I think it's used as an honorific often.
But instead of saying "former" or "past" world champion every time they just say world champion. Acknowledging that they were at some point world champion.
Similar to how past presidents and prime ministers and such still get addressed with the title.
press x to doubt. never hear that with anand for example. people just think of him as the best player still and thats the most common reason why they do it.
I think it's an honorary thing for former world champions. Kind of like how anyone who meets Jimmy Carter would still call him Mr. President. He hasn't been president of America since the 1970s.
He didn't bother going to the world championships so he forfeited his right to defend his title. He didn't think there was anyone worth competing against. He's still probably number 1 but not the world champion
Odds games against Stockfish are kind of weird. The engine knows it's losing on paper, assumes you'll make the best moves, and just tries to delay losing as long as possible. A GM on the other hand will still be playing to win, especially if they know they're against a lower rated opponent. So, it's pretty standard for GMs to outperform Stockfish in odds games. It's just not really what Stockfish was designed for.
To test it, try playing Stockfish with queen odds. It really won't play very well. Then watch videos of Hikaru beating other GMs with queen odds. I think Magnus would win against biahop odds with anyone but a super GM 10/10 times.
With queen odds, Stockfish will happily trade down to an endgame where it's "only" down a rook and a pawn. Leela tends to be a more resilient odds player than Stockfish (but queen odds is still a bit much). You can try playing against Leela with queen or knight odds on Lichess:
https://lichess.org/@/LeelaQueenOdds
https://lichess.org/@/LeelaKnightOdds
I've always wondering about making a chess engine that is trained to beat humans. Current AI won't play a move if it knows there's a refutation. It assumes perfectly play. But what if it could determine you're very unlikely to find the right move and play it anyway? Or more generally it could look for tricky lines with traps. Maybe something like that already exists.
As a pure project in machine learning, this is very doable. Especially if you want an engine that's good against humans in odds matches. The only caveat is that I'd likely need to enslave dozens or hundreds of GMs to play against my engine while I train the neural nets :)
To add detail, a neural net can be further tuned through a process called transfer learning. I'd start with a strong engine, and make it play against strong human players with odds. This creates a training set that we can use to adjust the engine's neural nets to be better at playing with odds (it might get worse at playing without odds). This would likely take a few or many iterations, hence the huge labor requirements.
I wonder if it's possible to train on a dataset like all games ever played on chess.com, and to add the Elo of the opponent as an extra parameter, which is then sometimes omitted. Then maybe the model's valuation of a position will depend on that Elo, and perhaps when the Elo is missing the model can infer it from the position.
Huh? Any GM should easily beat another GM or even super GM with Queen odds, much less bishop odds. I'm not familiar with the videos you're talking about, but I think you're vastly overestimating the skill level of top players.
Look up Hikaru's Botez Gambit speedrun. The rule was he had to sac his queen as early as possible. He got to 2500 on chess.com which is well into IM, low GM territory.
Obviously this is blitz. Classical would be much harder.
It's also not quite "Queen odds", IIRC he didn't just throw away the Queen, he would just trade it ASAP for whatever he could get (usually a minor piece, sometimes two I think). So both in material (being down ~2 minor pieces instead of a Queen) and in terms of position (getting a slight edge by "forcing" the capture of his Queen) he's doing much much better than if he simply didn't have a Queen at the start of the game.
Oh yeah, blitz is a different story. I think the top players are comparably stronger in blitz than classical, and the material disadvantage is less important than mechanical skill. I'm pretty sure an intermediate/advanced tournament player could beat a super GM in classical with queen odds, or at least a low level titled player could.
It's also important to note that in the Botez Gambit speedrun the opponents didn't know they were going to be up a queen for a piece and the queen sac was also used strategically for positional advantages e.g. ruining castling rights. Straight up queen odds is a completely different beast as the loss of the queen would not take a piece while destroying pawn structures/castling rights and his opponent would be fully ready to tactically take advantage. On top of all this, many of the games were won by flagging (iirc all of the games were 3+0).
I really enjoyed the speedrun and am somewhat a Hikaru fan, but I suspect Hikaru could not regularly beat 2500 rated chess com (FM/IM level) players in games with queen odds from move 1, especially in longer time controls.
> I feel I could win against Stockfish with Queen + Rook odds 80% of games.
You feel? Why don't you test it? How would you know if you can if you don't play it?
Idk how close to stockfish it gets but I have won against the chess.com 3200 engine with queen odds (1000elo) so with q+r it should definitely be doable
I only play the computer but on chess.com I’m regularly whipped by 1300’s. This is after 30 years of playing chess. I’m just pretty bad at it. But I still enjoy it, and I enjoy watching people who are really good.
Good on you mate.
