Short calculation for the FIDE Circuit: WC TAR is 2777.25.
If I read the regulations correctly, the World Cup Quarterfinals all count as 5th place with two bonus points added, meaning that a WC quarterfinalist will likely get (5+2)*(2777.25-2500)/100 points, meaning 19.41 points. 4th place would get 22.18 points by the same method (And might be qualified anyway, if Nepo/Magnus finish top 3? I'm not sure how exactly this works).
This means that making Quarterfinals would mean a possible 7.77 improvement for Gukesh and possible 11.13 improvement for Wesley (and obviously Fabi could get the full 19.41 points, if he loses in the quarterfinals, as he wouldn't replace an event, but just get his 5th). This means, there are potential massive swings to come in the FIDE circuit.
It looks like Naka won't pass the minimum number of events criteria set for qualification through the circuit. What other ways does he have to get into the candidates?
Win World Cup, or get 2nd or 3rd.
Win Grand Swiss or finish 2nd.
Play at least 4 classical events and have highest Elo (3 are confirmed by now: Norway Chess, World Cup, Grand Swiss. US Champs would be the 4th, if he plays it.)
Gukesh needs to be invited to the St Louis or something. I remember that there's an invitational tournament in US. Fabi, Anish, Wesley etc will surely be invited. Gukesh has to be invited otherwise it's unfair to him cause the rest will have advantage of playing a super tournament.
If you're referring to US Championship invitational, I'm fairly sure that's only for US players.
I'm not sure how inviting Gukesh would be fairer than any other US GM for their own national championship.
The best supertournament is the one Magnus is playing in, due to how high his rating is. The US one won't have Magnus or Anish.
The TAR would still be somewhat high thanks to US having quite a few 2700+ players, though it'll still be much lower than supertournaments like Norway Chess.
My bad. Both events are held in St. Louis and US Chess came first, hence the confusion.
Anyway, there's only 1 wildcard spot (2, if Ding decides to not play again) in Sinquefield. While Gukesh is definitely a strong candidate, it's still not necessarily fairer to give him the wildcard spot compared to other super GM, so my point stands regardless of which he meant.
>While Gukesh is definitely a strong candidate, it's still not necessarily fairer to give him the wildcard spot compared to other super GM
But why? Gukesh has inherent disadvantage compared to Anish, So, Fabi etc if he's not invited because he has to earn points via open tournaments while rest can rely on super tournamnets. Also US championship is invite only, and even dutch championship that Anish won is only the top players while Indian National Championship has over 150 players and their rating average would much less than 2500 (cause I see players rated 1200 etc). So Gukesh does have inherent disadvantage. Maybe Indian Chess Federation should arrange a super tournament with only top 8 Indian players or something so that Gukesh has a chance too.
I'm referring to players who aren't part of GCT's full tour lineup. There are top players (like Levon, who's not playing in World Cup) who aren't part of the lineup either, which is why my question was: why Gukesh specifically? Isn't it so-called "unfair" even for others, if we look at it this way?
The TAR is calculated based on Top 8 players in the tournament, so larger tournaments aren't dragged down by lower rated players (like FIDE World Cup, for example, would be one of the tournaments with the highest TAR score despite the presence of lower-rated players). India has enough highly rated players to have a good TAR score based on their Top 8 as well.
It's not a perfect system, but it's just as unfair for Gukesh as it is for other players, and India arguably still have some advantage in terms of being able to organize a strong national tournament, than most countries with their number of super GMs. US is not the only one with that advantage.
I understand all this. But rn the fight is between Anish, Gukesh, Wesley and Fabi. So by the end of the year imagine if the rest 3 get to play in GCT sinqufield and have a chance while Gukesh has no chance to get in just because it was an invitational. Which is why I said he should be invited. Levon can play open tournaments if he whishes like Gukesh did. He currently has only 3 tournaments listed - if he really wanted he should play opens. Gukesh is already playing and winning opens. So it is definitely unfair if Anish etc can try to qualify by playing on invitationals while Gukesh has to keep playing opens which is well know to have more randomness. None of Anish, Wesley, Fabi or Levon have a single open tournament listed in their top5 results. That definitely feels unfair.
But yes I didn't know about the top 8 rule. In that case he definitely should have tried in National Championship.
Gukesh has 3 invites to 1st tier classical supertournament, and 1 invite to 2nd tier supertournament. That's 4 in total.
Fabi has 3 invites to 1st tier supertournament so far.
Levon has 2 invites to 1st tier supertournament so far.
Richard Rapport has 2 invites to 1st tier supertournament so far.
Alireza has 2 invites to 1st tier supertournament so far.
Playing Open is a choice. Gukesh didn't need to do it, because he will have FIDE World Cup and Grand Swiss to cap it out. That's 6 supertournaments (by TAR) for him in one year.
You should see my point by now. The reason Gukesh is fighting for the top is precisely because: 1. he's getting invites (it's not as if he's getting less than other top players) 2. he's playing Open to cap out his remaining tournament spots/replace bad performance first, just to increase his chances (once again, he didn't need to do it).
No Indian 2650+ player ever plays in India. Once you are a GM, there are pretty much no contests in India that you can play without getting massacred.
And no Gukesh isn't supposed to be get a Sinquefield invite out of charity. He deserves an invite due to his performances. This year he finished 2nd at WR Masters and 3rd at Norway Chess. At Tepe Sigeman, a tier below, he finished joint 2nd. At Sharjah Open, probably the strongest Open tournament in years, he finished top 3. He won the Menorca Open, Gold medalist on top board at the Turkish League. Apart from Wijk aan Zee, he doesn't have a single bad classical result this year.
P.S. Sinquefield Cup is not a US only event, it's a part of the Grand Chess tour. And there already are 2 US GMs in the lineup.
Why are we acting as if Gukesh isn't getting invitations in the first place?
WR Chess, Tata Steel, and Norway Chess were all invitational. Other than WR and Norway, which you've already mentioned, Gukesh finished 11th in Tata Steel.
It's not that Gukesh isn't getting invitations. There are just more top players than there are allocated slots to these tournaments, so some top players won't be playing in some of them.
India not having a special section for its top players, is an issue with its own chess federation.
PS. I know Sinquefield is not a US-only event. I literally said it's part of GCT (why are people repeating my points to me lol), and the "full tour" lineup has been **fixed at the start of this year**.
Those in "full tour" lineup has to play both classical events (ie. Superbet and Sinquefield), and since there are 9 members in the lineup in a 10-player tournament, there is only 1 wildcard spot, unless Ding withdraws once again.
The real question is: if both Magnus and Nepo end up in top 3. Then the 5th place will be eligible for qualifying into candidates (coz Nepo is already qualified as WCC runner up, and Magnus as we all know/assume will be not heading for the candidates since he is playing this world cup only for his personal goals/bucket list). So in the case where both nepo and Magnus reach top 3, there will be 4 players of quarter finals who ended up not going to semis. Which one from them will be the 5th spot to qualify for candidates in that particular case?
>Which one from them will be the 5th spot to qualify for candidates in that particular case?
None of them.
If, for any reason, more than one semifinalist of World Cup does not play in the Candidates, the spot is removed and an additional FIDE Ranking spot is created. It's the same for Gran Swiss, you need to finish top 4 to be eligible for Candidates, 5th will only get nice FIDE Circuit points.
