Round 9 of the 2022 Candidates: Nepomniachtchi Escapes; The Peleton Awakens

(Originally published on my Substack blog. Please subscribe!)

It’s almost certainly too late for the chase pack in the 2022 Candidates tournament to make a real run at the title, but it’s nice to see that their slumber has finally come to an end. (See my comments about a “fresh start” in the round 8 post.) Going into round 9, four players had yet to win a game; now, only one.

We’ll get to that in a moment, but first: the Big Game. Fabiano Caruana had excellent chances to defeat Ian Nepomniachtchi in their game from the first cycle, but didn’t see or underestimated a critical idea at the end of the game and allowed a draw by repetition. Today, a point behind Nepo and needing a win, his excellent preparation gave him another shot at a full point. Caruana was highly critical of Richard Rapport’s opening disaster against Nepomniachtchi’s Petroff in round 7, and he showed the chess world how it’s supposed to be done. His 11.Nh4 was a very nice (almost) novelty, and while Nepo’s initial reaction was excellent he erred on move 17 and 18. The critical moment came on move 24; it’s White (Caruana) to move:

Happy solving! Suffice it to say that Caruana played the second best move, which allowed Nepo to scamper away to safety and an easy draw. Working out the details of the best move wasn’t easy (if it were, Caruana would have done it), but had he done so he’d have been winning, or near enough to winning to be a big favorite to reel in the point.

That was great news for Nepomniachtchi, and more was to come. Hikaru Nakamura could have joined Caruana in second with a win; instead, he lost to Teimour Radjabov, who had been winless up to that point. Perhaps Nakamura was in the wrong state of mind after his epic win over Caruana in the previous round, as he committed a serious misjudgment early on. His 12th and 13th moves baited Radjabov into grabbing a queenside pawn at the expense of kingside safety, but it turned out that Radjabov’s king was fine. As for the queenside pawn? That won the game. It was a surprisingly easy victory for Radjabov, who is back to -1, while Nakamura fell back to 50%, two points behind Nepo.

Richard Rapport’s first win came in round 8, but like Nakamura he was unable to build on it but instead took a step back. He was conquered by Alireza Firouzja, who exited the opening with a huge advantage and a massive attack. He made a couple of mistakes along the way, but Rapport did too, and the result was a very one-sided win for the young Frenchman. It was his first win of the tournament.

Ding Liren also winning for the first time in the tournament, grinding down Jan-Krzysztof Duda in a long game. The game looked (and was) very drawish for most of the first time control, but just before move 40 the position became more complex. Probably short of time, Duda made a major error on move 40, and while proving the win afterwards wasn’t so easy the world’s #2 was up to the challenge and got back to 50%. (The games, with my comments, are here.)

Now that the action is heating up…it’s time for a rest day. When play resumes on Wednesday, we’ll see these pairings for round 10:

Rapport (4) - Ding (4.5)

Duda (3) - Caruana (5.5)

Nepomniachtchi (6.5) - Radjabov (4)

Nakamura (4.5) - Firouzja (4)

Round 8 of the 2022 Candidates: Nakamura defeats Caruana; Now It's a Three-Man Race?

(Originally published on my Substack blog; please subscribe there.)

What is special about New Year’s Day? Objectively, nothing at all. There’s no scientific reason for the year to start 10 days after the northern hemisphere’s winter solstice, and even if there were, it wouldn’t give that day any magical powers. And yet the day has a powerful effect on most of us: we sense the opportunity for a new beginning, and most of us make resolutions to improve ourselves in various ways in the new year. And it’s not just January 1 that has that effect on us. Our birthdays often function similarly, and we might use an anniversary, the start of a new month, or even the start of a new week as the occasion for a fresh start. In traditional Christian churches, Lent and Advent can have that function, and in Judaism there’s Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashana, not to mention the Sabbath (or each Sunday for many Christians). Other religions have their days where the believer is encouraged to review their lives and make changes.

Interestingly, the occurrence of a milestone can lead to profound changes, even when the milestone has no religious or moral significance whatsoever, and even more remarkably, when the individual has no intention or desire to make a change. An example that comes to mind is the All-Star break in baseball. It has frequently happened that a player who had a great first half of the season performed far worse in the second half, and the reverse is true as well. One obvious explanation is regression to the mean, but my understanding is that it goes beyond that. Regression to the mean should in theory happen all the time, but it occurs far more often at the All-Star break, and often to a greater degree than one would expect.