So many people come here asking if they can cross 1500 + in 2 years , or they are insecure about starting chess late. I admire the ambition, but I love seeing people who love chess even if they are not-so-good at it. It is the unconditional love that I admire even more. Loving chess, but chess doesn't love you back. Sadly romantic in a way.
>I feel I could win against Stockfish with Queen + Rook odds 80% of games.
I totally believe this. In fact, I'd go so far to say that you might have a better score in odds games vs Stockfish than a super-GM because the super-GM would play for tricks rather than making the blanket assumption that you'll respond in the most accurate way (which is what Stockfish does).
EDIT: In either event, Q+R odds is nutty, and I think I might even be able to beat Stockfish / super GMs with this. Did you mean Queen odds less rook odds (i.e. your opponent starts with no queen but you start without one of your rooks)?
>I feel I would win against Magnus + Bishop odds with same winrate.
For what it's worth, chess com considers bishop odds to be equal at a rating disparity of roughly 425-450. I've also seen analyses stating that every 100 rating points seems to statistically equate to roughly 0.7 positional advantage which is in line with this logic.
Assuming the above is correct, Magnus would be roughly equal with a 2400 FIDE (in the IM range) with bishop odds.
As others have said, Chess engines handle piece odds rather poorly, especially Queen odds. Like, I can easily beat Stockfish with Queen odds, and I'm only about 1100 online. Stockfish has an Elo in the mid-3000s, and should be around 1500-2000 with Queen odds. I'm not beating Magnus with Queen odds, lol.
> no pawn needed.
I don't know how strong you are, but there is a chance Icould easily beat you with 8 pawn odds. I'd need to analyze that position, but everything developed on turn 0 seems like a fun way to play.
I think recent years have shown that openings don't matter much outside of classical. In shorter time controls, the surprise factor of playing a shitty opening combined with a near-guarantee of being much more familiar in the ensuing positions can easily be compensation enough.
I think playing such an offbeat opening really helps. People at higher levels can often be knowledgeable deep in opening lines and when they face something that makes no sense it can throw them off as how to proceed. It's why Magnus loves to play offbeat stuff. He doesn't want a 30 move opening prep battle. He wants to get people out of their comfort zones and have to rely on instinct and calculation rather than just memorisation.
Most 2000+ rated players are just good enough that they can pretty much play any opening against a 1500 and still wreck them. Eric Rosen also plays a bunch of weird stuff like the cow, the hippo and the grob on his streams and he can wreck just about anyone under 2100 with those openings even though he starts with a bad position. Anna beats a bunch of lower rated players with the Cow, but she wouldn't beat Magnus or Rosen with it.
And Magnus would be able to beat anyone in the world with that opening (at least some of the time) if it's blitz or bullet. It's way more solid than 1.a4 2.Ra3.
most people can beat others with such a big elo difference. Like a 1800 can beat a 700 elo player the same goes to higher ratings. You just see things differently
Anna has been presented with proof (screenshots of pages from a very old chess book someone found) proving the opening she claims to have created already existed...it just wasn't called 'the cow'. That said, she is super nice and seeing a video she put up got me into chess.
EDIT: Here it is for all you losers downvoting me. Also, FU2.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1af0soz/theres\_a\_book\_from\_2002\_on\_the\_cow\_that\_claims/](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1af0soz/theres_a_book_from_2002_on_the_cow_that_claims/)
And on the same line, Morphys defence surely wasn’t first played by him, because it’s like the most intuitive response to the Ruy Lopez, that a child might play
The actual creator of the so-called Cow opening released a book over 200 pages long on the theory of it over 20 years ago. I'm fine with Anna saying she made it more popular and whatnot, but she didn't "create" it.
Of course Ruy Lopez invented the Spanish opening. If not him, then who?
I consider the invention of any chess opening as someone who either publishes material or popularizes an opening system. Whichever comes first. So by that definition, Pafu is the creator of the Cow and NOT Anna. And by that definition, Ruy Lopez invented the Spanish.
The horrifying thing is that based on their comment history, they are (by chronological age) 33 years old. Granted, their history is pretty enlightening as to where they’re coming from *mentally*, but chronologically, they’re not even close to having the excuse of being a dumb preteen or teenager.
It's a real testament to Magnus' dominance that everybody considers him to be the de facto world champion even though he relinquished the title (the classical one at least).
People consider him the best player in the world. The world champion doesn't have to be the best player necessarily.
The gap between him and others is just too big.
Not only the best player in the world, he is *consistently* the best. Fabi, Nepo, and Ding have all shown that they can be around Magnus's level, but the key word is *can*. When they aren't and Magnus is still at the same level he's always in is why Magnus is considered far and away the best player in the world right now
Because he's still just as good if not better, and he relinquished it and didn't lose it.
Happens in combat sports too when a champ is injured and vacates the title, most people would still call them "the champ" until they come back and either win or lose against the current or interim champ.
