Insane day of topsy-turvy chess today #1614451

...and yes, the GOAT is now out. On the verge of losing his top slot in the live classical ratings. Insane.

Anyway, for today's game we're following Ian Nepomniachtchi vs Haik Martirosyan -- the latter of whom, astonishingly was leading the group after having defeated Magnus (#1613921). Stuff of fairytales.

Martirosyan opts for a Nimzo-Indian and off we go to grandmaster memorabilia territory; Martirosyan takes the knight when the bishop is attacked, and this is the start of building that Tetris piece (google says it's called A CLEVELAND Z?! wtf, guys...?)

...and then here he opens the board with the world's most obvious fork threat issued.

I've blundered many a forks in the opening like this -- but usually, mine don't work out as well as for Nepo. Mr Ian, boldly and after a mere three minutes of thought, says "aaah, fuck it... let's live a little" #1605547 and just castles out of it.

But what about the fork?

I don't care, bro.

Because it wasn't quite a ready fork (since the black f6 knight was pinned to the queen), EASY FIX: just get rid of the pin and attack the bishop in the process. This uppity challenger is smoking Nepo, right?

Nope. Nepo's knight grabs one pawn on g5 and another on d6 (in addition to the e4 pawn his sacrificed bishop already took). In exchange? A shitton of pawns, a cramped black position, an open black king and a STALLION on d6. Computer? -0.2 bro, everybody go home. No human thinks this is a draw, let alone that black has an advantage?!

A few moves later, Nepo pushes the LSB backwards, and the makings of our Cleveland Tetris cube is progressing:

Shuffling and wins himself yet another pawn in the process. The awesome part about this bit, ON MOVE 25, with just a few minutes left on each players' clock, with quite a lot of chaos going on, Nepo still has all of his original eight pawns, lol!

Count them:

And then behold the BEAUTIFUL FORMATION we made, once the knights get traded and the pawns perfectly assembled

Have you ever seen anything this ridiculous?! Computer says yes. Beautiful. Even after some simplifications, Stockfish says it's fairly levelled... I just don't see how black ever makes it out of here -.- And next, Martirosyan instantly throws away the game, with THE MOST natural move in the position: g4, trade off, activate bishop. (WHat he should have played is Kg7, to somehow win a race for the center/help escort the pawns; I dunno)

...OK BYE. I understand nothing about chess. Ian opts for eating the c5 pawn instead but it doesn't matter... there's no stopping the Cleveland Z now.

And indeed, nobody does; Haik Martirosyan resigns a few moves later.

ASTONISHING that 5 pawns are better than a bishop.