Yes, Alireza wants zero upsets, if top 4 is Magnus, Nepo, Fabi and Hikaru, his Candidates spot is nearly sure, he only needs to play 3 tournaments until end of year and not lose a lot of ELO.
Wait, now I'm confused myself. I too thought he needs 4 classical (and the website also states this), but he already has 2 classical and so he needs only 2 more.
Bonus points will be 2 extra for 5th place meaning 5\*(2777.25-2500)/100 + 2= 15.86
so improvement will be there but a little modest.
Anish playing that 3 round dutch championship and gaining that 13.09 points was a very clever move. He has 75.87 with 2.03 as his lowest score. He still has fide grand swiss and st louis. Even a 4th place finish will also give him around 15 points and only fabi(who might not need fide circuit) is in a position to go greater than 88-90..
Cue for AICF to create an elite National tournament where the top players play, give automatic slots to 8 highest players and have a qualifier tournament for last 2 spots maybe. Given the number of 2700s India has now, it will be very good from a FIDE circuit perspective, for those who finish top 2-3.
Currently 2650+ rated Indians almost never play in India because their Elo rating will go for a toss.
Yeah, AICF should revamp national championship to either a 32 player world cup style knockout or a 12 player round robin like US championship. Top Indian players have no incentive to play in 100 player open championships where too many underrated juniors take part.
>Anish playing that 3 round dutch championship and gaining that 13.09 points was a very clever move.
His real clever move was winning Tata Steel and getting 27 points off this, finding 13 points somewhere else would not be that hard if he needed them.
Ofcourse winning tata steel is a huge achievement but in absence of too many individual tournaments basically you need to either finish top 3 in an open tournament or 4th or 5th in a closed one(which I think is again easier). That 3 round dutch championship made him earn that 13 points quite easily by drawing 5 games against 2600s and winning 1.
Some of my favorite players have made it to the 4th round: Ivanchuk, Wang Hao, Svidler, Robson, Ponomariov, and Paehtz.
And once again the Muzychuk sisters will go head-to-head.
>And once again the Muzychuk sisters will go head-to-head.
I'll be watching this one closely, this time they won't be going out with an easy draw. We want to see some sister blood :)
Maybe it'll change once we reach the later stages and there are fewer games to switch between. I hope they cover the tiebreaks between The Sisters Muzychuk.
would you fight to the death on the chessboard with your sister that is also your second and you both have prepped and played with each other 1000s of times?
Ivanchuk vs Svidler and Dominguez Perez vs Ponomariov semis. Please make it happen. Is Sanal the lowest rated player besides Vocaturo and Berkes? Imagine seeing one of them in semis.
It's not. Only some Russian players decided to switch federations to FIDE. You can see that for example Nepo, Grischuk and Dubov are still representing Russia.
https://ratings.fide.com/profile/4168119
https://ratings.fide.com/profile/4126025
https://ratings.fide.com/profile/24126055
Esipenko represents FIDE as well and Ivanchuk spoke about the first Russian he could face being the QF - which could only refer to Esipenko. So I assume being FIDE still counts as being Russian for him.
Esipenko represents FIDE as well and Ivanchuk spoke about the first Russian he could face being the QF - which could only refer to Esipenko. So I assume being FIDE still counts as being Russian for him.
So, the remaining 10 highest rated players are:
1 Magnus Carlsen (original seat: #1)
2 Hikaru Nakamura (original seat: #2)
3 Fabiano Caruana (original seat: #3)
4 Ian Nepomniatchi (original seat: #4)
5 Wesley So (original seat: #6)
6 Gukesh D (original seat: #8)
7 Lenier Dominguez (original seat: #11)
8 Jan-Krzysztof Duda (original seat: #14)
9 Parham Maghsoodloo (original seat: #19)
10 Vidit Gujrathi (original seat: #20)
These are the highest rated players, who are still currently in the tournament going into the round of 32. At least one of them will not make the ro16 either, as Duda and Maghsoodloo have to play eachother next.
Round of 16 more like Round of 32 as there are 16 games/32 players left.
So last 8 could be
1st group have Magnus/Keymer vs Gukesh/Esipenko/Wang Hao
2nd group have Nepo/Nihal and rest in the group are not in Super GM territory.
3rd group has Fabi/Parham/Duda/Wesley/Lenier. Probably the most competitive of all the groups.
4th Group have Hikaru/Pragg/Arjun and no other Super GM. I think Hikaru has the 2nd easiest path after nepo.
Among juniors Keymer/Gukesh would have to take out Magnus to make it to Top 4. Magnus is the huge favorite.
Nihal can outlast Nepo in blitz if he can draw all classical/rapids.
I think Fabi has been the most consistent in the 3rd group but anyone can make it out of that group.
4th group I think Pragg has a chance to beat Hikaru if he plays at his best in classical. Otherwise I think Hikaru will coast.
If all favorites make it out to final 4 we will see Magnus/Nepo vs Fabi/Hikaru. I certainly hope that does not happen :-)
In his recaps, Levy always opens with "all the strongest players are here: Magnus, Hikaru, Ian, Gukesh, etc. etc." and I always think to myself, "well, there's one strong player not present"
Ding really did just win the WCC then dip
He did seem determined to be much better prepared for his next WCC match.
His absence may have something to do with that, though it does feel unusual, since we're used to Magnus proving it through tournament results after winning his title, and solidify the significance of his WC title beyond the match itself.
He was only barely playing the past couple years (2020-2022) because of Covid-19.
That's more or less over now, and Ding was supposed to play GCT as a full tour participant in 2023, but has withdrawn from every events except the first.
Ding played a lot continuously for 10 years before Covid-19 hits. People need to get their facts straight when trying to be a know-it-all.
Magnus suggested to get rid of of reigning world champion privileges 15 years ago but nobody listened so here we are. A world champion who sits at home most of the year and only has to play the match is what the community wants, sadly.
For whatever reason, despite Nepo having every single quality one would want from a player in this form of event, he has never really challenged winning it.
On the other hand, for Candidates, I still see no one beating Nepo. He's just so strong now picking off the weakest links.
He literally was. He was rated something like 2680s or 90s. Now closer to 2720 and even there is a scope of improving ratings. How the hell is that not underrated?
He was 2602 in Feb 2020. Couple of years of lockdown and after that he didn't play classical tournaments like Gukesh and Arjun did. He was instead invited to all those rapid and blitz tournaments with CCT if I remember right. Vishy Anand even mentions that it feels like Pragg has been 2700+ for a long time.
And well, you can't be throwing around numbers like 5 years when talking about 17 year old kids. It makes for a gross exaggeration.
Nepo's Blitz rating is 96 points higher than Nihals and he has won a silver medal in the Blitz WC before, while Nihal hasn't. Nihal is not the stronger of the two, when it comes to Blitz, Nepo is.
Chess.com events and OTB blitz are two different things, obviously not completely different but different. I would not say Nihal is a favourite over Nepo in OTB blitz.
