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On the chess24 English broadcasts, Howell/Houska/Snare is aimed more at the general audience, while Polgar/Giri targets the "chess nerds".

So far the match is much more exciting than I expected. MC is taking a lot of risk and sacrificing material rather than playing for dry technical positions. Surprising to me, as I consider Nepo the better tactician.

In this age of exhaustive neural-network computer opening preparation, there seems to be a bit of gamesmanship going on. Perhaps MC is choosing lines that aren't "the engine's first choice" but give JN more opportunity to go wrong.

Delighted to see GM Michael Adams annotating the games for Chessbase, albeit one day after the fact. I've enjoyed GM Sam Shankland's same-day annotations at chess.com; he's worked as a second for MC, so has some insight into behind-the-scenes aspects.

Thanks for the tips on the different channels. I like the idea of a permanent visual of the current position. I’ll try switching between Giri/Polgar and Howell/Houska/Snare today and see how that goes. A lot of the analysis goes over my head but I find it fascinating none the less

Hi Jono,

I'm about as far from an expert as you can get so I've mainly been watching the Howell/Houska/Snare commentary, as they're not only great communicators, but it is much more at my level. That said, it is good to hear what two giants of the game, Giri and Polgar, make of it all.

Looking forward to Game 3 - only an hour away 😃

Game 3: Oh well. I tuned in after 22. Bc2, when the evaluation bar read 0.00 but the board was full of pieces. Magnus promptly played 22...d5 (which was the best move) and the position quickly liquidated to a draw.
Didn't spend a lot of time on that one!

World Chess Championship

Got to Game 3 only when it was all over. I guess Magnus must be happy to be level after 2 Blacks and 1 White, especially as he could have lost Game 2.

i watched a bit of the post-game press conference. I don't know what they expected Nepo to say when he was asked what he was going to do about his failure to capitalise with the white pieces. 'Ah yes, my team and I are seriously thinking about opening 1 b4 in the next game....'

Good match so far, though. I like the rule of no draw offers till move 40.

Rest day on Monday.

Just when I was about to write off the chess match as destined for 14 draws and rapid/blitz playoffs...
The World Champion takes the lead by winning a trademark grind in 136 moves, almost 8 hours!
Haven't yet studied the game, am at work and couldn't follow in detail.

Many commentators have observed that Game 6 just set the record (136 moves) for longest World Championship game (surpassing Korchnoi-Karpov, m/5, Baguio 1978 - 124 moves).

Watching excellent post-game commentary by GMs Judit Polgar (GOAT female player) and Surya Ganguly (strong player and high-level chess trainer) on chess24.

World Chess Championship Game 6

Sequence of draws broken at last. This link shows a commentary by a strong amateur chess player, James Gardner, a member of my chess club.

It's an easy watch and listen if you just want a superficial understanding of what happened in this marathon game.

https://youtu.be/5wCqqw_808k

Incidentally a 'table base' is a 100% accurate and exhaustive computer analysis of positions with just a few pieces remaining. Apparently Nepo technically could have drawn the endgame but it was really difficult in practice, especially when the time control looms.

Feeling bad for Nepo...Game 8, in a position where White had no more than "a symbolic advantage", he self-destructed and wrecked his position in the space of a few moves. After 36 moves, even the drawish tendencies of Queen endgames won't be enough to save him.