The arbiters when they told his game to move tables also told Firojza that he wouldn’t be in the tiebreak game anyhow as others had a better tournament record.
Hearing that info at the time wouldn’t be great for his state of mind trying to finish out his game, win & get into the world’s top 10.
In my days playing over the board (usually in cramped venues) it was off-putting if people nearby were playing rapid/blitz banging out moves when you were playing a competitive slow play match - I guess that's why they wanted to move the Firouja game away from the play off game. Still not good organisation though for a top tournament.
Looking at the panorama photo of the 7 boards, there was plenty of room to play the tiebreaker well away from Firouja’s board. He was on board 4, board 1 was available at the far end & cameras were filming each board.
I found this Eric Rosen video really interesting and useful (You can skip the first 8 minutes if you like.)
He studies a rook ending from one of his games and then goes back and uses the computer to analyse and explain a couple of mistakes in both his and his opponent's play in the ending. The whole thing is in lichess but you can do similar analysis on chess.com. You may well have to pause and rewind a few times - he's fast!
Free training & racing tools for runners, cyclists, swimmers & walkers.
Fetcheveryone lets you analyse your training, find races, plot routes, chat in our forum, get advice, play games - and more!
Nothing is behind a paywall, and it'll stay that way thanks to our awesome community!
World Chess Championship
Dec 2024