Ian Nepomniachtchi took a huge stride forward in the fourth round, winning his second game of the tournament and snatching sole possession of first place in the standings when all the other games in the round were drawn. With this win, Nepo is now clearly the most likely player to win the tournament having now beaten the two highest rated players in the field and drawn the third, in just the first four rounds. That said, 10 rounds of play remain which is plenty of time for fortunes to shift dramatically, so let’s take a look at the current odds of winning for each player and how they changed from before the fourth round to after.
Nepo comes in, according to our model, at 42% to take first place. This is the highest anyone’s chances have been so far in the event, but notably he is not yet an odds-on favorite (which would mean having odds above 50%). In fact even with Fabi just as clearly alone in second place as Ian is alone in first, it’s still hardly just a two-man race. With so much chess left to play, there remains almost a one in three chance that one of the players currently under 7.5% ultimately wins. The bottom six are collectively more likely to win than Fabi is (although we can’t say which one of them would emerge with any confidence, any are possible) and the favorite remains an underdog to the rest of the field.
To say it more plainly: it’s still early and anything could happen. So let’s zoom out for a second from the question of each player’s winning chances, and just ask what it takes to win in the first place? In each simulation we recorded what score the first place player(s) had. Here is how often each possible score held that honor.
In the future we will parse this in more detail, and talk about how often tiebreaks came into play at various scores, but for now the short point is that it’s pretty close to 50/50 whether the eventual winner will have 8.5 or less (with tiebreaks relatively likely) or get to 9 or more points (and be more likely to win outright). However it’s interesting that there’s still a lot of variance in this table. Anywhere from 8 to 9.5 points has a pretty decent chance of ending up as the target mark, with even more extreme targets possible. Not only is it too early to be sure who will win the tournament, it’s too early even to know with confidence what it will take to do so, other than just playing the best chess possible. Basically, nine rounds is an eternity, and this just further emphasizes how much the landscape could shift.
So with that in mind, let’s take a look at round 5, consider the potential impact of each game, and explore what specific result might maximize the uncertainty going forward.
ROUND 5 PREVIEW
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (14%)
Draw (64%)
Black wins (23%)
White
Radjabov, Teimour
1.0%
3.0%
0.7%
0.2%
Black
Ding, Liren
6.2%
2.0%
4.9%
11.2%
It’s not shocking that Radjabov enters this game tied for last place, but the fact that Ding is right there in that tie is quite unexpected. Ding is in no way eliminated from contention, as of course there is a ton of chess left to play as we keep emphasizing, but he has to start winning soon or else he’ll start to run out of time eventually. We can see that even with black, the model sees the game against Radjabov as a likely enough win that should he only draw, his odds will slowly tick further downward. If Ding can make this a bounce back game though, his chances climb back into the double digits and the leaders will definitely have to keep an eye on him in their rear-view mirrors as he could springboard off of a fifth round win and start gaining ground fast.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (31%)
Draw (56%)
Black wins (12%)
White
Firouzja, Alireza
5.7%
10.4%
4.2%
1.5%
Black
Duda, Jan-Krzysztof
3.9%
1.1%
4.5%
10.1%
After dropping his first decisive game of the event Firouzja now finds himself in a deep hole, a point and a half behind the leader, and the model has suddenly grown very pessimistic of the teenager’s chances. That said he does have one thing working in his favor over the next phase of the tournament: after starting with black in three games out of four, he now gets the white pieces for four of his next five games. If he’s going to turn things around those five games may be his best opportunity to do so. And starting that stretch with a game against a relative underdog like Duda might be just the spark he needs. Of course even a win here is just the beginning of a potential comeback, only bringing him to around 10% to win the event, but getting back to an even score is what he needs right now, and the rest can be saved for later.