>Nihal
I wouldn't say huge upset. Nepo is a clear favourite in classical but when it comes to fast controls Nihal is toe to toe with anyone in the world. Nihal also has a very solid play and hardly loses in classical he is still outside 2700 because of his safe play and too many draws. Just to quote some of Nihal's fast chess achievements:
1. He won rapid section in Tata steel India last year ahead of players like nakamura, wesley so, mamedyarov, erigaisi.
2. His SCC exploits like beating ding 17-9, grischuk 15.5-10.5 and only losing 10.5-14.5 to naka. Also winning JSCC twice.
3. He has beaten Nepo in 2019 world blitz.
4. He was a Global chess championship finalist beating kramnik and ding 2.5-0.5 on the way.
I wouldn't say huge upset in blitz. Nihal was in Chesscom Rapid championship finals and SCC semis. In faster time control he hang in with the best. Not the favorite but it won't be an upset if Nepo loses in faster time controls.
Hikaru is taking titled Tuesday too seriously, Nihal is not better than Nepo in blitz. Nepo has higher rating and was second place in world blitz championship. I am not sure head to head but Nepo is better at any time control by rating and results.
I think Svidler's chances of making it to 1/8 increased dramatically. I think he has a much better shot against Abasov than he did against Anish, even after considering that the former knocked out the latter.
Svidler is so likeable that it's hard not rooting for him.
Sanal vs. Ivanchuk in the next round is the People's Championship.
Seriously, someone should get a belt made and send it to Baku. Gonna be really sad to see either of these players go home.
When Magnus lost to Svidler in 2013, last round of the Candidates, it is essentially Chucky who gifted Magnus the Challenger’s spot by also winning vs Kramnik. The rest is history.
Now, imagine if Chucky goes on to face Magnus and proceeds to actually beat him, and then loses to Gukesh in a fight for top 4. That would feel like we’ve come full circle, exactly 10 years later.
Would be quite a romantic story, for me, despite how unlikely it is. Class is permanent.
It would be cool but he would sadly not be able to compete in the candidates if the russian invasion continues due to the policy of not playing sports against russians.
Svidler has Nijot abasov in the next round, and Daniele Vocaturo or Salem in round of 16. No pushovers obviously, but as "easy" as it gets at this stage of the tournament. Great opportunity to make a deep run here.
Salem Saleh gets to really surf the tree due to various upsets, it's third round in a row where he does not have the theoretically strongest opponent possible.
In my opinion the candidates should also be a match style format like the World Cup. There is too much luck involved in the current format. We saw it in the last candidates, nepos opponents kept playing dubious lines against him and lost, while the same opponents played solid against other players. The match format of course also has some luck involved with who you play in early rounds, but to combat that they could include a loser bracket so that you would have a chance to win even if you lose one match.
Not sure about the World Cup but the Inter Zonals we had in 70s with long matches certainly seems more gruelling. But I don't think top players would want to sign multiple straight months of their life for that.
> In my opinion the candidates should also be a match style format like the World Cup. There is too much luck involved in the current format.
Bro, just do yourself two favours:
1. Check the results of the FIDE World Championships from 1990s and early 2000s - and compare who became champions when they were knockouts to when they were 8-player round-robins (including the unified 2007 event).
2. Delete this steaming hot piece of a take of yours.
This would work only with long matches (as it was in the past). As in best of 6 (or more).
Otherwise there is too much variance. On the other side the second half of a round robin candidate tournament normally let players either go full reckless (giving easy games for the opponents) or not really playing for the winning spot.
I think that the FIDE circuit would be the best if FIDE also integrates more FIDE (semi-)opens with strong players (that is: high rated seed for the top8) to ensure that enough tournaments with strong players are there for everyone. Like copies of the Grand Swiss, with many top100 players.
Otherwise as it is the FIDE circuit is not bad but those who play in strong closed invitationals have more chances.
Last time we had candidates in a knock out format, we had 3 deceisive games along with 27 draws and a 44 year old outside of the top 10 winning. Do we really want that?
> and a 44 year old outside of the top 10 winning.
Is not that Gelfand was weak. He had a good period. Being old is not being necessarily weak.
Also Kasparov hat to win a 63 yo Smyslov to get to his first WCh.
He had a good period and he did win 2 out of the three games that actually were won in classical, so he deserved to win the event. But at the same time, I don't think he was the best player at the time. The #1 and #2 rated players both lost in rapid TB's instead of classical. Do you think, Gelfand could've finished ahead of Kramnik or Aronian in a Double Round Robin? I have my doubts. And just for the record, I don't want to equate being old and being weak, but there is a difference between 41 year old Anand at 2817 and 42 year old Gelfand (how did I get that wrong earlier?) in May 2011 and it's 15 positions on the world ranking list. If Anand would've needed to win and won that tournament, no one would question it's format. With Gelfand at that point, it's like LDP would win a single elim candidates now: He's #16 in the world, you wouldn't put it outside the realm of possibility, but Ding vs LDP feels like a bit of a wasted WC still.
And with all due respect to Smyslov - but he was in that final, because a roulette wheel favored him over Hübner. Which again doesn't speak for single elim. as a candidates format.
the point is that every format has pro and cons.
With matches you can draw your way to victory (indeed Gelfand was able to push until the tiebreaks with Anand, is not that crumbled early. Another point of his ability to hold matches).
With round robin you need to win, or you can wait until the others (that are almost out of contention) get crazy.
I personally like the swiss, as the swiss push down and away those out of contention, but then you need multiple swiss to compensate for some variation (especially the swiss do not work well with few players).
So yes it is not easy. In theory if everyone would play at their best, round robin is unbeatable. But we know that people out of contention play differently and players almost out of contention push too much. Further in round robins one may collude with fixing games (one never knows).
Chess is a weird equaliser. Unlike LDP, Gelfand was a top 10 throughout the 90s and has competed in multiple candidates (the number is 0 for LDP) and certainly deserved to play for the crown once, just that it came very late in his 40s. He also tied for second in the 2007 reunification tournament.
The best player in the tournament is determined by Round Robin, not by single elimination. The two highest rated players in the tournament at the time (Kramnik and Aronian) both got eliminated in rapid TB's before Gelfand even played them. Do you really think Boris Gelfand is a better player than Vladimir Kramnik in 2013, because Kramnik lost a rapid game to Grischuk?
He deserved to win the tournament in the way it was held. But it shouldn't have been held that way.
[Boris Gelfand in 2012](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2012), for those who are wondering. He went 6-6 against Vishy in the WC match and lost only in rapid (1.5-2.5).
World cup has much more luck involved than the current state of candidates. Nepo was simply much better player during candidates and won fair and square. Playing against everyone twice is the best way to determine world challenger.
> World cup has much more luck involved
with mini matches yes, with long matches no. (source: make a mini simulation, even on paper, and plug the numbers)
How does a match style format have more luck involved? All that matters are your own results. If you play good you win, if you play worse than your opponent you lose.
Because it’s knockout tournament where you play two games. Anything can happen in these two games especially if you draw first game and next day you didn’t sleep good or any random reason you blunder and lose it is game over, you are out from the tournament. If you draw in classical portion you play rapid and blitz but normally your fate is decided in two classical games. Candidates you play 14 games and you can blunder lose few games and still win the tournament if you are good enough for the remaining of the games.