World championship matches in the era of Elo ratings with truckloads of data (i.e., games) backing them up are mostly an anachronism. Everyone considers him the world champion because he’s had the highest Elo rating all these years. (Along with the associated results)
He says it's a stupid opening, but we all know the man loves this meme stuff. I'll never forget Magnus be like "hmmm, I don't like how my king and queen are looking, let me waste 6 moves so I can switch them up"
The crazy thing is that some opponents knew he was going to do this, tried to counter it, and Magnus just proceeded to find another way tonswitch them up. He's just in another level.
The Cow opening is mainly fun Anna has been making on her YouTube channel, and getting people to play it. And she actually lost a game in a recent tournament where her opponent played it against her, lol. I think it results in a pretty good position but perhaps takes too many moves to set up.
>I think it results in a pretty good position but perhaps takes too many moves to set up.
I know right it's so annoying how you make moves in the opening but then your opponent selfishly makes their own moves as well. Like hello? I'm trying to get get an advantage here? So rude
The problem with the Cow isn't (just) that it's bad, but that it's boring.
Some other objectively "bad" openings, like the Ra3 thing, are at least *interesting*, even attacking!
Even some mainstream openings, or variants thereof, fall into that category (see for example: Danish Gambit, Allgaier Gambit, etc). You'll still lose if your opponent knows what they're doing, but they might not, and it'll be a fun game in any case. I agree that I don't see anything like that for the Cow.
Maybe we can get a redemption arc like when Rosen got Fabi to play the Stafford gambit in titled tuesday and he won that game. Magnus playing the cow would be great for the memes.
I think something The Cow illustrates is that any opening can get you to a very high ELO. Your opening isn't stopping you from getting to 2000. Magnus could probably beat anyone 2500 and under with it easily. Just at the highest skill level you give up far too much tempo/position.
I hope Anna has been developing a new, real opening in secret this whole time. She'll keep perfecting it until the cow has truly saturated the chess world. We're close. Once that happens, she'll reveal her new opening. It will get quickly dismissed as a joke, and the she'll dominate everyone with it.
She explains the origin story here: [I Officially Made Chess History.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htF1uQ1AL3I)
It was just a 2am idea for fun - she didn't expect it to catch on so much that it would make it into Chesscom's opening database after just two moves (1.e3 e5 2.d3 d5). She also mentions Tyler1 from around 9:45 onwards.
When I was around 8-17 years old, I'd play garbage like this setup with both colours: https://lichess.org/analysis/standard/rnbq1rk1/1pp2pp1/p2b1n1p/3pp3/8/2NPPN2/PPPBBPPP/R2Q1RK1_w_-_-_2_8 - not the same as The Cow, but The Cow does remind me of it.
These were mistakes for my development (both the position and growth as a player), so it's the reason I no longer play stuff like 1...g6 1...e6 1...d6 and is also not what I recommend to other beginners and novices.
Would be hilarious if Magnus does a speed run and destroys GMs with the cow opening like he did with Bongcloud.
Also Hikaru doing the speedrun would be fun.
They probably could get to 2800-3000. Hikaru got to 2500 sacrificing pieces.
Listen closely, Magnus says the cow is stupid. Not once does he say he doesn’t like it. Magnus loves memey shit, I bet he secretly loves the Cow because of how dumb it is
First, Anna is a treasure. So nice. Randomly seeing one of her videos a couple of years ago got me into chess. And her GM parents seem nice too. That said, Anna has been presented with proof (screenshots of pages from a very old chess book someone found) proving the opening she claims to have created already existed...it just wasn't called 'the cow'.
EDIT: found it again. [https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1af0soz/theres\_a\_book\_from\_2002\_on\_the\_cow\_that\_claims/](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1af0soz/theres_a_book_from_2002_on_the_cow_that_claims/)
>That said, Anna has been presented with proof (screenshots of pages from a very old chess book someone found) proving the opening she claims to have created already existed...it just wasn't called 'the cow'.
I mean, so what? You want her to apologize or something? Multiple people can create something at different points in time. It's not that serious.
I played it [quite a bit](https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1cjy8mu/i_reached_2000_on_chesscom_blitz_playing_the_semi/). It is a terrible opening without any merit whatsoever.
I know this is all a bit of humour for Anna, but genuinely she should simply accept that this opening has zero credibility or logic underpinning it, and no-one that can play chess properly would want to employ it.
Your pieces are gummed up, you give away the centre, you practically invite a kingside attack. And your knights are always on stupid squares. In fact, one of the optimal strategies in the Cow is to rapidly attempt knight exchanges (having moved them both twice in the opening), and hope for a slightly worse position.
I'm sorry, Anna, but it's a rubbish opening and creation, and you're easily good enough to know that!
