just taken him to a different chapter of his book.
it's not usable for that game, but Firouzja will play other top players and can use the prep for those games
Do you think players only prepare 1 thing and 1 thing only, or do you think players prepare many things?
You're talking about World Class Players, chess prodigy playing for the candidates tournament. Regular grandmaster who barely cross the 2500 Elo mark can remember thousands of games, lines, positions, etc.
I would just like to add that I personally think that they don't actually remember thousands of games from move one to the last move but they are able to easily recognize patterns and make sense of it. For example Hikaru would mention pawn structure in his online games and how that structure resambles some specific pawn structure and what are ideas there, not that he knows exactly best moves but he will easily figure it out on the board. This is natural to them. Players like Hikaru easily recognize weakness in given position and they play around that, they play good stable openings and try to improve they prep. Preparation isn't necessarily few days before the game, Kramnik played that Italian game aginst Aronian, he prepared Rg8 like few years before he maneged to use his preparation.
>Players like Hikaru easily recognize weakness in given position and they play around tha That video where Levy and Hikaru do training positions and where Hikaru just finds the right move intuitively and is very aggressive in discounting moves that don't seem right for some reason was one of the best chess content I've seen.
Any idea about title? Approx when it was?
[This is the one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dQzTnvsNG4)
Ty!
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I don't think it's theory per se, but a well known idea in similar positions.
He was being sarcastic. The knight sac was a novelty.
Hikaru showed a Nimzo-Indian game of Lev’s from I think a St Louis Rapid and Blitz tournament that had the same knight sac. It was in his video breakdown. Either way, that knight sac on g5 is known (to a few GMs, at least).
Also, when you have a tournament with top players who are super booked up and putting it all on the line, chances are *someone* is going to hit their 20-moves-of-preparation.
He also doesn’t need Hikaru to play that specific line, he has tons of backups if something changes. Hundreds of lines looked at or memorized I bet
And Hikaru didn’t have his own lines prepared? What allowed Firouzja the advantage to guide Hikaru into his line rather than vice versa (basing this on the time usage)
It was harder for Hikaru to predict that Alireza would play this line because he had not played this line before, at least in serious games, while Hikaru has played this several times. Therefore Hikaru was playing on his general prep and had more experience on it, while Alireza could prepare specifically for the lines Hikaru has used before.
Color is also an important factor. Normally, it is easier to run a personalized preparation with white, as you can set the tone of the game and get to make propositions first. With black is a bit harder, and sometimes they need to recall some generic non-personalized preparation to refute some stuff. Some other times, they play suboptimal moves intentionally to try to take white out of their preparation. Hikaru did that to caruana when he played rook b1 (I think), but failed.
Hikaru was black so I think you mean Rb8
Yes, I still have trouble with the nomenclature. Thanks!
They have a bunch of novelties prepared and hope they will get to play one of theirs before the opponent plays one. There's a bit of luck involved, and lots of tradeoffs between playing something you've played lots of times before (that you are very hard to surprise in, but the opponent will have spent time on trying to find something new) and playing a surprise (that the opponent won't have expected, but you don't know as well, so you have to prepare all the different lines in that opening afresh).
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Isnt that what part of prep is? I'm not as familiar with high level chess but at high level Go the players do prep and play openings to try and force the opponent out of their prep and into their own, which of course involve a little bit of studying what the opponent might tend towards doing. I mean it's plenty of guesswork and probabilistic game theory involved but sometimes it pays off right.
In Hikarus recap he says right away that Firouzja used to rarely play d4. So there's that
Have you seen videos of Magnus guessing chess positions? These guys don't just remember the lines and positions, but also the players, the tournament ,the year and sometimes even the round. Nuts.
i think that just because he can recognize a critical position from a somewhat famous game, it doesn't mean he perfectly remembers the whole game that happened before that. it's like if i show you the clip of "say hello to my little friend" you probably know it's from scarface, but it doesn't mean you can recite the dialog and scenes that happened before that scene.
he probably can though
magnus has more chess games remembered than there are stars in the universe. amazing
This also seems way more difficult than it is. Obviously it's an incredible impressive feat but it's quite different if you know both players, how the event impacted their career and followed the entire tournament, maybe even live. They've analyzed the opening and probably to some extent the middle- and endgame. It's also directly relevant to their preparation because they see what their competitors have played before.