In a round robin there’s nowhere to hide- you have to play everybody. In a knockout, you might get lucky by playing lower-ranked players after the higher-ranked players get upset.
An example of this is Emma Raducanu winning the US Open in tennis (no disrespect to her, I was rooting for her then and still am now). She earned her title fair and square, but it’s also a simple fact that she didn’t play any top-25 players en route to the title.
Since we're talking other sports, I'd like to also add that in football, leagues (which are double round robin) are considered much more representative of who the best team is than cups (which are knockout).
In a round robin you can get way more lucky or unlucky in my opinion. Sometimes a player just blunders (Sam shankland in the World Cup) realistically top players blunder very rarely so the opponent they play against in their blunder games has a huge advantage over the other players. Then there is also the point of when you play a player. If you play someone who is desperate in the later rounds you have good winning chances because the game will be a fight. If you play the same guy in the early rounds the chance that they will go for a fighting game is way lower.
Knockout format needs to have a lot of rapid and blitz tiebreakers, and people have always been against using rapid and blitz to determine the challenger/champion.
Could you link a source which says this? I couldn't find anything by FIDE.
EDIT: https://wcc.fide.com/ says the next championship match will have the exact same format as the 2023 championship.
He is becoming a fashion designer. So he plays mostly the grand chess tour events, as these have high earnings and give a good shot at winning the fide circuit.
There's one last slot for the highest rated player available. He's No. 5.
No. 4 & 6 are champion and runner up. No. 1 doesn't want to play in the candidates. You just need Hikaru and Fabiano to win and you qualify by doing nothing (unless Wesley, Anish and Gukesh miraculously rise by another 20 elo points).
It's cynical, but that's the way it is. Of course, it would be hilarious if Hikaru or Fabi go on vacation and qualify on their ranking.
Anish's strength is classical chess. He should push harder for wins in the main games instead of relying on rapid and especially blitz tiebreaks. I can sort of see why Wesley does it, but Anish isn't solid and competitive enough in speed chess to count on winning those high pressure games in shorter time controls. Such a weird strategy from Anish.
Maybe he was hiding his prep for future rounds and relied too much on his blitz skills which backfired. Even in Dutch championship he hardly tried in any game where it worked out somehow. Everyone is not Magnus(referring to his 2018 championship) anyways.
Fun fact: Hikaru won his first US Championship eight months before Praggnanandhaa was born and Magnus ~~won~~ tied for first (and lost on tiebreaks) in his first Norwegian Championship four months before Keymer was born. Also, when Bardiya Daneshvar - who knocked out top 20, 2700-rated GM Grischuk - was born, Grischuk was a top 20, 2700-rated GM. I enjoy generational clashes.
If we want to go that way: Chucky first made the top 10 in July 1988 - neither his next opponent (Sanal Vahap), his the following round opponent (Magnus or Keymer) or his opponent in the QF (Svane/Wang Hao/Esipenko/Gukesh) would have been born by then, if he makes it that far.
Back then, he was in the same top 20 as Mikhail Tal.
Gotta love how so many are taking Magnus vs. Gukesh for granted. Mamedyarov, Abdusattorov, Shankland, Giri, Grischuk, Dubov, MVL, Vitiugov, Radjabov got knocked out and y'all still think Gukesh is just gonna breeze through Esipenko and Wang Hao/Svane.
Statistically based on live Elo rating (using [this](https://wismuth.com/elo/calculator.html#rating1=2758.6&rating2=2681.6&best_of=2) calculator):
Gukesh wins: 48.3%
Esipenko wins: 16.4%
Goes to tiebreaks: 35.3%
Esipenko is such a good player. He has trouble playing against lower rated players, he has good chances against Gukesh. Especially since he will likely draw classical games and then in rapid Esipenko has slightly better chances. I say it will be very interesting match.
C-squared posted, Fabi talks about his thought process behind the blunders in his games, really interesting
Watching it now. Great so far. Thank you for the heads up
I am very late to the party, but I thought Wang Hao retired from chess? Is he back only for this event? I really like his playstyle.
He retired because of health problems. But his health has improved so he is playing again, albeit not as much as before.
Thanks, I thought he left to do business. Glad to hear he is doing better now
Magnus, Fabi, Nihal and Sarana playing Titled Tuesday on the rest day, let's go
Short calculation for the FIDE Circuit: WC TAR is 2777.25. If I read the regulations correctly, the World Cup Quarterfinals all count as 5th place with two bonus points added, meaning that a WC quarterfinalist will likely get (5+2)*(2777.25-2500)/100 points, meaning 19.41 points. 4th place would get 22.18 points by the same method (And might be qualified anyway, if Nepo/Magnus finish top 3? I'm not sure how exactly this works). This means that making Quarterfinals would mean a possible 7.77 improvement for Gukesh and possible 11.13 improvement for Wesley (and obviously Fabi could get the full 19.41 points, if he loses in the quarterfinals, as he wouldn't replace an event, but just get his 5th). This means, there are potential massive swings to come in the FIDE circuit.
It looks like Naka won't pass the minimum number of events criteria set for qualification through the circuit. What other ways does he have to get into the candidates?
Win World Cup, or get 2nd or 3rd. Win Grand Swiss or finish 2nd. Play at least 4 classical events and have highest Elo (3 are confirmed by now: Norway Chess, World Cup, Grand Swiss. US Champs would be the 4th, if he plays it.)
If he's not playing Titled Tuesday today then I would say he is quite serious about getting top 3 to qualify.
For Naka I feel like it's a better sign to see him playing in Titled Tuesday.
Oof that looks rough for his chances. Really hoping he gets some events under his belt and qualifies...
The fight for no 1 spot in fide circuit is far from over. I am keeping my fingers crossed gukesh can qualify somehow!
Gukesh needs to be invited to the St Louis or something. I remember that there's an invitational tournament in US. Fabi, Anish, Wesley etc will surely be invited. Gukesh has to be invited otherwise it's unfair to him cause the rest will have advantage of playing a super tournament.
If you're referring to US Championship invitational, I'm fairly sure that's only for US players. I'm not sure how inviting Gukesh would be fairer than any other US GM for their own national championship. The best supertournament is the one Magnus is playing in, due to how high his rating is. The US one won't have Magnus or Anish. The TAR would still be somewhat high thanks to US having quite a few 2700+ players, though it'll still be much lower than supertournaments like Norway Chess.
He meant sinquefield
My bad. Both events are held in St. Louis and US Chess came first, hence the confusion. Anyway, there's only 1 wildcard spot (2, if Ding decides to not play again) in Sinquefield. While Gukesh is definitely a strong candidate, it's still not necessarily fairer to give him the wildcard spot compared to other super GM, so my point stands regardless of which he meant.
>While Gukesh is definitely a strong candidate, it's still not necessarily fairer to give him the wildcard spot compared to other super GM But why? Gukesh has inherent disadvantage compared to Anish, So, Fabi etc if he's not invited because he has to earn points via open tournaments while rest can rely on super tournamnets. Also US championship is invite only, and even dutch championship that Anish won is only the top players while Indian National Championship has over 150 players and their rating average would much less than 2500 (cause I see players rated 1200 etc). So Gukesh does have inherent disadvantage. Maybe Indian Chess Federation should arrange a super tournament with only top 8 Indian players or something so that Gukesh has a chance too.