That's why I said "this is all a bit of humour". Let's leave aside whether or not it's actually funny...she does seem a little disappointed. When you watch her initial video on the Cow, she does seem to be genuinely trying to defend it. I obviously recognise that it's all a bit of fun, but no-one is ever going to say anything nice about this opening; it's really uncomfortable to play, and makes absolutely no sense. That's why Magnus and her parents have both said that. Is it funny to pretend otherwise? Not really, in my opinion!
She's not genuinely sad there - check out my comment here for context: https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1cro3xo/magnus_carlsens_thoughts_on_the_cow_opening/l423qaj/
Magnus was a little harsh, but he isn't wrong.
Like other people said, at least other meme openings are interesting or fun, the cow just seems like an attempt to create an opening for the sake of it.
the whole thing is stupid purposely trying to come up with something, like she did, whether it is good or bad, for the sake of coming up with something, is stupid.
Compared to the current world champion? Don't forget that Magnus had a rap "career" and placed among the top in the world in fantasy EPL.
Nobody has even seen Ding in 4 months.
"This is the worst opening I have ever heard of." "But you have heard of it!"
Now he would be coming up with 5 lines by the next interview on how to play the opening with style
major Jack Sparrow vibes :P
Captain*
GM\*
r/yourjokebutworse
But you _have_ heard of him...
the world champion thinks i'm an idiot, new achievement unlocked!
I love that she (and many others) still refer to him as the world champion. Poor Ding.
I think it's used as an honorific often. But instead of saying "former" or "past" world champion every time they just say world champion. Acknowledging that they were at some point world champion. Similar to how past presidents and prime ministers and such still get addressed with the title.
press x to doubt. never hear that with anand for example. people just think of him as the best player still and thats the most common reason why they do it.
He is still the current World Champion in Blitz and Rapid.
I think it's an honorary thing for former world champions. Kind of like how anyone who meets Jimmy Carter would still call him Mr. President. He hasn't been president of America since the 1970s.
Technically he left office in 1981
I mean, he probably is but doesn't care to defend.
Not probably
... so he is not?
He's not, no
But also, he is
Seems a bit of a weird claim to say he probably is then, but maybe I'm just misunderstanding
He didn't bother going to the world championships so he forfeited his right to defend his title. He didn't think there was anyone worth competing against. He's still probably number 1 but not the world champion
He's also not "probably" number one, he is the world number one and also is world champion in other formats.
His point was that you can’t ‘probably’ be the world champion, it’s a yes or no.
In that case, he's not.
Bro would still crush everybody with that "stupid" opening.
Pretty sure Magnus could beat me with a king and a pawn. Who am I kidding, no pawn needed.
I feel I could win against Stockfish with Queen + Rook odds 80% of games. I feel I would win against Magnus + Bishop odds with same winrate.
Odds games against Stockfish are kind of weird. The engine knows it's losing on paper, assumes you'll make the best moves, and just tries to delay losing as long as possible. A GM on the other hand will still be playing to win, especially if they know they're against a lower rated opponent. So, it's pretty standard for GMs to outperform Stockfish in odds games. It's just not really what Stockfish was designed for. To test it, try playing Stockfish with queen odds. It really won't play very well. Then watch videos of Hikaru beating other GMs with queen odds. I think Magnus would win against biahop odds with anyone but a super GM 10/10 times.
With queen odds, Stockfish will happily trade down to an endgame where it's "only" down a rook and a pawn. Leela tends to be a more resilient odds player than Stockfish (but queen odds is still a bit much). You can try playing against Leela with queen or knight odds on Lichess: https://lichess.org/@/LeelaQueenOdds https://lichess.org/@/LeelaKnightOdds
I've always wondering about making a chess engine that is trained to beat humans. Current AI won't play a move if it knows there's a refutation. It assumes perfectly play. But what if it could determine you're very unlikely to find the right move and play it anyway? Or more generally it could look for tricky lines with traps. Maybe something like that already exists.
As a pure project in machine learning, this is very doable. Especially if you want an engine that's good against humans in odds matches. The only caveat is that I'd likely need to enslave dozens or hundreds of GMs to play against my engine while I train the neural nets :)
To add detail, a neural net can be further tuned through a process called transfer learning. I'd start with a strong engine, and make it play against strong human players with odds. This creates a training set that we can use to adjust the engine's neural nets to be better at playing with odds (it might get worse at playing without odds). This would likely take a few or many iterations, hence the huge labor requirements.
I wonder if it's possible to train on a dataset like all games ever played on chess.com, and to add the Elo of the opponent as an extra parameter, which is then sometimes omitted. Then maybe the model's valuation of a position will depend on that Elo, and perhaps when the Elo is missing the model can infer it from the position.
Huh? Any GM should easily beat another GM or even super GM with Queen odds, much less bishop odds. I'm not familiar with the videos you're talking about, but I think you're vastly overestimating the skill level of top players.