This Candidates tournament didn’t have its “All-Star break”, but the last one did, and it made a difference. Ian Nepomniachtchi had time to forget about his loss to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave at the end of the first cycle and came back strong when the event resumed a year later. MVL did not manage to maintain his momentum, while Ding Liren went from -2 in the first cycle back to an even score overall in the second.

So what about this one? There was no break, but there is still something about the idea of having a second cycle. It’s a fresh start. Yes, the first cycle ended just one day ago and yes, those scores still count. Still, rather than seeing it as round 8 of the Candidates, one can see it as round 1 of a new round-robin, and in that way put the first part of the tournament in the past.

I think it is with that in mind that Nepomniachtchi, with the white pieces, went for a draw from move 1 against Ding Liren. With extremely rare exceptions, the Scotch Four Knights is not an opening one GM plays against another - to say nothing of a game between super-GMs - when trying to win. It is safe to the point of stodginess, an attempt to keep the odds of a draw around 90% while hoping for perhaps the very slightest of nibbles. And this was not a case where Nepo had something clever prepared: the players followed known theory for 21 moves, when Ding varied from one of his own games. He easily drew that one, and he easily drew this one.

So why did Nepo throw away a white game against a player who, though great, was also near the bottom of the tournament, with a winless -1 score? My suggestion is that it’s because this was round 1 of a new tournament, and Ding’s discouragement about his play in the first cycle could be erased with an opportunity at the start of the brand new second cycle. Discretion was the better part of valor against the pre-tournament top seed. The safe draw kept Ding from “waking up”, and guaranteed that at worst he would enter the next round tied with Fabiano Caruana for first, going into their game.

Instead, it worked out even better: he finished his game quickly, while Caruana lost a six-hour game against Hikaru Nakamura. (It was a fresh start for Nakamura, while Caruana’s momentum from the first cycle disappeared.) Caruana’s approach was exactly the opposite of Nepo’s. Where Nepomniachtchi was cautious as White, Caruana chose an extremely risky line with Black. I don’t think Caruana’s choice of the Dilworth was a good one against this opponent, especially but not only in this situation, and I felt this way the second I saw the variation on the board. (See the analysis file for a significant elaboration of this point.) Caruana achieved a good position, but Nakamura was far more adept at handling it, and White was soon winning. Nakamura probably could have won the game swiftly had he played 39.Be8, but was instead forced to continue for another two+ hours thanks to Caruana’s resilient defense. Still, he persevered and never let the win slip, and now he’s just half a point behind Caruana, who is a point behind Nepomniachtchi.

The hitherto winless Richard Rapport also gained a full point in a lively game that would probably have been included in Vladimir Kramnik’s censure had the interview been done a couple of days later. Rapport’s attacking play in the opening was ill-founded, and Jan-Krzysztof Duda enjoyed a significant advantage early on. Unfortunately for Duda, his defensive play was quite poor, and he was soon blown off the board. Now Rapport is back to 50%, and can entertain some slight hopes of success.

The last game, between tailenders Alireza Firouzja and Teimour Radjabov, went even longer than the Nakamura-Caruana game. Firouzja was better through most of this 93-move monster, that went more than seven hours, but finally Radjabov managed to fully equalize and force Firouzja to play for the draw. Even they played with more optimism than their last-place standing would lead us to expect, so - perhaps - the psychological magic of the fresh start affected them as well.

Two addenda. First: at the end of the paragraph on the Rapport-Duda game, I suggested that Rapport “can entertain some slight hopes of success”. You may interpret this as a statement about his chances of taking first, which are slight indeed. However - and I don’t know if this is speculation or what will happen if the situation comes up - but I’ve heard talk that if Carlsen does indeed refuse to defend his title the top two finishers in the Candidates will play the World Championship match. If so, then Duda and Nakamura don’t have to overtake Nepo; it would suffice for them to overtake Caruana (while staying ahead of each other).