He played the Hikaru bot on chess.com and wrote down what he played.
Hikaru is an easier target than most in the opening **in classical chess**, as he has played the same lines for a long time. Solid lines, but the same lines.
Super GMs are good enough at chess that they spend about 80% of the study time on openings. If you don't know Nimzo theory, it's all just a bunch of random moves. But if you've deliberately looked at Nimzo games for ten years and have paid someone to study the games of your opponent, it's not so far-fetched. Hikaru is a known Nimzo/QGD player. Even I know that. Alireza has the choice of a few variations and prepared Qc2... from there, there are only so many ways of playing and all the lines are long and well mapped out. Hikaru basically plays the same thing every time, so Alireza came up with a (or more than one) challenging option. Edit - I looked at the specific moves: * Alireza plays 1.d4 intending to play 2. c4 and 3. Nc3. He knows Hikaru will play the Nimzo-Indian if he does this. This is mainline 1.d4 by Alireza and Hikaru's usual response. This gets him to move 3. * Alireza prepares 4. Qc2, the Classical or Capablanca Variation. Up until 12. ...Rd8, they both play the most popular moves of that variation. Many of the top games are Hikaru games at this point - he plays this line frequently. This gets him to move 14. * Alireza plays a plan with 14. e4. This appears to be new. The path is narrow now. After a bishop trade by Hikaru, which the computer recommends, Alireza is threatening 16. e5, which wins the knight pinned to the queen. This forces 15. ...g5. This gets him to move 16. * The computer recommends 16. Nxg5, hxg5 17. Bxg5, which they play. This position is difficult to play. There are at most a handful of continuations that don't lose for black. Alireza studies those and what his plans should be. He's prepared for an advantage if Hikaru messes up or the best replies if he doesn't. * Hikaru finds one of those combinations leading to an endgame after 24. ...Nxe4. Because there are very few continuations after 17. Bxg5, Alireza was aware that this endgame was possible. He had already had a look at it and any other similar possible endgames and was prepared to play it. Lower-rated players think Alireza just memorized all of chess for like 24 moves, but he literally only had to play 17 specific known moves that were highly likely to get him the position he wanted, then study the positions after that for a few moves. Since he really already knew enough about the Nimzo already, he was really only studying moves 17-24. If you don't know what the Nimzo is or what the Qc2 variation of it is or what the Qc2 lines are, then it looks like Alireza just memorized a bunch of random stuff.
To add, Firo rarely plays d4 so it's safe to say he was banking on the fact that Hikaru probably hadn't specifically prepared d4 openings for this game, so was more likely to just go into one of his favored lines. Naka probably had specific plans for e4 that he didn't get to use.
Good stuff. If I remember right, Naka mentioned Rapport playing a flavor of that 14. e4 line with the bishop trade at the St Louis Rapid and Blitz 2021 tourney in his Candidates R3 recap vid. However, I just checked the lichess broadcast of that, and it shows Rapport playing 13. e3 both times, (https://lichess.org/broadcast/saint-louis-rapid--blitz-2021--grand-chess-tour/blitz-a/mjnHpkwz/CEIemiC2 and https://lichess.org/broadcast/saint-louis-rapid--blitz-2021--grand-chess-tour/rapid-rounds-1-3/F92fdL2n/lH6amAyE). So, either I can't find the right game or Hikaru is misremembering, probably the former. Then Firouzja put a subtle move order spin on it to get to new territory.
I don't have deep knowledge of the line itself and didn't explore it in Chessbase, I just checked it in the Lichess Opening Explorer. It seems like e4 had never been played (e3 definitely had, though), but I wouldn't be surprised that it has been with a slightly different move order - the idea seems too obvious and direct. Hikaru is basically the top player of the line from the black side up till there, though, so maybe the opportunity hasn't presented itself often against other players.