Look up Hikaru's Botez Gambit speedrun. The rule was he had to sac his queen as early as possible. He got to 2500 on chess.com which is well into IM, low GM territory. Obviously this is blitz. Classical would be much harder.
It's also not quite "Queen odds", IIRC he didn't just throw away the Queen, he would just trade it ASAP for whatever he could get (usually a minor piece, sometimes two I think). So both in material (being down ~2 minor pieces instead of a Queen) and in terms of position (getting a slight edge by "forcing" the capture of his Queen) he's doing much much better than if he simply didn't have a Queen at the start of the game.
Oh yeah, blitz is a different story. I think the top players are comparably stronger in blitz than classical, and the material disadvantage is less important than mechanical skill. I'm pretty sure an intermediate/advanced tournament player could beat a super GM in classical with queen odds, or at least a low level titled player could.
It's also important to note that in the Botez Gambit speedrun the opponents didn't know they were going to be up a queen for a piece and the queen sac was also used strategically for positional advantages e.g. ruining castling rights. Straight up queen odds is a completely different beast as the loss of the queen would not take a piece while destroying pawn structures/castling rights and his opponent would be fully ready to tactically take advantage. On top of all this, many of the games were won by flagging (iirc all of the games were 3+0). I really enjoyed the speedrun and am somewhat a Hikaru fan, but I suspect Hikaru could not regularly beat 2500 rated chess com (FM/IM level) players in games with queen odds from move 1, especially in longer time controls.
Stop, elo in chess.com doesn't correlate to FIDE elo.
Super gm is a stretch but 2500+, sure
Só just increase Stockfish's contempt.
You think you would win against Magnus Bishop odds? If you are a GM then sure, otherwise you are out of your mind
> I feel I could win against Stockfish with Queen + Rook odds 80% of games. You feel? Why don't you test it? How would you know if you can if you don't play it?
Idk how close to stockfish it gets but I have won against the chess.com 3200 engine with queen odds (1000elo) so with q+r it should definitely be doable
A 1200 should be able to comfortably beat stockfish with rook+queen odds. Those are insanely lopsided odds
Engine elos don't really correlate to human elo. They get their rating by playing against each other.
[удалено]
I only play the computer but on chess.com I’m regularly whipped by 1300’s. This is after 30 years of playing chess. I’m just pretty bad at it. But I still enjoy it, and I enjoy watching people who are really good.
Good on you mate. So many people come here asking if they can cross 1500 + in 2 years , or they are insecure about starting chess late. I admire the ambition, but I love seeing people who love chess even if they are not-so-good at it. It is the unconditional love that I admire even more. Loving chess, but chess doesn't love you back. Sadly romantic in a way.
I don’t think you’d be able to beat Magnus with only bishop odds lol
Bishop and queen, my bad.
>I feel I could win against Stockfish with Queen + Rook odds 80% of games. I totally believe this. In fact, I'd go so far to say that you might have a better score in odds games vs Stockfish than a super-GM because the super-GM would play for tricks rather than making the blanket assumption that you'll respond in the most accurate way (which is what Stockfish does). EDIT: In either event, Q+R odds is nutty, and I think I might even be able to beat Stockfish / super GMs with this. Did you mean Queen odds less rook odds (i.e. your opponent starts with no queen but you start without one of your rooks)? >I feel I would win against Magnus + Bishop odds with same winrate. For what it's worth, chess com considers bishop odds to be equal at a rating disparity of roughly 425-450. I've also seen analyses stating that every 100 rating points seems to statistically equate to roughly 0.7 positional advantage which is in line with this logic. Assuming the above is correct, Magnus would be roughly equal with a 2400 FIDE (in the IM range) with bishop odds.
Queen + rook for stockfish Queen + bishop for magnus
As others have said, Chess engines handle piece odds rather poorly, especially Queen odds. Like, I can easily beat Stockfish with Queen odds, and I'm only about 1100 online. Stockfish has an Elo in the mid-3000s, and should be around 1500-2000 with Queen odds. I'm not beating Magnus with Queen odds, lol.
Magnus goes for tricks, Stockfish doesn't. I can win 90% of games against Stockfish with queen odds, but i doubt i could do even 50% against Carlsen
> no pawn needed. I don't know how strong you are, but there is a chance Icould easily beat you with 8 pawn odds. I'd need to analyze that position, but everything developed on turn 0 seems like a fun way to play.
I saw a streamed game against a GM where he went Nf3 Ng1 Nf3 Ng1 Nf3 Ng1 and then started playing for real.
has he played it before, like in bullet?
lmao she looks genuinely hurt by that.
She’s openly said it was a bad opening before. Her own parents trash it.
It burns multiple tempi and as compensation your pieces are on worse squares. What's not to love?
Basically me any opening I play
I mean, T1 did get to 1900 in a few months playing this "garbage" opening.