Second: That makes tomorrow’s (Monday’s) game between Caruana and Nepomniachtchi both less important and more important than it would otherwise be. It’s less important for Nepo, in that he could still end up in, say, a World Championship match with Caruana even if he lost the game and finished in the American’s wake. Likewise, a draw wouldn’t be fatal to Caruana’s chances of coming second and achieving the same sort of match. However, the game is more important in that the results could prove enormously useful to Nakamura and Duda in the race for second. (And if Nepo loses, Nakamura is by no means out of the chase for first.)

And so this speculation-filled post comes to an end. Here are today’s games, with my comments, and here are the round 9 pairings:

Firouzja (3) - Rapport (4)

Radjabov (3) - Nakamura (4.5)

Caruana (5) - Nepomniachtchi (6)

Ding (3.5) - Duda (3)

What Have We Learned From AlphaZero?

(Originally published on my Substack blog. Please subscribe!)

Those who really want to get into the weeds of what can be learned from AlphaZero and contemporary chess engines in general should check out Matthew Sadler’s books Game Changer: AlphaZero’s Groundbreaking Chess Strategies and the Promise of AI (co-authored with Natasha Regan) and his newer, perhaps more directly practical work The Silicon Road to Chess Improvement: Chess Engine Training Methods, Opening Strategies & Middlegame Techniques. (One should not learn from him how to write a short title.) But you might also have a look at this paper, and economist and retired (from chess) FM Tyler Cowen’s reflections on the paper.

If you’ve come across other tidbits over the years, whether from grandmaster commentary or your own experience, please share them in the comments.

Vladimir Kramnik on the 2022 Candidates (Ok, but what do you really think?)

(Originally published on my Substack blog. Please subscribe!)

A few rounds ago I cited Magnus Carlsen’s colorful commentary on Ian Nepomniachtchi’s decision to go for a repetition against Hikaru Nakamura rather than going for blood, and in round 7 I quoted Fabiano Caruana’s expression of disgust about Richard Rapport’s ignorance of the Petroff line chosen by Nepomniachtchi.

And yet…Vladimir Kramnik seems to have taken the prize for the harshest commentary so far on the 2022 Candidates. The headline on the post nicely summarizes his conclusion: “I have never seen so many bad games in a top-level tournament.” Have a look for yourself, and see if you agree not only with his assessments, but with his conjectures about the causes. I would add my own thought about Ding Liren, that he is doubly rusty: rusty from having barely played during the pandemic, and then rusty for ~2800 level chess after feasting on a huge collection of comparatively weak players.

HT: Marginal Revolution

Round 7 of the 2022 Candidates: Nepomniachtchi and Caruana Win Again

(Originally published on my Substack blog. Please subscribe!)

Maybe they should send the other six players home, and decide the Candidates with a match between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Fabiano Caruana? A six-game match would do the trick, giving Nepo draw odds as an appropriate reward for his half-point lead at this stage.

Of course that’s not going to happen, but barring a stunning collapse or a comeback for the ages, Magnus Carlsen will play (or not play, if he decides to abdicate) a second match against one of his last two world championship opponents. Nepomniachtchi crushed Richard Rapport on the black side of a Petroff, while Caruana ground down Teimour Radjabov in a long, hard battle. Nepo thus finished the first cycle with a crazy +4 score, scoring 5.5 out of 7. Caruana is just half a point behind with a +3 score; in fact, their results were identical in every round except for round 4. Still, it could have been Caruana with 5.5 and Nepo with 5, had Caruana played …Rxb2 on move 30 or move 32 of their game in round 2.

Caruana had interesting comments on both games. About his own game, he said this: “It was the most difficult game I’ve played in a long time.” And about Nepo’s game, he got a bit spicy (especially by his standards): "I felt kind of sick to be honest. It's one of the most shocking games I've seen from a top player in a long time." Mark Crowther, in his TWIC comments on the round, noted Caruana’s explanation “that the line has been known for a decade and that if you get there as white you need to take the draw.” (Quoting Crowther, not Caruana.)

You can replay those games, along with the drawn games between Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Hikaru Nakamura and between Ding Liren and Alireza Firouzja, here. Incredibly, five players are winless, including the top two seeds (Ding & Firouzja). Only Nakamura has managed to tread water, losing to Caruana in round 1 and bouncing back with a win over Rajdabov in round 2. He’ll have his chance for revenge tomorrow. Speaking of which, here are the pairings for tomorrow’s/today’s/Saturday’s round 8, the first round of the second cycle:

Rapport (3) - Duda (3)

Nepomniachtchi (5.5) - Ding (3)

Nakamura (3.5) - Caruana (5)

Firouzja (2.5) - Radjabov (2.5)

This will be a massively important for the leaders and their opponents, and in the next round Caruana will have the white pieces against Nepomniachtchi. Let’s hope the next two rounds live up to their potential.

