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Absolutely right, geeker @59.

What did you think of MC v Chucky today?

Disappointed in the result. Haven't played through the game yet, but quite a few commentators said it was a Carlsen brilliancy. The Chessbase commentator (IM Robert Ris) said it was his best game of the tournament so far. Which is something considering the "It's on the board!" combination vs. Pantsulaia.

Brendan, I looked at MC-Chucky after about 16-18 moves, thought Black had completely equalized (which he probably had), and focused on other things.
A couple of hours later, Black was busted. Leko said it was a masterpiece.

Looks like one of those games where Black didn't make any obvious mistakes but still got slowly crushed. So definitely a positional master class from Magnus.

In Game 2, Vasyl inexplicably gave up a Pawn in an already drawish endgame and the match is over. Magnus will probably (soon) offer a draw rather than trying to grind out a win.

In Carlsen v Ivanchuk Game 1 it wasn't immediately obvious to me why Ivanchuk resigned. However, he is two pawns down with no compensation and White's a4 rook is going a2, d2, d7. Carlsen played so many moves I would have rejected, e.g. e4-e5 allowing Black the d5 outpost for a knight, previously putting the f1 rook to c1 with the a1 rook and b1 knight still at home. Also happily leaving a rook hemmed in on a4 after b2-b4.
However, his aggressive e5-e6 dissipated much of his advantage, according to the engine. But then it's encouraging for us amateurs to see how often GMs fail to find the best moves, especially in tactical situations, and Ivanchuk still couldn't find a defence against that sub-optimal e5-e6.

As long as I can recall (going back to early/mid-'90s), resigning "early" in positions he deems hopeless has been an Ivanchuk trademark.

Of course, he doesn't lose very often. :-)

That was hard to watch. Vasily really wears his heart on his sleeve and to see him in so much distress was painful.

Brendan, on the subject of bullet chess, which isn't for me but came up last week:

The past 2 Saturdays, GM Naroditsky, who is a bullet whiz, won the weekly chess.com "Bullet Brawl" tournament, "Less than an hour after finishing up a full day of commentary at the 2023 FIDE World Cup".

Impressive.

Paul, just to reiterate how impressed I've been with you friend James Gardener's YT channel Epic Chess.

I've just watched his coverage of MC's defeat of Gukesh and was pleased to see him take the time to lighten the colour of the squares when showing potential lines of play to differentiate between what could have been played and what was played.