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Candidates tournament: who are you rooting for and why?

@mkubecek said in #40:
> Mocking or not, I still dislike this practice and I'm glad that unlike chesscom, lichess not only does not encourage it but essentially forbids it.

But this comes with the hefty price tag of driving streamers and publicity away. It would be nice if there was a way to cater for needs of streamers / educators. I have seen a GM abort and throw games with Black because he wanted to show some ideas with his White repertoire. While the intention was good, the way of doing it not so much.
The problem I have with it is that on the other side, there is an unsuspecting opponent who (usually) wants and expects a real game rather than playing part in an experiment or Youtube show. And when they play someone who shows as 1200 rated, they don't really expect it's in fact a GM or IM in disguise who is doing a "speedrun".

Perhaps a solution might be having these account marked with a special flag that would loosen the rating manipulation rules and let other people decide in their configuration if they are willing to play against such accounts. (Not sure if opt-out would be acceptable but opt-in would probably make potential opponents rather scarce.) Or we can accept the status quo that chesscom is here for the show and lichess aims to be "more about chess".

(For me personally, the question is mostly academic as I play almost exclusively classical time controls which is not exactly what streamers look for.)
@mkubecek said in #40:
> Mocking or not, I still dislike this practice and I'm glad that unlike chesscom, lichess not only does not encourage it but essentially forbids it.

Aren't you the same guy that said he watched 2000 rated tournanments, and the women's candidates and cahmpionships, because you thought they were fantastic, filled to the brim with magnificent drama, even more so than other tournaments?

But you prefer not to watch Nakamura teach others how to play chess? Not sure I see the logic here. It seems like sometimes your contentious, and play the devils advocate because you're bored.
@Sleprithslayer said in #43:
> But you prefer not to watch Nakamura teach others how to play chess? Not sure I see the logic here.
There is no logic in that, it's just a classical straw man from your side. I have absolutely no problem watching a titled player teaching others. I have problem with abusing unsuspecting opponents for that purpose. And I believe teaching videos (live or not) can be done without these practices. In #42, I suggested one possible solution - having a consent. But it's not the only one.

For example, I watched many videos by Andras Toth who has a whole series Amateur's Mind where he talks about typical problems and mistakes of amateur players at different levels. And he does it without having to pretend he's one of them. Sometimes he plays them openly with his name and rating, sometimes he does an ex post analysis of games between two players of that level (often one of them being his student). So I believe rating manipulations are not necessary and good educative content can be created without them. It's just one of those "it's normal" or "everyone does it" things that are in fact not OK at all.
Nakamura...I think.. we should create a topic... Nakamura vs Bobby...who gonna win? My best bet...draw
@mkubecek said in #45:
> I have absolutely no problem watching a titled player teaching others. I have problem with abusing unsuspecting opponents for that purpose. And I believe teaching videos (live or not) can be done without these practices.
Ditto. With all his "disrespect" Nakamura doesn't teach anybody to play chess. On the contrary he openly discourages beginners to play, by saying - and I quote him literally - "these people shouldn't play chess, they don't deserve it".
He is often plainly insulting, and purposedly so: "disrespect", "punishment", "crappy play", "trash players" are all keywords in his videos titles. Laughing out loud and mocking to a beginner's blunder is a normal reaction of his. When someone writes in the chat that they are feeling uncomfortable, and asking why does he do that, Nakamura replies abruptly with a shrug: "I do this because I can".

Thanks god we have Lichess. No real teacher is pushed away by our distance from these manipulative practices inspired only by the profit criterion typical of commercial sites such as chess.com.