Round 6 of the 2022 Candidates: Nepomniachtchi and Caruana Distance Themselves From the Field

(Originally published on my Substack blog. Please subscribe!)

There are still eight rounds left in the 2022 Candidates, but unless the chase pack, er, starts chasing - and soon - it will be a two-main race between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Fabiano Caruana, both of whom won today. For Nepo it was his third win in six games, this time at Jan-Krzysztof Duda’s expense; while Caruana won his second game, against Alireza Firouzja. (Firouzja is now alone in last place. Everyone else’s chess fans should enjoy it [non-maliciously] while they can, because once he has a little more experience he may be unstoppable by anyone but Magnus Carlsen.)

For Nepo, much of the credit goes to a clever opening choice. He played the Reti, and Duda chose a common line that hasn’t fared especially well, and that he didn’t seem to grasp in his fingertips. Nepo’s advantage rapidly grew, and while he had a stumble or two near the end, it wasn’t easy for Duda to exploit the errors - and he didn’t. The Russian FIDE player finished convincingly, and is leading the tournament heading into the second rest day. (Fun fact: he also leapfrogged Firouzja into fourth place on the live rating list.)

Caruana remains half a point behind and is for now the only player who seems to be awake, other than Nepo. Firouzja tried to make something happen in a position where nothing was happening nor should be happening, first with the dubious 15.e4?! and then with 20.Rxd7, which was either a blunder (missing 21…f5 22.Bxf5 Qe8) or a fatal misjudgment. Caruana’s technique was terrific, and his mature handling of the game was the counterpoint to Firouzja’s misjudgments. (Again, this won’t last for long, and soon the 19-year-old will be an almost unstoppable wrecking ball in the chess world.)

Hikaru Nakamura is the only player besides Nepo and Caruana to have won a game in this tournament, and he has come close in other games, too. With White against Ding Liren (mired at -1) he demonstrated some deep preparation, and was well over an hour ahead on the clock after 26 moves. But Ding played just about perfectly, and Nakamura started burning loads of time himself, most notably on move 30, which cost him 50(!) minutes. Despite his best efforts to cause Ding problems, the tournament’s top seed defended excellently, and a near-perfect game by both players finished in a repetition just after the time control.

Finally, Teimour Radjabov and Richard Rapport played a wild game that also finished in a draw. Despite the great complications, TR and RR played nearly perfectly until just before the time control, and…somewhat less than perfectly at that point. Rapport’s 36…Rg4? got him into trouble, while 37…Rxh4+?? should have lost the game. Surprisingly, with several minutes left to mate two moves, Radjabov missed 39.Bh2, which wins on the spot, instead forcing a draw with 39.Rf7?? A frustrating end for Radjabov, while Rapport somehow remains at 50% after five draws, even though he seems to be winning or losing at some point in every game. (To recap: Lost by move 10 against Duda in round 1, winning against Firouzja in round 2, completely lost against Ding in round 3, a normal draw with Nakamura in round 4, good winning chances though not clearly winning against Caruana in round 5, and lost today against Radjabov. -1 or -2 would have been about right, so he should feel optimistic about his chances given his even score.)

As noted already, the players have Friday off before round 7 on Saturday brings the first cycle to a close, after which the players try it again with colors reversed. Here are the round 7 pairings:

Rapport (3) - Nepomniachtchi (4.5)

Duda (2.5) - Nakamura (3)

Ding (2.5) - Firouzja (2)

Caruana (4) - Radjabov (2.5)

Radjabov has been playing better the last several rounds, but this is still a game where Caruana will be looking for the full point. And for Nepo, danger, especially as he lost in the same situation in the previous Candidates. We’ll see how well he has learned to moderate risk in this battle of two volatile, fighting players. In the meantime, here are today’s games, with my notes.

Round 5 of the 2022 Candidates: More Near-Misses

(Previously published here. Please subscribe to the Substack blog - thanks!)