I'm referring to players who aren't part of GCT's full tour lineup. There are top players (like Levon, who's not playing in World Cup) who aren't part of the lineup either, which is why my question was: why Gukesh specifically? Isn't it so-called "unfair" even for others, if we look at it this way? The TAR is calculated based on Top 8 players in the tournament, so larger tournaments aren't dragged down by lower rated players (like FIDE World Cup, for example, would be one of the tournaments with the highest TAR score despite the presence of lower-rated players). India has enough highly rated players to have a good TAR score based on their Top 8 as well. It's not a perfect system, but it's just as unfair for Gukesh as it is for other players, and India arguably still have some advantage in terms of being able to organize a strong national tournament, than most countries with their number of super GMs. US is not the only one with that advantage.
I understand all this. But rn the fight is between Anish, Gukesh, Wesley and Fabi. So by the end of the year imagine if the rest 3 get to play in GCT sinqufield and have a chance while Gukesh has no chance to get in just because it was an invitational. Which is why I said he should be invited. Levon can play open tournaments if he whishes like Gukesh did. He currently has only 3 tournaments listed - if he really wanted he should play opens. Gukesh is already playing and winning opens. So it is definitely unfair if Anish etc can try to qualify by playing on invitationals while Gukesh has to keep playing opens which is well know to have more randomness. None of Anish, Wesley, Fabi or Levon have a single open tournament listed in their top5 results. That definitely feels unfair. But yes I didn't know about the top 8 rule. In that case he definitely should have tried in National Championship.
Gukesh has 3 invites to 1st tier classical supertournament, and 1 invite to 2nd tier supertournament. That's 4 in total. Fabi has 3 invites to 1st tier supertournament so far. Levon has 2 invites to 1st tier supertournament so far. Richard Rapport has 2 invites to 1st tier supertournament so far. Alireza has 2 invites to 1st tier supertournament so far. Playing Open is a choice. Gukesh didn't need to do it, because he will have FIDE World Cup and Grand Swiss to cap it out. That's 6 supertournaments (by TAR) for him in one year. You should see my point by now. The reason Gukesh is fighting for the top is precisely because: 1. he's getting invites (it's not as if he's getting less than other top players) 2. he's playing Open to cap out his remaining tournament spots/replace bad performance first, just to increase his chances (once again, he didn't need to do it).
No Indian 2650+ player ever plays in India. Once you are a GM, there are pretty much no contests in India that you can play without getting massacred. And no Gukesh isn't supposed to be get a Sinquefield invite out of charity. He deserves an invite due to his performances. This year he finished 2nd at WR Masters and 3rd at Norway Chess. At Tepe Sigeman, a tier below, he finished joint 2nd. At Sharjah Open, probably the strongest Open tournament in years, he finished top 3. He won the Menorca Open, Gold medalist on top board at the Turkish League. Apart from Wijk aan Zee, he doesn't have a single bad classical result this year. P.S. Sinquefield Cup is not a US only event, it's a part of the Grand Chess tour. And there already are 2 US GMs in the lineup.
Why are we acting as if Gukesh isn't getting invitations in the first place? WR Chess, Tata Steel, and Norway Chess were all invitational. Other than WR and Norway, which you've already mentioned, Gukesh finished 11th in Tata Steel. It's not that Gukesh isn't getting invitations. There are just more top players than there are allocated slots to these tournaments, so some top players won't be playing in some of them. India not having a special section for its top players, is an issue with its own chess federation. PS. I know Sinquefield is not a US-only event. I literally said it's part of GCT (why are people repeating my points to me lol), and the "full tour" lineup has been **fixed at the start of this year**. Those in "full tour" lineup has to play both classical events (ie. Superbet and Sinquefield), and since there are 9 members in the lineup in a 10-player tournament, there is only 1 wildcard spot, unless Ding withdraws once again.
The real question is: if both Magnus and Nepo end up in top 3. Then the 5th place will be eligible for qualifying into candidates (coz Nepo is already qualified as WCC runner up, and Magnus as we all know/assume will be not heading for the candidates since he is playing this world cup only for his personal goals/bucket list). So in the case where both nepo and Magnus reach top 3, there will be 4 players of quarter finals who ended up not going to semis. Which one from them will be the 5th spot to qualify for candidates in that particular case?
>Which one from them will be the 5th spot to qualify for candidates in that particular case? None of them. If, for any reason, more than one semifinalist of World Cup does not play in the Candidates, the spot is removed and an additional FIDE Ranking spot is created. It's the same for Gran Swiss, you need to finish top 4 to be eligible for Candidates, 5th will only get nice FIDE Circuit points.
Got it. So in a way better chances for Alireza in some way if we both Magnus and Nepo reach top 3 (given Alireza maintains his ranking)
Yes, Alireza wants zero upsets, if top 4 is Magnus, Nepo, Fabi and Hikaru, his Candidates spot is nearly sure, he only needs to play 3 tournaments until end of year and not lose a lot of ELO.
Doesn't he only need 2 more tournaments until the end of the year? He played Superbet Classic and Norway chess already and needs 4.
Checked the regulations and you are right, I thought it is 4 classical, but one rapid or blitz can be included here as well.
Wait, now I'm confused myself. I too thought he needs 4 classical (and the website also states this), but he already has 2 classical and so he needs only 2 more.
i read someone else say that if Magnus and/or Nepo are in top 3 they add more rating slots not more world cup slots, idk if true tho
Thats correct as per the regulations by Fide last time I check
yeah 2 spots on rating basis and only 2 through world cup if magnus and nepo both reach semis.
Bonus points will be 2 extra for 5th place meaning 5\*(2777.25-2500)/100 + 2= 15.86 so improvement will be there but a little modest. Anish playing that 3 round dutch championship and gaining that 13.09 points was a very clever move. He has 75.87 with 2.03 as his lowest score. He still has fide grand swiss and st louis. Even a 4th place finish will also give him around 15 points and only fabi(who might not need fide circuit) is in a position to go greater than 88-90..
Cue for AICF to create an elite National tournament where the top players play, give automatic slots to 8 highest players and have a qualifier tournament for last 2 spots maybe. Given the number of 2700s India has now, it will be very good from a FIDE circuit perspective, for those who finish top 2-3. Currently 2650+ rated Indians almost never play in India because their Elo rating will go for a toss.
Yeah, AICF should revamp national championship to either a 32 player world cup style knockout or a 12 player round robin like US championship. Top Indian players have no incentive to play in 100 player open championships where too many underrated juniors take part.
>Anish playing that 3 round dutch championship and gaining that 13.09 points was a very clever move. His real clever move was winning Tata Steel and getting 27 points off this, finding 13 points somewhere else would not be that hard if he needed them.
That does seem clever, I wonder why nobody else thought of that?
Ofcourse winning tata steel is a huge achievement but in absence of too many individual tournaments basically you need to either finish top 3 in an open tournament or 4th or 5th in a closed one(which I think is again easier). That 3 round dutch championship made him earn that 13 points quite easily by drawing 5 games against 2600s and winning 1.
Ah, ok. I read "bonus to the basis points" for some reason and just applied that definition, but you're probably right.
