Candidates 2022. Round 1 : The Law of Sod in operation : both my tips, Hikaru and Ding, lose! [annotations by Akiba]
The law of Sod, aka Sod’s law :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sod%27s_law
Click on each move to replay the game using the superb RPB Chessboard viewer.
Fabi “gets the dub” as Hikaru would say. Hikaru played the opening superbly in the face of Fabi’s prep, but his normally great positional awareness deserted him when he castled kingside.
It was perhaps unwise to go into such a variation that Nepo would have spent ages preparing. Then again I can say that, can’t I, with the benefit of hindsight and sitting on my fat arse, hundreds of Elo points inferior to Ding, but manipulating Stockfish 15. “Them as can do, them as can’t, blog abaht it” as they say in Yorkshire.
Hats off to Hikaru though! Loses in Round 1, then posts a video about it later that evening! LEGEND!
