2026-04-08 02:50:47
While Hikaru Nakamura was making an ignoble sort of chess history, Javokhir Sindarov yawned.
Just 12 moves into their fifth-round match at the 2026 Candidates Tournament, the 20-year-old had tied the world's second-ranked player in quite the knot, forcing Nakamura to sit and think for over an hour. Nakamura, playing with the white pieces, attacked Sindarov with the Marshall Gambit, though the Uzbek player surprised the American by castling on the 12th move. Nakamura was down two pawns and clearly not prepared for Sindarov to counter him like this, so he thought for 67 minutes and 44 seconds, only to screw up. "He just thought one hour and played the wrong move," Sindarov said afterward. "And after this I take this advantage and played very well, in my opinion."
Sindarov is currently taking the 2026 Candidates by storm. He got himself into big trouble in his first match against Andrey Esipenko, only to reverse a huge time disparity and win a stunner. By the sixth round, he had already tied the record for most match wins at a Candidates with five. He has drawn three times and has yet to lose, taking an extremely impressive two-point lead into the ninth round on Wednesday. Sindarov made his Candidates debut this year as the fifth-highest ranked player at the tournament and 12th-ranked player in the world, and he beat three of the four players ranked above him on the first time through the round robin. This is one of the strongest debuts possible, and it has even caught the attention of recently self-exiled chess king Magnus Carlsen.
2026-04-08 02:29:29
The most anticipated sporting event of my life was Sunday, Feb. 23, 2014: the Michigan men's basketball team playing Michigan State in Ann Arbor. I'd grown up around Big Ten basketball, but I was a newly minted Wolverine fan (and a freshman on campus). My matriculation coincided with off-the-charts hype for Michigan hoops; the Brady Hoke doldrums of the football team combined with a thrilling 2013 Final Four run at the start of an era that would send a whole bunch of recruits to the NBA. I struggled at the football games—imagine thousands of binge-drunk college kids packed into bleachers blacking out through a 3-5 conference record—but I found a kind of home in the basketball arena. You could get a spot just behind the benches, as long as you showed up early enough. The football-school culture meant that the attendees were generally more sober and less willing to let disappointment ruin their entire week. And I liked that the basketball players were instantly recognizable, without helmets or pads. For two years, I lived just a few steps from the ones in the Class of 2017, and even though that didn't make us friends or even acquaintances, you get a little boost rooting for people you see every day.
The Michigan State game was the one you circled months in advance, pitting the standard-bearers of the region against a program that had recently proven it could hang at that level. For a national audience, this was No. 20 vs. No. 13, so it probably didn't feel like the game of the year. But for me it was Game 7 of the Finals.
There were rules against camping out overnight, but no rules against camping out nearby. My roommate and I (who had the most conveniently located dorm) hosted a slumber party in our 200-ish-square-foot room. We fit two people in each bed, one on the futon, and two on the floor, including me. (I was feeling generous.) We woke at the crack of dawn and walked down to join the line already forming outside the closed doors of Crisler Center.
2026-04-08 01:54:39
Willson Contreras has played in 121 career regular-season games against the Milwaukee Brewers, by dint of spending the bulk of his career in the NL Central. In 23 of those games, he has been hit by a pitch, including once when he was plunked twice. No other team has hit him more than 14 times, and the Brewers account for more than one-sixth of the 131 total plunkings he's absorbed across his 11 seasons. It's a lot.
The latest instance came Monday night in Boston. Contreras, now on the Red Sox, came to the plate in the third inning with his team up a run. The first pitch from Brewers starter Brandon Woodruff, a 93-mph sinker, ran up and in and scraped Contreras's knuckles. The contact was slight enough that Brewers manager Pat Murphy asked for a video review, but a baseball to the fingers does not feel great, and Contreras was pissed. He shouted at Woodruff and stomped angrily to first; after the review, he continued woofing until an umpire and a Red Sox coach convinced him to chill. These two will probably not ever be friends: Woodruff and Contreras have faced each other 29 times, and six of those plate appearances have now ended with an HBP.
2026-04-08 00:59:21
Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. Today, we're talking chefs, noogies, hoodie storage, and more.
I’m back! YAYYY! And what a treat to have Dave McKenna host the Funbag last week in my stead. Let’s all give the man a round of applause, because he’s got more stories to tell than Shakespeare did. A true original.
And now, your letters:
2026-04-07 23:08:56
There is a particular indignity that comes from living in America, derived from the experience of waking up in the morning to see reports that Donald Trump has said something profoundly evil, and then needing to type "truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump" into your web browser to see if he actually said that. Once there, you can see a post in which Trump did indeed threaten to wipe out the entire civilization of Iran, stacked on top of an ad for a sketchy herbal supplement of some sort:
A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!
2026-04-07 22:55:47
Now that the World Cup field is set and the international breaks are over, it's time for the club season's final sprint. The top European leagues have comfortable leaders—except for Paris Saint-Germain, who is only four points up on Lens in Ligue 1—but there's still enough time for narratives there to flip. There are also domestic cups to be handed out, and trophies to be won or lost. However, the best drama left in the season is definitely in the Champions League, where at least half the quarterfinalists can reasonably convince themselves that they can win the whole thing, and the other four teams wouldn't need much hope to believe the same.
The draw has set up some juicy quarterfinal showdowns, with even more enticing semifinals on the horizon. There's a rematch of an exciting Copa del Rey semifinal, a showdown between the reigning continental champs and the most successful club in England, and the Champions League final boss of Real Madrid facing its second consecutive mega-challenge. There's plenty to talk about in each of these matchups, but let's start with the one that should, on paper, be the most lopsided contest, the one between the current Premier League leaders and a Portuguese side looking to prove that it's not out of its depth.