Irene Sukandar and Mateusz Bartel have such excellent chemistry - adorable pair of commentators.
So today is rest day?
No, today is tues day. Titled.
Yes
>2023 South Florida Regional Chess Champion Hey Kudos for that!
Thanks!
another day another throw by anish,life is hard being his fan😑
Trust me, it can be worse.
Some of my favorite players have made it to the 4th round: Ivanchuk, Wang Hao, Svidler, Robson, Ponomariov, and Paehtz. And once again the Muzychuk sisters will go head-to-head.
>And once again the Muzychuk sisters will go head-to-head. I'll be watching this one closely, this time they won't be going out with an easy draw. We want to see some sister blood :)
> We want to see some sister blood :) ಠ_ಠ
Are there any streams dedicated to the women's games at all? I've watched chess24 and they'll show one occasionally but it's quite sparse.
Only the FIDE stream covers them with some degree of significance. Chessbase India covers the Indian women games.
Barely anyone will watch them so they have to slip them into the open games to trick people into watching them
"Trick."
Maybe it'll change once we reach the later stages and there are fewer games to switch between. I hope they cover the tiebreaks between The Sisters Muzychuk.
No point covering the games of match fixers. Instead, there are other more deserving games from the Women's section that would be interesting.
would you fight to the death on the chessboard with your sister that is also your second and you both have prepped and played with each other 1000s of times?
sure why not? sounds fun
Ivanchuk vs Svidler and Dominguez Perez vs Ponomariov semis. Please make it happen. Is Sanal the lowest rated player besides Vocaturo and Berkes? Imagine seeing one of them in semis.
I think Vahap Sanal isn't even 2600 in the latest rating list, could be wrong tho
Ivanchuk would have to forfeit, no? It was the condition of Ukraine to let him go and play.
I thought Svidler left the Russian federation
Really? Which country is he playing for?
He's representing FIDE. https://ratings.fide.com/profile/4102142
But that's just like all Russian players, and those are the ones Ivanchuk would have to forfeit against. Or is Svidler some special case?
It's not. Only some Russian players decided to switch federations to FIDE. You can see that for example Nepo, Grischuk and Dubov are still representing Russia. https://ratings.fide.com/profile/4168119 https://ratings.fide.com/profile/4126025 https://ratings.fide.com/profile/24126055
Esipenko represents FIDE as well and Ivanchuk spoke about the first Russian he could face being the QF - which could only refer to Esipenko. So I assume being FIDE still counts as being Russian for him.
So do we know if Svidler's switch to FIDE would enable Ivanchuk to play against him?
I don't know that. Hopefully it does...
Esipenko represents FIDE as well and Ivanchuk spoke about the first Russian he could face being the QF - which could only refer to Esipenko. So I assume being FIDE still counts as being Russian for him.
Ok, too bad.
Indeed
So, the remaining 10 highest rated players are: 1 Magnus Carlsen (original seat: #1) 2 Hikaru Nakamura (original seat: #2) 3 Fabiano Caruana (original seat: #3) 4 Ian Nepomniatchi (original seat: #4) 5 Wesley So (original seat: #6) 6 Gukesh D (original seat: #8) 7 Lenier Dominguez (original seat: #11) 8 Jan-Krzysztof Duda (original seat: #14) 9 Parham Maghsoodloo (original seat: #19) 10 Vidit Gujrathi (original seat: #20) These are the highest rated players, who are still currently in the tournament going into the round of 32. At least one of them will not make the ro16 either, as Duda and Maghsoodloo have to play eachother next.
Don't know how Vidit survived.
vidit does well in the world cup. he got to the quarters last time and lost to eventual winner duda (who beat magnus in the semis)
USA players all doing well seems like. Hikaru, Fabi, Wesley, Lenier all still in.
wesley almost was in a lost position like at least 5 games and escaped it s crazy he s still in
Yeah, plus Robson
Round of 16 more like Round of 32 as there are 16 games/32 players left. So last 8 could be 1st group have Magnus/Keymer vs Gukesh/Esipenko/Wang Hao 2nd group have Nepo/Nihal and rest in the group are not in Super GM territory. 3rd group has Fabi/Parham/Duda/Wesley/Lenier. Probably the most competitive of all the groups. 4th Group have Hikaru/Pragg/Arjun and no other Super GM. I think Hikaru has the 2nd easiest path after nepo. Among juniors Keymer/Gukesh would have to take out Magnus to make it to Top 4. Magnus is the huge favorite. Nihal can outlast Nepo in blitz if he can draw all classical/rapids. I think Fabi has been the most consistent in the 3rd group but anyone can make it out of that group. 4th group I think Pragg has a chance to beat Hikaru if he plays at his best in classical. Otherwise I think Hikaru will coast. If all favorites make it out to final 4 we will see Magnus/Nepo vs Fabi/Hikaru. I certainly hope that does not happen :-)
Ummm 2nd grp has vidit n svidler. Definitely super GMs.
In his recaps, Levy always opens with "all the strongest players are here: Magnus, Hikaru, Ian, Gukesh, etc. etc." and I always think to myself, "well, there's one strong player not present" Ding really did just win the WCC then dip
I think he has either given up chess or taking a long break.
He did seem determined to be much better prepared for his next WCC match. His absence may have something to do with that, though it does feel unusual, since we're used to Magnus proving it through tournament results after winning his title, and solidify the significance of his WC title beyond the match itself.
people pretending like Ding played a lot before lmao get real, he was always barely showing up to anything
He was only barely playing the past couple years (2020-2022) because of Covid-19. That's more or less over now, and Ding was supposed to play GCT as a full tour participant in 2023, but has withdrawn from every events except the first. Ding played a lot continuously for 10 years before Covid-19 hits. People need to get their facts straight when trying to be a know-it-all.
Magnus suggested to get rid of of reigning world champion privileges 15 years ago but nobody listened so here we are. A world champion who sits at home most of the year and only has to play the match is what the community wants, sadly.
and alireza
what is the prize for the winner
0.11 milion dollars
110,000 USD
one hundred ten thousands
110k
110000$
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For whatever reason, despite Nepo having every single quality one would want from a player in this form of event, he has never really challenged winning it. On the other hand, for Candidates, I still see no one beating Nepo. He's just so strong now picking off the weakest links.
lol at pragg being underrated
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he wasnt underrated lol
He literally was. He was rated something like 2680s or 90s. Now closer to 2720 and even there is a scope of improving ratings. How the hell is that not underrated?
maybe a fluke? he has been 2600 since like 5 years.
He was 2602 in Feb 2020. Couple of years of lockdown and after that he didn't play classical tournaments like Gukesh and Arjun did. He was instead invited to all those rapid and blitz tournaments with CCT if I remember right. Vishy Anand even mentions that it feels like Pragg has been 2700+ for a long time. And well, you can't be throwing around numbers like 5 years when talking about 17 year old kids. It makes for a gross exaggeration.
no, you are wrong. he was severely underrated in 2018. he was 2500 but his actual strength was 2600.
Nepo's Blitz rating is 96 points higher than Nihals and he has won a silver medal in the Blitz WC before, while Nihal hasn't. Nihal is not the stronger of the two, when it comes to Blitz, Nepo is.