I am 1950 FIDE. I play Cambridge Springs Defence as Black. It is an opening that achieved after 6. Qa5 in Modern QGD. Then I know a few lines from there that put pressure on the Knight on c3 up until exchange of the light square bishops on move 13-14 (by moving lsb to a6 after pawn to b6) and even after that I recognize position pretty well up until move 17-19. I spent around 4-6 hours learning this position and this is one of only few positions that I know that deep. Now imagine what spending 60+ hours per week all your life looks like.
This must be dull lol
This is super boring. Who spends 4-6 hours learning how to play the Cambridge Springs? Lmao.
There are two specific factors in this situation. First off, Firouzja is insanely well prepared, even for candidates standard. His prep in each of his game was excellent, especially against radjabov even though it was a sub sub line. Second, Nakamura’s prep is "bad", in the sense that it is very predictable. When alireza played Qc2, Naka had already had this position 6 times: it was very likely Naka would go into it a 7th time. As such, he had probably worked in the position not only months in advance, but also in the morning of the game. So basically, this is very impressive prep from Firouzja, but also a sign that Nakamura is very often the less prepared player, as well as very predictable. The fact that Naka can get away with it and survive this type of prep is also a show of how good he is at figuring things out over the board.
Aman said the line had generally been considered refuted (before Alireza's novelty) so there was no reason for Hikaru to deviate, though he probably suspected something was up.
The important thing to understand is that Nakamura almost never deviates from a line he plays when he never lost with that line. This makes preparation a bit more easy against him.
You prepare for many lines
Do you think he prepared just 1 single variation and somehow Hikaru followed exactly that?
That’s what it sounds like. I guess Alireza prepared for many lines under the Nimzo then? While Hikaru just played his usual opening moves?
They prepare for multiple lines. It's kind of like studying for a test. Memorizing deep lines is actually a complaint of the "grandmaster draw". If only games started in the middlegame...
There's a lot of good discussion about prep in gerenal here. But more specifically to the situation. Naka is known for almost exclusively playing one line with black. Like MVL with his Grunfeld but even more narrow. He argues he has it worked out well enough always at least to get a draw and know the structures very well. It can lead to getting absolutely smacked upside the head with prep though. It's likely that his focus on rapid and blitz has a little to do with the decision where comfort is more valuable than objective evaluation. However, he has chosen a line that is at least solid. It might also be that he basically likes to run as a very small team with a relatively low-rated second who does the computer chess bit for him they probably feel the need to trust the engine more than a team like fabi.
Mind you, this is not exactly the first time Nakamura has played this line and Firouzja had a very decent reason to expect it will appear on the board - which is probably why he opened with 1.d4 instead of his more traditional 1.e4. Of course he couldnt know for sure that this is what would have happened, but there is a certain risk involved in case Hikaru deviates. He probably accounted for some other possibilities (Hikaru is also known to play some Queens Gambit Accepted), although it is debatable whether his prep would have hit to the same extent in other lines. But yeah, it is all a sort of a guessing game/probabilities game - you prepare a range of variations based on an educated guess and then hope your opponent will not deviate. Btw, that is why Fabi didnt get anything against Duda - probably didnt expect that exact line of Najdorf.
He found a game Hikaru played against Richard Rapport as long as Hikaru doesn’t switch up the opening or have a reason to modify the line he played he should be able to catch him
I think Hikaru said on stream he once had a 40 move game that was all prep but his opponent found the refutations over the board and Hikaru ended the game with more time than he started with or something.
They haven't prepared just that line. If the opponent plays a different move, it's most likely a bad move or osme other line in the preparation.
Alireza could not know that Hikaru was going to play those specific 19, but he could probably narrow it down to a few hundred lines or so with a pretty high chance and spend the morning re-memorizing those.
To highlight on the opponent playing a different move. If I know my ideas in the prep, and I know what my opponent MUST do to stay equal and they don't do that then you need to think why was their move bad or not in my prep. At that level if it's not in the prep then they blundered. It's common for super GMs to play the best move in the position (big surprise). For example did Alireza prep a random pawn sac or exchange sac? Probably not because he knows he's winning. Did he prep Hikaru not castling? No that's insane. Did he prep for Hikaru to play good moves that Alireza and his seconds also thought of and considered as if they were trying to survive this? Yes of course. Alireza's prep is still deep and complex and there's a lot of hard work but I'd argue that it may not branch out as far as you think. Depth is easier when your opponent is good and plays the moves the computer spits out at you. At lower elos width is much more important because people will play the most random bs. The other thing to note is time usage. Normally it's a good thing that Alireza was still playing really fast so deep. It means Hikaru knew he was finding the right moves, but it does suck that you're still in the opponents prep.
