I am so glad I went back on my media diet/fasting. No news is good news (for my mental health).
2024 Chess Candidates Round 7 Predictions
I went 4/4 with Open predictions yesterday! Blind squirrels, acorns, etc. I would love to see some chaosmaxxing results today…it’s theoretically possible for the day to end in a 6-way tie! But what my actual predictions:
Open:
- Naka-Nepo: 1/2-1/2
- Fabi-Pragg: 1-0
- Abasov-Vidit: 0-1
- Alireza-Gukesh: 1/2-1/2
Women’s
- Lagno-Salimova: 1-0
- Goryachkina-Zhongyi: 1/2-1/2
- Muzychuk-Humpy: 0-1
- Tingjie-Vaishali: 1-0
📃 Daily(ish) poem → 00355 ◊ Busking ◊ Kevin Young
Busking
The day folds up like money
if you’re lucky. Mostly
sun cold coin
drumming into the blue
of a guitar case. Close
up & head home.
Half-hundred times wanted
to hock these six strings
hack, if I could, my axe
into firewood. That blaze
never lasts.
I’ve begged myself hoarse
sung streetcorner
& subway over train’s blast
through stale air & trash.
You’ve seen me, brushed past—
my strings screech
& light up like third rail—
Mornings, I am fed by flies,
strangers, sunrise.
—Kevin Young
—found in Jelly Roll: A Blues (2003)
2024 Chess Candidates Round 6 predictions:
Continuing my proud streak of terrible predictions, I present to you the future you will surely be missing. Notably sad tournament for one of my faves, Anna Muzychuk, who has not been able to capitalize on advantage after advantage. She has to be losing steam.
- Gukesh-Naka: 1/2-1/2
- Vidit-Alireza: 1-0
- Pragg-Abasov: 1-0
- Nepo-Fabi: 1/2-1/2
Women’s
- Zhongyi-Salimova: 1-0
- Tingjie-Lagno: 1/2-1/2
- Vaishali-Muzychuk: 1-0
- Humpy-Goryachkina: 1/2-1/2
📺 Noted Video → The Paradox of Wokeness
2024 Chess Candidates Round 5 predictions:
I haven’t tallied my predictions so far, but let’s just say they haven’t been great. Still, one must persevere!
2024 Chess Open Candidates Round 5 predictions:
- Alireza-Naka: 1/2-1/2
- Gukesh-Abasov: 1/2-1/2
- Vidit-Fabi: 1/2-1/2
- Pragg-Nepo: 1-0
2024 Chess Women’s Candidates Round 5 predictions:
- Zhongyi-Salimova: 1-0
- Tingjie-Lagno: 1/2-1/2
- Vaishali-Muzychuk: 1/2-1/2
- Humpy-Goryachkina: 0-1
2024 Chess Candidates Round 4 predictions
My Round 3 Open predictions were 2/4 - Women’s 2/4 in an all draw round. I haven’t tallied my overall yet, but it isn’t good!
Round 4 Open predictions:
- Hikaru-Pragg: 1/2-1/2
- Nepo-Vidit: 1-0
- Fabi-Gukesh: 1-0
- Abasov-Alireza: 1/2-1/2
Round 4 Women’s predictions:
- Goryachkina-Vaishali: 1-0
- Lagno-Zhongyi: 1/2-1/2
- Nurgyul-Humpy: 0-1
- Muzychuk-Tingjie: Draw
🔗 Venting Doesn't Reduce Anger, But Something Else Does, Study Finds : ScienceAlert
Venting when angry seems sensible.
It’s not.
DJotD 20240406
They told me my password had to have eight characters and a capital, so I chose
MickeyMinnieGoofyDonaldPlutoHueyLouieDeweyDublin
📃 Daily(ish) poem → 00354 ◊ Mimic Men ◊ Stacia Cyrene Yearwood
Mimic Men
Heliconius butterflies, classical models of Müllerian mimicry, display a continuum of geographic divergence by altering the photonic scattering of light from the landscape of their scabrous wings. German naturalist, Fritz Müller describes this mimicry as a phenomenon where two or more species that may or may not be closely related, but share a common predator, mimic the other’s warning signals. Often, the usually clear identity of mimic and model are blurred. For instance, to assault the marauding darkness of despair, the immigrant speaks of homeland where the lights of the city yield to a pastoral rhythm, where the mangrove’s prayer is visible as evening falls, or where hyaline noon comes wrapped in noiseless rain. Soon, this life is dominated by the other life they must all begin: the riotous flickering of fluorescents, night shifts paralyzing daylight hours, the constant menacing of sirens. To survive, they pack their old selves into battered suitcases, don characterless uniforms, fit their faces into blank stares – the mask becoming the man, but slowly.
—Stacia Cyrene Yearwood
—found in Beltway Poetry Quarterly (Vol. 14, No. 4.; Fall 2013)
2024 Chess Candidates Round 3 predictions
Well, my predictions for the last round were 1/4 for the Open and 1/4 for the Women’s Candidates 😂. I was definitely not expecting Naka to get crushed with white, nor Nepo to handle Alireza so handily. And I’m sad about Anna Muzychuk’s loss…she is one of my favorite players!
Anyway, here are my predictions for today. A safe bet would be to predict anything other than what I have!
-
Abasov-Naka: 0-1
-
Alireza-Fabi: 1/2-1/2
-
Vidit-Pragg: 1-0
-
Gukesh-Ian: 1/2-1/2
-
Vaishali-Nurgyul: 1-0
-
Tingjei-Goryachkina: 1/2-1/2
-
Muzychuk-Lagno: 1-0
-
Humpy-Zhongyi: 1/2-1/2
Eval bars and engine support in chess commentating are a scourge. Removing them is more fun and also shuts up all the engine jockeys who are miraculously super GMs in chat and discussion boards, all the while constantly falling off their silicon steeds at every .5+ (to be generous) swing.