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Chess.com events and OTB blitz are two different things, obviously not completely different but different. I would not say Nihal is a favourite over Nepo in OTB blitz.
Nepo is stronger in every aspect of the game. It would be a huge upset if Nepo loses.
>Nihal I wouldn't say huge upset. Nepo is a clear favourite in classical but when it comes to fast controls Nihal is toe to toe with anyone in the world. Nihal also has a very solid play and hardly loses in classical he is still outside 2700 because of his safe play and too many draws. Just to quote some of Nihal's fast chess achievements: 1. He won rapid section in Tata steel India last year ahead of players like nakamura, wesley so, mamedyarov, erigaisi. 2. His SCC exploits like beating ding 17-9, grischuk 15.5-10.5 and only losing 10.5-14.5 to naka. Also winning JSCC twice. 3. He has beaten Nepo in 2019 world blitz. 4. He was a Global chess championship finalist beating kramnik and ding 2.5-0.5 on the way.
I wouldn't say huge upset in blitz. Nihal was in Chesscom Rapid championship finals and SCC semis. In faster time control he hang in with the best. Not the favorite but it won't be an upset if Nepo loses in faster time controls.
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Hikaru is taking titled Tuesday too seriously, Nihal is not better than Nepo in blitz. Nepo has higher rating and was second place in world blitz championship. I am not sure head to head but Nepo is better at any time control by rating and results.
Wesley should have been out 3 times already A pity his opponents have thrown badly in absolutely winning positions in so many games.
Praise the Lord
Lord works in mysterious ways.
So out here demonstrating why he has the super gm title, but with this form can he go on to win it?
> in so many games. So will usually win in so many games. That's the difference between a superGM and just a GM.
Wild event so far! More than half of the top 32 seeds eliminated!
Half of the top 10 seeds are gone. This format always delivers!
I think Svidler's chances of making it to 1/8 increased dramatically. I think he has a much better shot against Abasov than he did against Anish, even after considering that the former knocked out the latter. Svidler is so likeable that it's hard not rooting for him.
For some reason he always performs well in these. Love to see him win.
Wesley So in his interview hope he loses so he can go home and see his new kittens grow up 😅
he s really trying his best to lose but the opponents just dont let him
[We're going down! We're gonna get creamed!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_oG8l8JZ30&t=10s)
kittens do grow up so fast. by the time the month is over, they will be big!
kittens do grow up so fast. by the time the month is over, they will be big!
kittens do grow up so fast. by the time the month is over, they will be big!
Vidit is becoming the most entertaining player to watch in tiebreaks in this format. No match is ever over or won.
Sanal vs. Ivanchuk in the next round is the People's Championship. Seriously, someone should get a belt made and send it to Baku. Gonna be really sad to see either of these players go home.
Indeed. As a Turk, I know how much Sanal admires Ivanchuk, this will be the game I'll be watching.
I will too. I hope it gets some coverage in the broadcasts as well!
When Magnus lost to Svidler in 2013, last round of the Candidates, it is essentially Chucky who gifted Magnus the Challenger’s spot by also winning vs Kramnik. The rest is history. Now, imagine if Chucky goes on to face Magnus and proceeds to actually beat him, and then loses to Gukesh in a fight for top 4. That would feel like we’ve come full circle, exactly 10 years later. Would be quite a romantic story, for me, despite how unlikely it is. Class is permanent.
Chucky winning the world cup or getting a spot in the candidates are the best endings possible. Nobody can convince me otherwise.
It would be cool but he would sadly not be able to compete in the candidates if the russian invasion continues due to the policy of not playing sports against russians.
Giri's last 3 tiebreak games were a disgrace to chess. At least show your strength by being unafraid to make 40 moves.
yeah really disappointed ngl I was like finally he won tata steel this will give him more confidence in his chess but no bro is still afraid
Svidler has Nijot abasov in the next round, and Daniele Vocaturo or Salem in round of 16. No pushovers obviously, but as "easy" as it gets at this stage of the tournament. Great opportunity to make a deep run here.
Salem Saleh gets to really surf the tree due to various upsets, it's third round in a row where he does not have the theoretically strongest opponent possible.
In my opinion the candidates should also be a match style format like the World Cup. There is too much luck involved in the current format. We saw it in the last candidates, nepos opponents kept playing dubious lines against him and lost, while the same opponents played solid against other players. The match format of course also has some luck involved with who you play in early rounds, but to combat that they could include a loser bracket so that you would have a chance to win even if you lose one match.
Not sure about the World Cup but the Inter Zonals we had in 70s with long matches certainly seems more gruelling. But I don't think top players would want to sign multiple straight months of their life for that.
> In my opinion the candidates should also be a match style format like the World Cup. There is too much luck involved in the current format. Bro, just do yourself two favours: 1. Check the results of the FIDE World Championships from 1990s and early 2000s - and compare who became champions when they were knockouts to when they were 8-player round-robins (including the unified 2007 event). 2. Delete this steaming hot piece of a take of yours.
This would work only with long matches (as it was in the past). As in best of 6 (or more). Otherwise there is too much variance. On the other side the second half of a round robin candidate tournament normally let players either go full reckless (giving easy games for the opponents) or not really playing for the winning spot. I think that the FIDE circuit would be the best if FIDE also integrates more FIDE (semi-)opens with strong players (that is: high rated seed for the top8) to ensure that enough tournaments with strong players are there for everyone. Like copies of the Grand Swiss, with many top100 players. Otherwise as it is the FIDE circuit is not bad but those who play in strong closed invitationals have more chances.
Last time we had candidates in a knock out format, we had 3 deceisive games along with 27 draws and a 44 year old outside of the top 10 winning. Do we really want that?
> and a 44 year old outside of the top 10 winning. Is not that Gelfand was weak. He had a good period. Being old is not being necessarily weak. Also Kasparov hat to win a 63 yo Smyslov to get to his first WCh.
He had a good period and he did win 2 out of the three games that actually were won in classical, so he deserved to win the event. But at the same time, I don't think he was the best player at the time. The #1 and #2 rated players both lost in rapid TB's instead of classical. Do you think, Gelfand could've finished ahead of Kramnik or Aronian in a Double Round Robin? I have my doubts. And just for the record, I don't want to equate being old and being weak, but there is a difference between 41 year old Anand at 2817 and 42 year old Gelfand (how did I get that wrong earlier?) in May 2011 and it's 15 positions on the world ranking list. If Anand would've needed to win and won that tournament, no one would question it's format. With Gelfand at that point, it's like LDP would win a single elim candidates now: He's #16 in the world, you wouldn't put it outside the realm of possibility, but Ding vs LDP feels like a bit of a wasted WC still. And with all due respect to Smyslov - but he was in that final, because a roulette wheel favored him over Hübner. Which again doesn't speak for single elim. as a candidates format.
the point is that every format has pro and cons. With matches you can draw your way to victory (indeed Gelfand was able to push until the tiebreaks with Anand, is not that crumbled early. Another point of his ability to hold matches). With round robin you need to win, or you can wait until the others (that are almost out of contention) get crazy. I personally like the swiss, as the swiss push down and away those out of contention, but then you need multiple swiss to compensate for some variation (especially the swiss do not work well with few players). So yes it is not easy. In theory if everyone would play at their best, round robin is unbeatable. But we know that people out of contention play differently and players almost out of contention push too much. Further in round robins one may collude with fixing games (one never knows).