The tension is building in the 2022 Candidates. The players are fighting hard and demonstrating impressive opening preparation. The only thing that has been missing is efficient technique: the last several rounds have seen players leave lots of half-points on the table, and it happened twice today, in round 5.

This happened in perhaps the most important game of the round, with tournament leader Ian Nepomniachtchi getting into all sorts of trouble on the black side of a Petroff against Hikaru Nakamura. Nepo’s odd 16…Qe4 and bad 17…Qg4 left him with a lost position. Nakamura enjoyed a winning advantage, and probably would have won after 21.Nh4 or 23.Nh4. But even after that he was winning - 25.Nd4 kept a decisive advantage, and as late as move 28 he would have kept a large (though maybe not winning) plus with 28.Bc3. He burned lots of time, but let the advantage slip to the point where Nepo might have started to think about playing for a win with …Qg5 on move 30 or 32.

Carlsen was commenting on Chess24, and produced what may have been the most memeable moment of the event. When Nepomniachtchi instantly played 32…Qd6, going along with Nakamura’s offered repetition, Carlsen was loudly and emphatically critical, saying this:

How do you play …Qd6 in one second? That’s so undisciplined! Smell the blood in the water, dude! Be a ****ing shark!

This explains a lot about who Carlsen is, and why he has been the world’s top player for such a long time. (It doesn’t explain everything: he is tremendously talented and has worked very hard, but it does explain something.) But temperament aside, he’s right: Nakamura was way behind on the clock and discouraged, and it would have been a perfect time for Nepo to play for more. The position after 32…Qg5 is about equal, but the momentum would have been entirely on Black’s side. Instead, a draw, and that was enough to keep Nepo in clear first. (Had Nakamura won, there would have been a three-way tie for first on +1 with Nakamura Nepomniachtchi, and Caruana sharing the honors.)

That’s because Fabiano Caruana only managed a draw against Richard Rapport. He played very aggressively on the white side of a Taimanov Sicilian, and it was probably something he had specially prepared. Nevertheless, Rapport handled the position better, and at one point in this short and wild game had an advantage. The comparatively calm line that kept the plus wasn’t as attractive as the path he chose, however, which let Caruana escape after a couple of precise moves. It was a short game, but a thrilling one.

The longest game of the round was another heartbreaker for Ding Liren. He played very well with Black against Teimour Radjabov, and was winning shortly before the time control. Unfortunately for the tournament’s top seed, he didn’t play …Bxd4 on moves 39 or 40, when it would have won. When he finally played it on move 41, it was only good enough for a draw, which is how the game ended. Ding has had plenty of advantages in the tournament, but has yet to notch his first win.

Finally, the game between Alireza Firouzja and Jan-Krzysztof Duda was the dud of the round. Perhaps Firouzja could have had a slight advantage at one point, but for the most part it was a well-played game by both sides that was almost always quite equal.

Here are today’s games, with my notes, and here are the pairings for round 6:

Radjabov (2) - Rapport (2.5)

Firouzja (2) - Caruana (3)

Nakamura (2.5) - Ding (2)

Nepomniachtchi (3.5) - Duda (2.5)

Round 4 of the 2022 Candidates: Nepomniachtchi Wins Again to Take the Sole Lead

(Previously published here - please subscribe to the Substack blog - thanks.)

There are still 10 rounds left in the Candidates, but those who - like me - were unsure how Ian Nepomniachtchi’s confidence would be after the World Championship, are getting a wake-up call. He is the clear leader after round 4, and this on the strength of crushing wins against two of the three pre-tournament favorites. His victim in round 1 was Ding Liren, and this time it was Alireza Firouzja.

The game was a very main line Byrne Variation Najdorf until Firouzja played 15…Bc4. It’s not a novelty, but it’s a minor line compared to 15…a4, which shows up almost 5000 times in ChessBase’s online database. I’m not sure if this is a trustworthy line, but it does seem that Firouzja was objectively okay before his 20th move. Had he chosen, say, 20…Kh8 he would have stayed okay, but 20…Bxf1 was the first misstep on the way to what would soon be a lost position. Add to this his mounting and very serious time trouble, and it wasn’t surprising that the rest of the game was a disaster, culminating in a made-for-the-tactics-app finish.