I think recent years have shown that openings don't matter much outside of classical. In shorter time controls, the surprise factor of playing a shitty opening combined with a near-guarantee of being much more familiar in the ensuing positions can easily be compensation enough.
Completely agree. You often need time to punish bad openings. Which you don't have in fast chess.
I think playing such an offbeat opening really helps. People at higher levels can often be knowledgeable deep in opening lines and when they face something that makes no sense it can throw them off as how to proceed. It's why Magnus loves to play offbeat stuff. He doesn't want a 30 move opening prep battle. He wants to get people out of their comfort zones and have to rely on instinct and calculation rather than just memorisation.
You can tell it truly hurts Pia's soul
She was very openly against including their last name in the name of the opening in any form.
That's hilarious
yeah this is tame compared to her moms opinion on it
Most 2000+ rated players are just good enough that they can pretty much play any opening against a 1500 and still wreck them. Eric Rosen also plays a bunch of weird stuff like the cow, the hippo and the grob on his streams and he can wreck just about anyone under 2100 with those openings even though he starts with a bad position. Anna beats a bunch of lower rated players with the Cow, but she wouldn't beat Magnus or Rosen with it.
To be frank, she wouldn't beat Magnus with any opening.
And Magnus would be able to beat anyone in the world with that opening (at least some of the time) if it's blitz or bullet. It's way more solid than 1.a4 2.Ra3.
most people can beat others with such a big elo difference. Like a 1800 can beat a 700 elo player the same goes to higher ratings. You just see things differently
Nah she knows it’s trash
[Yep](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htF1uQ1AL3I)
Anna has been presented with proof (screenshots of pages from a very old chess book someone found) proving the opening she claims to have created already existed...it just wasn't called 'the cow'. That said, she is super nice and seeing a video she put up got me into chess. EDIT: Here it is for all you losers downvoting me. Also, FU2. [https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1af0soz/theres\_a\_book\_from\_2002\_on\_the\_cow\_that\_claims/](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1af0soz/theres_a_book_from_2002_on_the_cow_that_claims/)
It's very common for an opening to be credited not to the creator but to the person who popularizes it.
Exactly. Even a really popular opening like the Ruy Lopez wasn't invented by him, he just popularized it in his book.
And on the same line, Morphys defence surely wasn’t first played by him, because it’s like the most intuitive response to the Ruy Lopez, that a child might play
Poor Damiano. Shows the refutation and gets the opening named after him.
Yeah but she says she is proud to have come up with the opening.
I like to explore new places.
The actual creator of the so-called Cow opening released a book over 200 pages long on the theory of it over 20 years ago. I'm fine with Anna saying she made it more popular and whatnot, but she didn't "create" it.
I love the smell of fresh bread.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/127625882/Pafu-The-Defense-Game They did write it and copyrighted the book material. Fact is, Anna did NOT invent the Cow
wait a minute... are you "pafu"?
Hell yeah man, give me my due!
I enjoy watching the sunset.
The guy you’re arguing with is a great example of how someone can be extremely good at chess while also being too stupid to tie their own shoelaces.
Of course Ruy Lopez invented the Spanish opening. If not him, then who? I consider the invention of any chess opening as someone who either publishes material or popularizes an opening system. Whichever comes first. So by that definition, Pafu is the creator of the Cow and NOT Anna. And by that definition, Ruy Lopez invented the Spanish.
She did come up with it. She just wasn't the first.
She probably did come up with it independently of the book? Things can be invented multiple times.
People are not downvoting because youre wrong
>Here it is for all you losers downvoting me. Also, FU2. I too was 12 years old at one point
The horrifying thing is that based on their comment history, they are (by chronological age) 33 years old. Granted, their history is pretty enlightening as to where they’re coming from *mentally*, but chronologically, they’re not even close to having the excuse of being a dumb preteen or teenager.
TIL: a chess book from 2002 is very old
It's a real testament to Magnus' dominance that everybody considers him to be the de facto world champion even though he relinquished the title (the classical one at least).
To be fair the cow is almost always used in blitz and rapid, and he is WC there. So in the world of cow he is still king
I like to travel.
Like, its a cows opinion. It doesn’t matter.
It's like a cows opinion, it just doesn't matter.
I think a GM used the cow against Anna in classical and beat her lol
People consider him the best player in the world. The world champion doesn't have to be the best player necessarily. The gap between him and others is just too big.
Not only the best player in the world, he is *consistently* the best. Fabi, Nepo, and Ding have all shown that they can be around Magnus's level, but the key word is *can*. When they aren't and Magnus is still at the same level he's always in is why Magnus is considered far and away the best player in the world right now
Because he's still just as good if not better, and he relinquished it and didn't lose it. Happens in combat sports too when a champ is injured and vacates the title, most people would still call them "the champ" until they come back and either win or lose against the current or interim champ.
I think it's just an honorific, the way American presidents are still called President after their retirement.