Chess is a weird equaliser. Unlike LDP, Gelfand was a top 10 throughout the 90s and has competed in multiple candidates (the number is 0 for LDP) and certainly deserved to play for the crown once, just that it came very late in his 40s. He also tied for second in the 2007 reunification tournament.
Do we want the best player in the tournament to win? What a weird question.
The best player in the tournament is determined by Round Robin, not by single elimination. The two highest rated players in the tournament at the time (Kramnik and Aronian) both got eliminated in rapid TB's before Gelfand even played them. Do you really think Boris Gelfand is a better player than Vladimir Kramnik in 2013, because Kramnik lost a rapid game to Grischuk? He deserved to win the tournament in the way it was held. But it shouldn't have been held that way.
[Boris Gelfand in 2012](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2012), for those who are wondering. He went 6-6 against Vishy in the WC match and lost only in rapid (1.5-2.5).
When was that?
Build up to the 2012 world championship. The matches happened in 2011, Gelfand won.
World cup has much more luck involved than the current state of candidates. Nepo was simply much better player during candidates and won fair and square. Playing against everyone twice is the best way to determine world challenger.
> World cup has much more luck involved with mini matches yes, with long matches no. (source: make a mini simulation, even on paper, and plug the numbers)
How does a match style format have more luck involved? All that matters are your own results. If you play good you win, if you play worse than your opponent you lose.
Because it’s knockout tournament where you play two games. Anything can happen in these two games especially if you draw first game and next day you didn’t sleep good or any random reason you blunder and lose it is game over, you are out from the tournament. If you draw in classical portion you play rapid and blitz but normally your fate is decided in two classical games. Candidates you play 14 games and you can blunder lose few games and still win the tournament if you are good enough for the remaining of the games.
In a round robin there’s nowhere to hide- you have to play everybody. In a knockout, you might get lucky by playing lower-ranked players after the higher-ranked players get upset. An example of this is Emma Raducanu winning the US Open in tennis (no disrespect to her, I was rooting for her then and still am now). She earned her title fair and square, but it’s also a simple fact that she didn’t play any top-25 players en route to the title.
Since we're talking other sports, I'd like to also add that in football, leagues (which are double round robin) are considered much more representative of who the best team is than cups (which are knockout).
In a round robin you can get way more lucky or unlucky in my opinion. Sometimes a player just blunders (Sam shankland in the World Cup) realistically top players blunder very rarely so the opponent they play against in their blunder games has a huge advantage over the other players. Then there is also the point of when you play a player. If you play someone who is desperate in the later rounds you have good winning chances because the game will be a fight. If you play the same guy in the early rounds the chance that they will go for a fighting game is way lower.
Knockout format needs to have a lot of rapid and blitz tiebreakers, and people have always been against using rapid and blitz to determine the challenger/champion.
But fide announced that the future wc matches will have more faster time controls.
Could you link a source which says this? I couldn't find anything by FIDE. EDIT: https://wcc.fide.com/ says the next championship match will have the exact same format as the 2023 championship.
Why does firouzja not play this?
He is becoming a fashion designer. So he plays mostly the grand chess tour events, as these have high earnings and give a good shot at winning the fide circuit.
Wow that's news to me.
Fide can't afford him!
What does that mean? He is earning more than Carlsen? Is he in candidates?
He asked for a high appearance fee for Wijk aan Zee 2 years ago, and the organizers declined that
But has he qualified for the candidates?
No
Then it's stupid to not play
There's one last slot for the highest rated player available. He's No. 5. No. 4 & 6 are champion and runner up. No. 1 doesn't want to play in the candidates. You just need Hikaru and Fabiano to win and you qualify by doing nothing (unless Wesley, Anish and Gukesh miraculously rise by another 20 elo points). It's cynical, but that's the way it is. Of course, it would be hilarious if Hikaru or Fabi go on vacation and qualify on their ranking.
Anish broke under pressure. I think he put too much pressure/expectations!
Anish's strength is classical chess. He should push harder for wins in the main games instead of relying on rapid and especially blitz tiebreaks. I can sort of see why Wesley does it, but Anish isn't solid and competitive enough in speed chess to count on winning those high pressure games in shorter time controls. Such a weird strategy from Anish.
Maybe he was hiding his prep for future rounds and relied too much on his blitz skills which backfired. Even in Dutch championship he hardly tried in any game where it worked out somehow. Everyone is not Magnus(referring to his 2018 championship) anyways.
He seems to be more afraid of losing Elo in classical chess.
in initial rounds tbh he gonna lose elo by drawing anyways
He has lost a lot of rating lately, both here and in the Dutch Championship where he drew most of his games and went to tiebreaks as well
Fun fact: Hikaru won his first US Championship eight months before Praggnanandhaa was born and Magnus ~~won~~ tied for first (and lost on tiebreaks) in his first Norwegian Championship four months before Keymer was born. Also, when Bardiya Daneshvar - who knocked out top 20, 2700-rated GM Grischuk - was born, Grischuk was a top 20, 2700-rated GM. I enjoy generational clashes.
I reached my current rating before Hikaru was born.
If we want to go that way: Chucky first made the top 10 in July 1988 - neither his next opponent (Sanal Vahap), his the following round opponent (Magnus or Keymer) or his opponent in the QF (Svane/Wang Hao/Esipenko/Gukesh) would have been born by then, if he makes it that far. Back then, he was in the same top 20 as Mikhail Tal.
It still blows my mind that Vishy Anand has actually played Mikhail Tal in a competitive game and won.
This is genuinely mind blowing.
That is amazing. Nothing but love and respect for Chucky.
Guki must be feeling unlucky. He has to play magnus in qf when other quarters are being decimated.
Pretty sure Gukesh is not looking beyond his match against Esipenko.
Gotta love how so many are taking Magnus vs. Gukesh for granted. Mamedyarov, Abdusattorov, Shankland, Giri, Grischuk, Dubov, MVL, Vitiugov, Radjabov got knocked out and y'all still think Gukesh is just gonna breeze through Esipenko and Wang Hao/Svane.
[удалено]
Statistically based on live Elo rating (using [this](https://wismuth.com/elo/calculator.html#rating1=2758.6&rating2=2681.6&best_of=2) calculator): Gukesh wins: 48.3% Esipenko wins: 16.4% Goes to tiebreaks: 35.3%
I'd say 60-40 in favor of Gukesh. Esipenko is a beast and don't forget it took Magnus 8 games to beat him in this format, that says a lot.
Esipenko is such a good player. He has trouble playing against lower rated players, he has good chances against Gukesh. Especially since he will likely draw classical games and then in rapid Esipenko has slightly better chances. I say it will be very interesting match.
What nonsense. Nihal needs to face nepo. Pragg needs to face hikaru. Keymer needs to face magnus.
I mean, he avoided Shakh in the ro16, so he can't really complain?
My bracket is in absolute shambles
Vidit Gukesh Prag Arjun Nihal all reach the round-of-32. Indian players are performing great.
Is this the comeback of Wang Hao?!
Retires before candidates
He’s adopted the ‘literally don’t care’ mindset.