2024 Chess Candidates Round 2 predictions
My intuition was right about the first round of the Candidates Open; my wishful thinking turned out to be just that. Though the games were draws, all but Nepo-Abasov featured exciting chess, especially by Naka and Alireza.
My predictions for today:
- Pragg-Gukesh: draw
- Naka-Vidit: 1-0
- Nepo-Alireza: draw
- Fabi-Abasov: 1-0
I forgot to post my prediction for the Women’s Candidates, which I expected to be all draws. But my prediction was dashed by Zhongyi Tan’s unexpected revenge for her loss to Tingjie Lei in the 2023 Candidates final!
My predictions for today:
- Zhongyi-Vaishali: 1-0
- Lagno-Humpy: draw
- Nurgyul-Tinjie: 0-1
- Goryachkina-Muzychuk: draw
All my predictions are partly wishful thinking :)
Watch the games on lichess’s (amazing new) broadcast page!
📃 Daily(ish) poem → 00353 ◊ Hearsay ◊ Bernard Ferguson
Hearsay
after lining up my fade, cutting it clean & close to the scalp, my barber asked
my father & my father’s father answered, yes, put a road in & so he tipped
my head & cradled its fruit in his palm as he hovered low & real close
to my hairline, close enough to look at the angles of his work, like a fine
mason as he etched a new path toward what lay behind my eyes, the gold
beneath bone, the treasures that spin there like the rumors i’ve heard, whispers
of how slaves wandered in the dark through crops while pressing fingers
to their skulls, thumbing along, tracing the curves & alleys that lead to
a field’s end & into freedom, the women who pulled the hair & braided it
down the scalp as proof, & the slaves & other slaves who held the new map
at the jaw, twisting the head like one would spin a globe. whispers, like this,
of gold & rice weaved between locs, whispers of strategy, stories of royal blood
in chains, of poison & riot, tales of rebellion spreading like a rumor, legends,
folklore, & any proof of them tucked into the black feathers of that black feathered
kingbird, hidden in its pelt before it took off & vanished behind the veil. still,
i remain, & i once saw my sister stand in front of the vanity & section her hair
in two, plaiting them into grapevines around her ears & down the shoulders,
twisting like our grandmother taught her, the way she learned from someone
who learned from someone else. on flatbush avenue, a woman, true, from Trinidad,
starts at the front of my hairline, at its center, & moves slow so i can follow,
a few locs in each palm, she crosses them, picking up new crop, crissing them
to make a weave, moving out & down the canvas, the continent sprawled
at my crown, ending her work at the cliff of my cranium, where the bone begins
to descend, ending there & tying a knot so the hair can hang & fall free behind me
like the past, & an arrow weaved & pointing outward at the top. ahead, forward.
—Bernard Ferguson
—found in Breakwater Review (2019; Issue 26)
How I’m watching the Candidates: Arc browser, Lichess broadcast, MultiTwitch, and Chatty.
📃 Daily(ish) poem → 00352 ◊ Vesuvius (In the Priests' Quarters) ◊ Jane Yeh
Vesuvius (In the Priests’ Quarters)
When it came, we were getting ready
For bed. The gowns lay on the mattresses,
White as palms open for a coin.
I always loved how they spread themselves,
Armless and headless, across the sheets,
Loved that perfect stillness of things
Dropped from a great height. They stretched
The length of the beds like so many
Paper dolls. That night
The sandals waited on the floor, soft
Brown mouths, open and dumb as those
Of oxen. I loved how the feet
Came down with a slap, the straps
An embrace. We were kneeling
When it hit. Through the window
I saw its hand and when the others ran
I stood, walked the row
Putting on each pair of sandals, pulling
One crackling cloth over my head after another.
2024 Chess Candidates Round 1 predictions
For no reason at all, and hoping that we see more fighting chess, here are my predictions for todays 2024 Chess Candidates matches. I honestly suspect it might open with all draws, but here’s what I think will happen if they come out of the gate hard:
Open:
- Fabi-Naka: 1/2-1/2
- Abasov-Nepo: 0-1
- Alireza-Pragg: 1-0
- Gukesh-Vidit: draw
Women’s
- Goryachkina-Lagno: 1/2-1/2
- Muzychuk-Salimova: 1-0
- Lei-Tan: 1/2-1/2
- Vaishalil-Humpy: 0-1
2024 Chess Candidates Predictions
Trying to predict results in the 2024 Chess Candidates tournament seems even harder than usual, with all the young players, the possible ripple-effects of one outlier with a much lower rating, a player who’s won the Candidates twice, another who came a hair’s-breadth from winning the World Championship, and a competitor who barely scooped up the highest rating spot but is/was seen as one of the most likely future champions.
But I’m going to take a shot anyway because…it’s fun! And it means nothing. And I’m making predictions that are a mélange of what I think will happen and what I wish would happen.
My prediction for the tournament final standings:
- Ian
- Hikaru
- Fabi
- Alireza
- Pragg
- Gukesh
- Vidit
- Abasov
What would be fun to see (and great for the game):
- Hikaru
- Pragg
- Alireza
- Fabi
- Abasov
- Vidit
- Gukesh
- Nepo
I love that I will be happy, for various reasons, with any winner this time around. I’m definitely expecting some exciting chess and tournament dynamics.
DJotD 20240404
I was going to tell you a chemistry joke but decided it wouldn’t produce a reaction.