All of that said, let’s not forget to consider Duda either. Our model sees him as a lot less likely to win this game, both due to his lower rating and having black, but if he does win he’s the one who would jump to 10%, rather than his opponent. Let’s keep in mind that Duda is still on an even score, and our model’s pessimism regarding his chances overall has a lot to do with this game in particular. Note that if it’s drawn, Duda will actually come out with better chances than Alireza. The current two percentage point advantage that Alireza has is based on the assumption that he’s likely to win this game, but if it goes differently that will shake up expectations quickly.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (28%)
Draw (59%)
Black wins (13%)
White
Caruana, Fabiano
26.7%
40.1%
24.0%
10.5%
Black
Rapport, Richard
7.4%
2.2%
7.9%
20.6%
Now that Fabi is no longer tied for the lead, he might reasonably be feeling some pressure to get a second win of his own to catch up. Any game with white can be a decent opportunity to do so, and we see here that if he can knock of Rapport his odds jump up to around 40% right there with where Nepo stands already. The counterpoint is that Rapport is actually third in the current projections, so Fabi is hardly the only player for whom this game matters. If Rapport wins he suddenly jumps to the one in five range and becomes a serious contender himself. Also a Rapport win would knock Fabi back down to an even score and back to just a 10% chance to win. So while the model doesn’t see the first two games we discussed as particularly impactful, this matchup does rate quite highly. There is a huge gap between the implications of each of the three possible results here.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (19%)
Draw (67%)
Black wins (14%)
White
Nakamura, Hikaru
7.0%
17.5%
6.3%
1.4%
Black
Nepomniachtchi, Ian
42.0%
24.2%
42.5%
62.0%
Heavy is the head that wears the crown. The most important game of the day is clearly this matchup, as our newly minted sole leader now must defend that position with black. Should he lose, he and Hikaru would actually suddenly be tied (possibly for first, possibly not, depending on Fabi’s result). That result would drag Nepo back down to 24%, put Nakamura right in the thick of contention, and might return us to a wide open field where everyone is in it with no clear or definitive favorite.
So Nepo’s edge is definitely at risk, as a loss would immediately erase his gains from the win over Firouzja, but there is also opportunity here. With a win he would really start to pull aggressively away from the field, moving up to a 62% chance of winning before considering the impact of the other three games. Should Fabi fail to keep pace that number could ultimately land even higher. So this is a huge risk/reward game for Nepo, but also it’s a huge opportunity for Naka to transition from underdog to being one of the favorites himself.
In our last update we looked at some specific scenarios, and the one we enjoyed most was envisioning maximum chaos. So let’s do that again. What set of results in round 5 might leave things as unpredictable as they can be moving forward? Of course it would start with Hikaru beating Ian, which would equalize them in the standings and eliminate Nepo’s sole leader status (which is great for him, but awful if chaos is the goal.) Since sole leaders run counter to our goal let’s also assume Fabi doesn’t win; we’ll have him and Rapport draw. And then finally since we want more contenders, let’s assume that both Ding and Firouzja get their bounce back wins to return to an even score, tied with Rapport and half a point behind the three leaders this scenario produces.
We estimate about a 125 to 1 chance of all of this happening exactly as we describe, but it’s a fun fantasy, it would leave the tournament odds at:
That’s a pretty spicy scenario to maximize our drama, eh?
IN CONCLUSION
Round five offers us two high impact games between the four players currently rated most likely to win the tournament by our model, along with two other games featuring top seeds who have struggled so far and hope to right the ship. If we see some decisive results in any of those matchups it could have a huge impact on the eventual tournament outcome, particularly Nepo is involved in one of those results, but that impact could go either of two ways. It could clarify things greatly, perhaps locking Nepo in as an odds-on favorite, and perhaps setting us on the path toward an eventual winner with a very strong score. Or those decisive results could instead largely equalize the players, eliminate leads, and just generally sow chaos, increasing the chances for a winner who scores relatively low and perhaps has to eventually earn first in tiebreaks.
Whether you’re rooting for chaos or clarity, round five has chances to provide it, so as always sit back and enjoy the show!