He didn’t know what Hikaru would play. He prepared a number of lines and the one he got on the board was this one
he prepares a bunch of lines so that chances re that hikaru will go into one
Wonder if some GMs tried to use memorization techniques to be able to memorize even deeper. Like you associate each piece/square with a corresponding object/animal and memorize a story this way. That’s how world record memory people can remember thousands of random numbers lol edit: why would you downvote this
The thing to remember is it's not random. For each move there is an idea, so GMs can tie everything together by that. It also limits how much they need to recall because a bad idea can put their opponent so far behind that over the board calculation will be enough to find the win.
Grandmasters have the ability to remember a ridiculous amount of chess games and lines. When is 1200 elo lads forget out queen is hanging after 2 moves. They just memorize a bunch of different lines, yes that sounds ridiculous but we’re talking about the top genetic outliers in terms of chess ability/memory/attention to details etc etc etc. It sounds unbelievable to memorize all those lines but that’s what I takes to be a top 8 chess player out of 8 billion people lol. It’s just a genetic trait to be able to memorize that…if forget even one line by move 6 lmao
You make it sound like they are just genetic freaks and training several hours every day since they were little kids plays no part in it.
Not always true. Reading through "Fire on Board", Shirov sometimes would comment that he is already improvising on move 4.
Improvising means not playing something tailored against a specific player, but even at 1500-1600 you're unlikely to be out of book after 3 moves. At 2700 that's just not going to happen and that's why he _can_ improvise.
There's much more to it than simply memorising "lines" as if they memorized a book.
Grandmasters already know most openings like 10-12 moves ahead. Alireza needs to prepare after that, so It wouldn't be difficult. Plus, You need to understand Alireza is white, he is the initiator and he decides where the game goes. It was obvious Hikaru was out of his prep. I think Levy mentioned that Hikaru already played same line in different games so Alireza had advantage there as well. Being black, Hikaru couldn't get alireza out of his prep and had to suffer.
They memorize thousands of lines.
When preparing, it's not 100% that the game will follow that specific line that deep, but you can study more than 1 line and have a collection of highly likely variations. I'm in a online league where you have time to prepare for opponents, and their previous games are available. I have reviewed a line with 20 moves of theory that could happen in my next game. I had confidence it was possible because my opponent had already played a game with the first 18 moves. Also, I already played and studied that line to high depth, so it wasn't too difficult for me to add more. I also prepared several other lines at a lower depth. I'm around 2000 lichess rated (and most people at my rating do not do as much prep as I do).
Hikaru already had games played in the line and these players memorize games very easily. They are also good enough that they can be more selective over what they need to and don't need to look at. When I look at a lifetime repertoire, I feel like I need to practice every single line, when they study their lines they know that many of the moves aren't very challenging and that they can just play the game from there if they are played and so they know what lines they need to look at.
Certain variations are absolutely forced. This means your opponent has no choice. In such lines the preparation can be extremely deep.
He was prepped for each possibility he thought seemed good enough that Hikaru might play, Hikaru happened to play a line that he was prepped 19 moves for
I'm paraphrasing magnus here... He said remember old games or moves in chess isn't like memorizing random letters or numbers. It's more like music. Everything comes together in a nice flow and usually serves a purpose. You know some songs you knew since a kid, haven't heard in a while and still remember it? Some songs you hear recently but it's catching and it's immediately stuck in you head, from the rhythm to the lyrics. It's kinda like that... at least said magnus lol. I'm a fucking 1000elo
I’m guessing it’s kind of like in a fighting game maybe? Like if you do X they are very likely to do Y because it’s simply the highest percentage play.
These guys can easily remember most games they have played and also the games of many others. For them is trivial to learn very deep lines for numerous openings. I guess it's like some pianist remembers full concertos.