The remaining three draws finished peacefully. Hikaru Nakamura played well to hold comfortably on the black side of a Berlin against Richard Rapport, while Teimour Radjabov was a bit worse against Jan-Krzysztof Duda until White’s erroneous 17.Qf3 allowed the equalizing 17…f5.

The last game to finish was perhaps the marquee matchup of the round, Ding Liren vs. Fabiano Caruana. Ding was pressing throughout, and it seemed that he had serious winning chances when Caruana sacrificed a pawn for some activity. It seems, though, that Caruana had either worked everything out correctly or had properly assessed the situation. He had to defend for a good long while, and did so successfully, holding the draw. Ding may have been disappointed, but he doesn’t seem to have been winning or even that close to winning. (Today’s games, with my analysis, are here.)

Nepo and Caruana were tied for the lead from the beginning, but now Nepomniachtchi is in clear first with 3/4, with Caruana half a point behind and the rest of the pack on 50% or less. Will they continue in the lead? We’ll see tomorrow (Wednesday), when we’ll have these pairings for round 5:

Caruana (2.5) - Rapport (2)

Radjabov (1.5) - Ding (1.5)

Firouzja (1.5) - Duda (2)

Nakamura (2) - Nepomniachtchi (3)

The Chess Boom Continues For Now

(The pandemic is easing and people are still playing chess.)

So says this New York Times article, anyway. Let’s hope it continues.

(Originally posted here.)

Round 3 of the 2022 Candidates Tournament: Four Draws and a Near-Miss

(Originally posted here, last night. Please subscribe to that version of the blog - thanks.)

(Two wins in round 1, one win in round 2, and no wins today. Hopefully the trend will reverse itself, or on Tuesday after the rest day there will be -1 wins, and no one wants that.)

After two rounds of all-out action at the 2022 Candidates, today’s play showed some signs of fatigue and some questionable opening preparation, too. In main lines with White, neither Fabiano Caruana (in a Najdorf against Jan-Krzysztof Duda) nor Teimour Radjabov (in a Catalan against Ian Nepomniachtchi) showed anything at all. I don’t mean that they had novelties that were solved at the board; I mean that they didn’t seem to have done any homework at all. Neither Duda nor Nepo had the slightest difficulty, and Nepo’s game saw a handshake on move 30 while Caruana had to prove the draw (which he did without breaking a sweat, thanks especially to 38.c5!).

The leaders thus remained in the lead, and waited to see if anyone would catch them. Alireza Firouzja came fairly close to doing so. He had a nice new idea against Hikaru Nakamura, sacrificing a piece late in the opening. Nakamura reacted perfectly for the first few moves, but an inaccuracy on move 20 forced him to defend a dangerous ending with a rook, bishop, and a kingside majority for Firouzja against a rook, knight, and queenside majority for Nakamura. It seemed that Firouzja made some progress - maybe - but shouldn’t have exchanged rooks. As far as I can tell, the position remains drawn even with the rooks on the board, but it’s a clear draw once they’re gone - assuming perfect play by Nakamura. And to his credit, he delivered, making a study-like draw in the bishop vs. knight ending.

In that game the winning chances were only practical, but in the fourth game, between Ding Liren and Richard Rapport, they were real. Rapport came out of the opening with a lost position without Ding’s playing a single new move (until Ding’s novelty, which was obvious, the computer’s first choice, and an improvement over an online rapid game between Giri and Nepo, a game that Rapport couldn’t have missed). It’s unlikely that Rapport’s preparation could have been that bad, so my guess is that he mixed up moves at the board. Whatever the case, he was busted. Luckily for him, Ding played the right move on move 22 but apparently talked himself out of the intended follow-up a move later. Ding remained with a better-to-winning advantage until move 29, when the capture on g6 squandered what was left of his chances. Rapport only needed to make the right decision on move 33, and he did, after which the game speedily finished in a draw at the time control.

(Today’s games, with my notes, are here.)

The status quo has been maintained, and the players will get some needed rest on Monday. Round 4 will be on Tuesday, with these pairings:

Rapport (1.5) - Nakamura (1.5)
Nepomniachtchi (2) - Firouzja (1.5)
Duda (1.5) - Radjabov (1)
Ding (1) - Caruana (2)

(P.S. If you’re enjoying the content, please like, subscribe, comment, and invite others to have a look. Thanks!)