The standings are stable after round three sent us into the rest day with four peaceful results, even though most of the games were anything but peaceful before the end. Ding Liren looked to have excellent chances to bounce back to an even score, but his advantage eventually fizzled out against Richard Rapport’s defensive efforts. Alireza Firouzja caught Hikaru Nakamura in deep preparation and built an overwhelming lead on the clock, but on the board Nakamura managed to navigate the threats and find the only path to a safe draw. And a highly complex battle between Fabiano Caruana and Jan-Krzysztof Duda also brought fireworks to the board – but not ultimately the scoreboard.
As a result, the new odds of winning the tournament look very similar to the old odds, as we can see from the column showing the change from before the round to after.
Although the percentages are minimally changed, one shift did occur in how the players rank on this table. By holding the draw against Ding, in a game the model thought Ding had good chances to win, Rapport’s long term projection improved just enough, and Ding’s dropped enough, for Rapport to move to fourth place in this table, now seen by the model as slightly more likely than Ding to eventually win the tournament.
The players (and us fans) now get a rest day before play resumes on June 21st. Round four will bring some critical matchups though, so once everyone gets a chance to recover it will be time to buckle up as the action should only get more intense.
ROUND 4
We will start as usual by taking a look at the four games scheduled for this round, and what impact they could have on the final standings. Then we have some additional “what-if” questions to delve into as this round has a lot of fascinating possibilities. But first the games:
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (27%)
Draw (60%)
Black wins (13%)
White
Duda, Jan-Krzysztof
5.6%
11.0%
5.6%
1.5%
Black
Radjabov, Teimour
1.1%
0.1%
0.9%
3.3%
When the two players currently least likely to win the event face each other, the game will score relatively low in our model’s measure of importance. That being said, don’t forget that there are 11 rounds left, and first place is only one point ahead of last place right now. Noone has been eliminated yet, and the projections could always change in a hurry. Duda, in particular, has good chances to win this game, given that he has white against the lowest rated player in the field. And doing so would put him above 10% to win the tournament, which is definitely contender range. Radjabov is a little further removed from serious contention, as even an upset win with black only improves his odds to 30 to 1, but if he were to run off a couple wins in a row he’d be right back in the conversation, and step one to a winning streak is to in that first game. If he got back to an even score with this one, it would be a big step.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (24%)
Draw (63%)
Black wins (13%)
White
Rapport, Richard
9.6%
17.2%
8.3%
3.1%
Black
Nakamura, Hikaru
7.5%
3.6%
7.2%
17.2%
Interestingly the winner of this game – if it’s decisive – comes out at exactly 17.2% to win the tournament regardless of which player that is! And that’s definitely in the territory that makes a player one of the favorites at this stage, so a win would be pretty huge for either of these competitors. On the flip side though, a decisive result would also relatively cripple the loser’s chances. Are they willing to take that risk? Perhaps they ought to be, given that a draw hurts both of their chances. But the harm from a draw is minimal compared to the harm of a loss and they will have plenty of additional chances to make their move going forward. So perhaps that will factor into their strategic considerations.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (26%)
Draw (61%)
Black wins (13%)
White
Ding, Liren
8.9%
17.7%
7.9%
2.0%
Black
Caruana, Fabiano
27.2%
14.7%
30.3%
46.1%
And now we get to the two games that are absolutely critical. First we have current favorite Fabi defending with black against original favorite (and highest rated in the field) Ding. A decisive result in this game would dramatically shake up the tournament status quo. Ding is currently in last place, and Fabi in first, but only one point separates them so if Ding wins they would immediately be tied in the standings, and suddenly Ding would have better chances than Fabi to win the event due to his higher rating. In that case, both would still be among the favorites, but it would also open new doors to the rest of the field.