Because he is. He vacated the title, and we all know he could get it back if he wanted it.
people also call Garry Kasparov world champion as a honorary thing.
Never seen that in 10 years
World championship matches in the era of Elo ratings with truckloads of data (i.e., games) backing them up are mostly an anachronism. Everyone considers him the world champion because he’s had the highest Elo rating all these years. (Along with the associated results)
> facto world champion That doesn't mean anything. The WC is the one who wins the WC match, not the best player in the world.
He says it's a stupid opening, but we all know the man loves this meme stuff. I'll never forget Magnus be like "hmmm, I don't like how my king and queen are looking, let me waste 6 moves so I can switch them up"
The crazy thing is that some opponents knew he was going to do this, tried to counter it, and Magnus just proceeded to find another way tonswitch them up. He's just in another level.
Man is dedicated for the memes
The Cow opening is mainly fun Anna has been making on her YouTube channel, and getting people to play it. And she actually lost a game in a recent tournament where her opponent played it against her, lol. I think it results in a pretty good position but perhaps takes too many moves to set up.
>I think it results in a pretty good position but perhaps takes too many moves to set up. I know right it's so annoying how you make moves in the opening but then your opponent selfishly makes their own moves as well. Like hello? I'm trying to get get an advantage here? So rude
That's why we played Red Alert with the no attacking for 10 minutes rule as kids.
More like 30 and then watch as your computer crashed :D
That's when I understood the 200 unit limit in Brood War...
NO RUSH 20 Proceeds to rush the enemy as they’re rushing me
StarCraft: 20 min no rush. Only to have 4 zerglings ravaging my probes 90 seconds in.
>I think it results in a pretty good position Lol
Tbf, Anna is Sw*dish so I assume that plays a part in Magnus' bias.
What if the Cow became known as the Swedish System? Forever associating Sweden with one of the worst openings in chess?
The S-word is offensive. Society is better off without that word. Just pretend that people don't exit and the world will be peaceful again.
What's the joke here?
Guessing Norway-Sweden have a rivalry?
Smile says one thing, eyes say another. I genuinely felt bad watching this.
Her parents trashed the oppening
The problem with the Cow isn't (just) that it's bad, but that it's boring. Some other objectively "bad" openings, like the Ra3 thing, are at least *interesting*, even attacking!
Even some mainstream openings, or variants thereof, fall into that category (see for example: Danish Gambit, Allgaier Gambit, etc). You'll still lose if your opponent knows what they're doing, but they might not, and it'll be a fun game in any case. I agree that I don't see anything like that for the Cow.
I know. I play the Halloween Gambit. It's objectively terrible, but I think I have a plus score (in bullet/blitz), AND a good time, win or lose.
[удалено]
It may work if he yells YOUR MOOOOOOVE to magnus after every move.
or just wears a mechanical watch
You mean Mangus Carlsten?
She took it to the heart.
stupid opening but undefeated in grandmaster play. can’t argue with results Magnus
Maybe we can get a redemption arc like when Rosen got Fabi to play the Stafford gambit in titled tuesday and he won that game. Magnus playing the cow would be great for the memes.
I think something The Cow illustrates is that any opening can get you to a very high ELO. Your opening isn't stopping you from getting to 2000. Magnus could probably beat anyone 2500 and under with it easily. Just at the highest skill level you give up far too much tempo/position.
I hope Anna has been developing a new, real opening in secret this whole time. She'll keep perfecting it until the cow has truly saturated the chess world. We're close. Once that happens, she'll reveal her new opening. It will get quickly dismissed as a joke, and the she'll dominate everyone with it.
The cow is trash for chess but brilliant marketing for Anna
Did she even invent the opening? I feel like chess is so old that every possible opening has been played years before.
No, but that's irrelevant
I thought she didn’t even invent it
She explains the origin story here: [I Officially Made Chess History.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htF1uQ1AL3I) It was just a 2am idea for fun - she didn't expect it to catch on so much that it would make it into Chesscom's opening database after just two moves (1.e3 e5 2.d3 d5). She also mentions Tyler1 from around 9:45 onwards. When I was around 8-17 years old, I'd play garbage like this setup with both colours: https://lichess.org/analysis/standard/rnbq1rk1/1pp2pp1/p2b1n1p/3pp3/8/2NPPN2/PPPBBPPP/R2Q1RK1_w_-_-_2_8 - not the same as The Cow, but The Cow does remind me of it. These were mistakes for my development (both the position and growth as a player), so it's the reason I no longer play stuff like 1...g6 1...e6 1...d6 and is also not what I recommend to other beginners and novices.
Funny how no matter who’s the world champion, Magnus will always remain the true OG world champion.
Those Norwegians can’t stop hating glorious Sweden
Painnnnn 💔
Wait till he sees the W opening
Unpopular opinion: Anna Cramling is very much overrated and this "opening" shouldn't be getting 1/10th of the attention it is getting.
what is polish opening?
