Mistaken Identity: Nepo Is Misidentified By Sports Channel
What cruel fate! After GM Ian Nepomniachtchi advances through a gauntlet of formidable challengers, an unbelievable situation occurs. What was it? Blundering in the final games against GM Magnus Carlsen? No, Nepo’s cruel fate is being misidentified as GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave by NBC Sports Network during its broadcast of the FIDE World Chess Championship.
How could a professional broadcast team misidentify one of the two match participants? Who should recognize Nepo better than the channel that was broadcasting video highlights of each day? With only a challenger and a defender, shouldn’t each one be identified correctly? If just one player has a "man bun," is that clue enough to identify him?
Yet the unbelievable happened. During an interview with Nepo, NBC Sports Network identified him as Vachier-Lagrave in the descriptive banner underneath the image. Because the broadcast was a recording (not live), it could have easily been corrected.
The misidentification by NBC occurred early in the match (I took the screenshot on December 1), even before Nepo changed his setup — not by switching to the Italian as he did in game 11 but by changing his hairstyle after game eight. Nepo arrived in the playing hall for game nine with a completely new look; the man bun had been removed.
Before and after the change in hairstyles, every chess aficionado would still be able to identify the challenger, who handily won the 2020-21 Candidates Tournament. With a world number-five ranking, Nepo is certainly no stranger to anyone who follows chess — or any network that broadcasts tournament results.
Of course, GM Sam Shankland knew who the challenger was, even though in his analysis of the final game, he referred to two Nepos: Nepo A and Nepo B. Was his reference to two Nepos related to the change of hairstyles or the quality of chess being played? (See the game report here.)
Nepomniachtchi has an automatic bid into the 2022 Candidates. Let’s hope that the media will correctly identify him next time and that fate will also be more kind to him during his games.
Now it’s your turn. Were you watching NBC Sports Network and notice the mistake when it was made? Have you ever seen the media misidentify a prominent sports personality in such a glaring manner?
Ray Linville’s high point as a chess player occurred when he swiped the queen of GM Hikaru Nakamura in a 60-second bullet game in 2021. This game was reported in a “My Best Move” column of the Chess Life magazine, published by the U.S. Chess Federation.
At Chess.com, he has been an editor (part-time) since 2019 and has edited news articles and tournament reports—including those of the Candidates and World Championship Tournaments and other major events—by titled players and noted chess writers as well as Game of the Day annotations by leading grandmasters. He has also been a contributing writer of chess terms, e-books, and general interest articles for ChessKid.com.
He enjoys “top blogger” status at Chess.com. His blog has won the award for Best Chess Blog from the Chess Journalists of America for several years. In addition, he has also been the recipient of first-place CJA awards for feature article, humorous contribution, online review, and educational lesson as well as honorable mention in the categories of personal narrative and historical article.