If Caruana wins, on the other hand, he would emerge as a convincing tournament favorite with his chances to win the event inching towards 50/50. This would also be a devastating second loss for Ding who would be almost borderline eliminated from contention as he fall into a hole in the standings too deep to realistically overcome, no matter how strong his projections for future rounds remain.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (18%)
Draw (67%)
Black wins (14%)
White
Nepomniachtchi, Ian
22.7%
38.2%
21.7%
9.4%
Black
Firouzja, Alireza
17.3%
7.4%
16.9%
33.0%
But then we have an even more critical game. The second and third most likely tournament winners square off in this extremely high stakes affair. Either could push their odds to well over 30% if they win this game (leaving their opponent under 10% in the process). This game has an extra dynamic of the higher rated player having the black pieces (unlike the other three games of the round) so the model has much more evenly distributed possible outcomes, with all three results being in play. A draw won’t change much, but the fact that a decisive result would be so impactful for both players makes this game vital.
But since there are two super critical games in this round, and they’re important for similar reasons, we wanted to look deeper at some possible outcomes. Right now Fabi and Nepo are tied for the tournament lead, and the model considers them the two most likely tournament winners. Both play games against one of the players chasing them the closest, so a win carries double value. It both extends their lead and cuts the legs out of a key competitor at the same time. This begs the question: what if they both win?
IF FABI AND NEPO BOTH WIN (2% CHANCE)
Granted, this scenario is not likely, as it would require both of the two highest rated players in the field to fall, but if they did both score these key victories the tournament would be on the verge of becoming a two-man race, even with 10 rounds left to play. Sure, the other players would all still have their longshot chances, but all of a sudden 3 in 4 simulations have one of Fabi or Nepo taking first place. This would totally shift the landscape of the event, bringing a ton of clarity to who really has a chance to win. And it would immediately make everyone circle round 9 on their schedules, as that’s when these two will face each other for the second time.
IF FABI AND NEPO BOTH LOSE (4% CHANCE)
The lead can be a fickle thing. If Alireza and Ding were to both knock off the current leaders in their respective games, suddenly the two of them would become the most likely players to finish in first! Since he is half a point ahead of Ding (and would remain so) it is Firouzja who would be best positioned, with the rest of the field scattered behind him. Fabi and Nepo wouldn’t be out of contention in any way, but would no longer be the favorites. This would be a nice chaotic scenario, but bear with me, it’s not the most chaotic possibility.
PURE CHAOS (2% CHANCE) What if you just want to see the world burn? Is there a way round four could go that leaves just about everyone in contention, with nobody even close to being a clear favorite? Why yes there is! If Alireza and Nepomniachtchi draw their game, while Ding beats Fabi, and Duda beats Radjabov, and the Rapport/Nakamura game has a decisive result, there would suddenly be six serious contenders separated by barely over 10 percentage points.
This scenario is actually plausible, being almost as likely as the two leaders both winning according to our model’s estimated game probabilities. And it would be ridiculous. With 10 rounds left, 75% of the field would be in serious contention with absolutely no clear leader. This would make the remainder of the tournament so much fun as this logjam only gradually got sorted out.
CONCLUSION
Of course we can’t promise one of these more interesting scenarios that we’ve described above. The 15% chance of four more draws is almost twice as likely as all three of the above cases combined. So maybe round 4 will bring us a huge shakeup in the standings, or maybe it will leave things roughly how they stand now. Without offering assurances either way, what we can say is that this round features two really critical games (the model sees them as more important than any game from the first three rounds was) so if we do see some decisive results they could have huge impact. It’s going to be another great round and should be just the beginning of a process where the games only continue to get more and more critical – the stakes growing higher and higher – with each round from here to the end. There is a lot more chess ahead of us to look forward to.
Day two of the Candidates is in the books, and although we had another exciting set of games, the action ultimately had very little impact on who our model predicts will win. Firouzja slipped up and came within a hair’s width of losing to Rapport, which would have shaken up the projections, but then managed to salvage the draw. A chaotic game between the co-leaders Caruana and Nepomniachtchi looked like it offered winning chances to both players, but eventually settled in a peaceful result. The only decisive game came in the matchup that the model rated as least potentially impactful on the final standings, so Nakamura gained ground at Radjabov’s expense, but in terms of the odds the effect was minimal.