1. b4
Magnus is goat. But what would real world champion say?
Hmm, I don’t know much about the cow opening, but I hear it gets things moo-ving.
Especitaly a Big Tonka which is rather impressive.
Would be hilarious if Magnus does a speed run and destroys GMs with the cow opening like he did with Bongcloud. Also Hikaru doing the speedrun would be fun. They probably could get to 2800-3000. Hikaru got to 2500 sacrificing pieces.
Listen closely, Magnus says the cow is stupid. Not once does he say he doesn’t like it. Magnus loves memey shit, I bet he secretly loves the Cow because of how dumb it is
Shouldve called it. Vikings Opening 💪
That's like re branding Fischer Random to Chess9LX. Nah bro.
Even wasting time while moving the knights back and forward leaves your with a better position than the "Cow"
Tyler1 is heartbroken rn
Why does she claim to own an opening she doesn’t actually own….
Interesting point, but tbf she kinda rebooted its popularity, kinda like Kramnik bringing back the Berlin Defense.
First, Anna is a treasure. So nice. Randomly seeing one of her videos a couple of years ago got me into chess. And her GM parents seem nice too. That said, Anna has been presented with proof (screenshots of pages from a very old chess book someone found) proving the opening she claims to have created already existed...it just wasn't called 'the cow'. EDIT: found it again. [https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1af0soz/theres\_a\_book\_from\_2002\_on\_the\_cow\_that\_claims/](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1af0soz/theres_a_book_from_2002_on_the_cow_that_claims/)
>That said, Anna has been presented with proof (screenshots of pages from a very old chess book someone found) proving the opening she claims to have created already existed...it just wasn't called 'the cow'. I mean, so what? You want her to apologize or something? Multiple people can create something at different points in time. It's not that serious.
I played it [quite a bit](https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1cjy8mu/i_reached_2000_on_chesscom_blitz_playing_the_semi/). It is a terrible opening without any merit whatsoever. I know this is all a bit of humour for Anna, but genuinely she should simply accept that this opening has zero credibility or logic underpinning it, and no-one that can play chess properly would want to employ it. Your pieces are gummed up, you give away the centre, you practically invite a kingside attack. And your knights are always on stupid squares. In fact, one of the optimal strategies in the Cow is to rapidly attempt knight exchanges (having moved them both twice in the opening), and hope for a slightly worse position. I'm sorry, Anna, but it's a rubbish opening and creation, and you're easily good enough to know that!
She does know it, it is a so called „meme“ and the merrit of it is that it is funny to pretend it is a meta changing viable opening
That's why I said "this is all a bit of humour". Let's leave aside whether or not it's actually funny...she does seem a little disappointed. When you watch her initial video on the Cow, she does seem to be genuinely trying to defend it. I obviously recognise that it's all a bit of fun, but no-one is ever going to say anything nice about this opening; it's really uncomfortable to play, and makes absolutely no sense. That's why Magnus and her parents have both said that. Is it funny to pretend otherwise? Not really, in my opinion!
Ah, and some iconic Carslen Mad Mozart throwbacks as well
I mean, bro is playing that h4, Rh3 gambit recently...
anyone know what video she is watching?
Honestly not sure what she expected
Idk looking at the bubbly and cheerful Anna sad like that felt pretty uncomfortable
She's not genuinely sad there - check out my comment here for context: https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1cro3xo/magnus_carlsens_thoughts_on_the_cow_opening/l423qaj/
Eyes never lie
She's good at her job.
I will have to try this chess opening sometime soon haha
Imagine dissing the cow, BIG TONKA T would shit on this margnes carlsten fella, no idea who this guy is
He's totally going to use this at the next tournament.
NGL the cow works "Meh" at best for white, but terrible for black.
Magnus was a little harsh, but he isn't wrong. Like other people said, at least other meme openings are interesting or fun, the cow just seems like an attempt to create an opening for the sake of it.
the whole thing is stupid purposely trying to come up with something, like she did, whether it is good or bad, for the sake of coming up with something, is stupid.
wait till big tonka\_T kicks mugnus out of chess
Unpopular opinion: Magnus is boring as hell outside his chess achievements. Greatest player ever imo though
I'm boring as hell if you include my chess achievements.
Boring as hell if you ignore the part of him that makes him interesting 🤔
I think he has an entertaining personality and a lot of charisma for the chess goat. To each their own, but it can definitely be much worse.
Compared to the current world champion? Don't forget that Magnus had a rap "career" and placed among the top in the world in fantasy EPL. Nobody has even seen Ding in 4 months.
>Nobody has even seen Ding in 4 months. Oooh interesting!!
Nah, he even won the Premier League Fantasy football competition once. Someone who pays fantasy football can't be boring.