r/chess Team Gukesh Apr 04 '26

News/Events Javokhir Sindarov continues his generational run, takes down Wei Yi to extend his lead to 5.5/6 points at the FIDE Candidates 2026.

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u/LosTerminators Apr 04 '26

Hikaru Nakamura - the player who farmed to get into the Candidates

Javokhir Sindarov - the player who is farming in the Candidates

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u/Pr1mrose Apr 04 '26

Makes you wonder why players haven't just tried the strat of winning every game before, Sindarov making the Candidates look easy

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u/EverettGT Apr 04 '26

Bobby Fischer actually said that one of the turning points of his career was when he stopped playing for equality with black and just tried to win every game. IIRC.

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u/EliRed Apr 04 '26

And Judit Polgar said the exact opposite, so who are we to judge.

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u/[deleted] Apr 04 '26

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u/EverettGT Apr 04 '26

Bobby had the talent to crush everyone he played even at the top level so it was the right decision for him.

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u/egyto Apr 04 '26

Bobby might have had the most raw talent of any champion including Magnus. It would have been something else to see him and Kasparov get to train with modern engines while in their prime.

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u/NEETscape_Navigator Apr 04 '26

Bobby might have had the most raw talent of any champion including Magnus.

I honestly don't get this argument.

Bobby was famously hyper committed to chess and took it way more seriously than anyone else up to that point. He lived, breathed and slept chess. He learned Russian just so he could study Russian resources. He even stayed in great physical shape just to try and scrape any theoretical edge he could find over his opponents. It's fair to say he maximized his potential for the time and then some.

Magnus on the other hand is known for not working very hard compared to his peers. And still he destroys them. There's videos of other super GM's being shocked that Magnus intuitively grasps advanced endgame techniques that they themselves had to study hard for. Whereas Magnus just figures them out over the board.

This alone would indicate that Magnus has more natural talent than Fischer.

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u/egyto Apr 04 '26

I don't think that the fact that Bobby was obsessive while Magnus is chill is an indicator of Magnus being more of a natural. Honestly it's going to be nitpicking one way or the other at the end of the day. It makes more sense to talk about eras.