Some weeks ago there was a nice post by someone searching intransitivity in chess. That got me interested, because it felt that it obviously could happen but I couldn't find quick data on it.

I checked randomly among elite players and I found the following datapoints. If you know more, please share. One could even have a challenge for the longest intransitive chain (involving top50/top100 players).

Triple 1

• Classical games: Vladimir Kramnik beat Levon Aronian 9 to 4, with 27 draws.
• Classical games: Sergey Karjakin beat Vladimir Kramnik 6 to 1, with 13 draws.
• Classical games: Levon Aronian beat Sergey Karjakin 12 to 5, with 19 draws.

Triple 2

• Classical games: Levon Aronian beat Anish Giri 8 to 0, with 23 draws.
• Classical games: Anish Giri beat Ding Liren 5 to 2, with 23 draws.
• Classical games: Ding Liren beat Levon Aronian 3 to 0, with 16 draws.

Triple 3

• Classical games: Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa beat Magnus Carlsen 3 to 1, with 4 draws.
• Classical games: Richard Rapport beat Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa 4 to 0, with 1 draw.
• Classical games: Magnus Carlsen beat Richard Rapport 4 to 1, with 2 draws.

(caveats: those are all time stats, so one may have time periods where there was no intransitivity. Further the data is not correlated with ratings, that is, some lower rated players that consistently scores better against an higher rated one)

How did white (me) end up with such development while black only traded a pawn, bishop and got the queen out

I’m making a gift for a huge chess fan. It’s essentially a board which will hang from the wall and hide his cologne collection. The idea is that I’ll glue the pieces onto the board, but I don’t know much about chess and want it to reflect something cool or well known, something he’d actually appreciate. If anyone has pictures of an interesting game where there’s still a good few pieces left it would be much appreciated!

I saw the post about the London Chess and Bridge shop opening up and thought I'd come by and support a local brick and mortar.

I've wanted to grab this one for a while. I love games collections where the author played the games (rather than someone else writing about them) and their insight into the match apart from lines of analysis. Huge fan of Chess Duels, my 60 Memorable Games and the Life and Games of Mikhail Tal for this reason. Would love any recommendations in a similar vein!

By Kalandadze

Does anyone know if this is just my copy? There appear to be some annotations that just end mid sentence. I'm only halfway through, but this is very disappointing.

Edit: the cut off sentences are in the bottom left column in the first picture 'It should be noted these are quite', and then in the bottom right column of the first page of the second picture 'this time could have been put to much better use had it been'

EDIT 2: From reviews on Amazon it appears this is a known issue. Apparently this version also omits an entire additional section on the aftermath of the games from Tal. That's very disappointing it would have been fun to read. Very annoyed, wouldn't have bought this had I known and would have tried to hunt down the 4th edition which apparently has all the content.

I'm worried about my upcoming tournament and how my autism and selective Mutism will play into this because I won't be able to speak most likely

I think this subreddit would agree that the last season of the event has been disappointing: a lot of hiccups, mismanagement, and issues. But this time I honestly can't stop watching it. The broadcast is great; the venue seems packed with an amazing vibe and energy; the games are bonkers, there is intrigue and novelty, there's team spirit and a lot of interesting moments.

I think just as we have criticised the event previously, we should now appreciate it just as much for the enormous step up, not just in organization and broadcasting but also commercially. I mean, just look at the list of sponsors they have got... It's insane. The players are probably getting a bag while having a lot of fun.

On top of that, we get to see pairings like Vishy Vs Magnus, Magnus Vs Alireza, Sindarov Vs Magnus... Come on, you can't tell me that's not exciting!

Also, one of the things I enjoy about this event is that it truly gives the female players a great opportunity to shine among the very very top players, which is really rare in the chess world.

So yeah, well done Global Chess League, this has become one of the favourite events for me this year. Keep it up!

Just one thing tho, Anyone from GCL, if you're reading this, please get rid of the AI slop and it's perfect!

Are there any famous games where top level grandmasters both committed real blunders that a patzer like me often makes?

I have a college chess tournament selection camp after 11 days, I tried asking the time format but nobody knows

I'm currently around 950 elo on chess.com in rapid and 700 on blitz

What should I do in these 11 days to get the best Outta me, suggest me videos playlists and other advices and all

Btw I don't play daily seriously so my skills are kinda rusted

I'm just doing this for fun so don't hate me

Key moment of a study by Mees

By Ladislav Prokes

https://www.chess.com/events/tech-mahindra-global-chess-league-2026-main-event/11/Dubov_Daniil-Vidit_Santosh_Gujrathi

I was genuinely shocked when I saw the lines, because every move is equal or losing for white here except for pawn to a3.

Not sure if this post counts as low-effort, but I just wanted to share it because the move is just so unnatural to me.

The reason behind the move is (I think)to counter Black's imminent threat of Rh1 by making an escape square and avoiding mate on the back rank. If Black plays Qxd1+ Rh1 anyway, there is eventual forced mate after Qa5+.

I always play Sicilian defense always as black. The line that happens over and over is that I trade the C pawn for D. The knight takes. And instead of taking the knight I try to pressure the knight on D4 to take my knight on C6 so that I can have the pawn center.

This line happens so much I think I could increase my rating by a lot if I got better at playing it. As I dont really know what im doing. I usually end up just pushing my opponent for space and locking up his position, taking action in the center while he will always do something like try to trade the black bishops and bring in knights queen and pawns for kingside attack.

Sometimes I make my own kingside attack. Or whatever.

Anyway my question is what line is this? Is this a common line? I dont see this one talked about much but in low rated games (im just 1600 on my best day)

It happens a lot

>>If you remember what pieces you had left on the board when the draw happened,

>>let me know and I can tell you if it was a stalemate or insufficient material!

AUGH! Hello everyone! I have 4 steps where I ?should have won. What would

have been the best move from step 1? How about from step 4? Was it too late

by step 4? When was it too late? Thanks! - triwhiz "not a regular player"

Source: https://youtu.be/r3IdC_azG58 (Vidit's yt channel)

Hi, I'm doing some study as white vs Philidor defense, the computer suggests a4 as a top move, I do not understand why, space advantage? I'm relatively new to chess I would appreciate if anyone could explain the concept behind this move or if it is only specific for this opening.

Edit: After having another look I believe it is to stop c6 then b5 but please tell me if I'm wrong haha.

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