Here is our model’s new projections for each player’s hopes of winning, and how those odds changed based on the games in round 2:
Fabi and Nepo remain co-leaders, now on 1.5/2, and after two taxing draws with black Alireza sits as the highest rated player among the group who is half a point back (and has favorable piece colors ahead) making him the third most likely to win. Ding remains the highest rated player in the field, which with 12 rounds left to play is enough for our model to still project reasonable chances that he might bounce back (even though he currently sits a full point off the lead, tied for last place) and contend. Nakamura’s win brought him back to a more comfortable position: still an underdog but not so extreme of a longshot. Radjabov’s loss on the other hand means he is now tied for last in the standings and remains the lowest rated player in the field – now by an even larger margin – which has his odds of winning drifting to the lowest we’ve seen from any player yet. He has played two competitive games, had chances to win on day one, and chances to draw on day two, but the results say that it will take a shocking turnaround for him to get back to the top of the standings from here.
Before we look ahead to round 3, here’s a graph of how everyone’s odds to win the tournament have shifted since it began:
We share this with the primary intent of emphasizing one key point: things have just gotten started. The most important takeaway from this graph is how much white space there is. That represents the action yet to come, and highlighting it is why we chose to include unplayed rounds on the x-axis. Also notable is that no player has yet had better than a 30% chance to win the event at any point, which further emphasizes that all the jockeying so far is essentially still prelude. We haven’t gotten close to actually determining who will emerge as the challenger for the world championship. So with that noted, let’s look at what will fill in the next column of that white space.
ROUND 3 PREVIEW
Here are the upcoming matchups, sorted from least to most impactful (in our model’s estimation) on the potential final standings.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (15%)
Draw (69%)
Black wins (16%)
White
Radjabov, Teimour
1.1%
3.4%
0.8%
0.4%
Black
Nepomniachtchi, Ian
21.2%
10.8%
20.9%
32.0%
If our model’s current projections are to be believed, and Radjabov is on the fast track to the bottom of the standings, then games against him might be the best opportunity other players have to fight for much needed wins. Nepomniachtchi is one of those players – currently marked by our model as the second most likely tournament winner – who would benefit tremendously from tacking on another early win. He could significantly improve his odds if he managed to win this game, probably becoming the new tournament favorite.
However Nepo has the black pieces, so it’s a risky proposition to press. Radjabov is the underdog, and might be slightly more beatable than anyone else in the field, but that’s only a relative measure. In any given game, he’s an extremely dangerous player, and as we said earlier he has fought hard so far, even if the results haven’t been enough to erase his underdog status. Not for nothing, but if he did win this game and get back to an even score, our model still says Radjabov would have roughly a 1 in 30 shot to win the event – very far from impossible – so he surely hasn’t thrown in the towel yet. If Nepo gives him an opening, he will be happy to press for a win of his own, and a loss would knock Nepo out of the top-two position he currently sits in.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (32%)
Draw (56%)
Black wins (12%)
White
Ding, Liren
10.4%
15.3%
8.2%
3.2%
Black
Rapport, Richard
8.0%
3.4%
9.6%
17.5%
Ding has another shot with the white pieces to get his tournament on track and push himself back into serious contention, but there’s a catch. Our model sees him, with his rating edge and the extra advantage of playing white, as actually quite likely to win this game – 32% is about as high as winning chances get in an event this tough – so that likelihood is already somewhat “priced in” to his current odds. This means that a win, while useful, doesn’t give him quite the bump we’ve seen other favorites pick up when they won games, he would only increase his chances by about five percentage points. And this also means that a draw would be unusually bad. Normally, as the expected result of any given game, draws have almost no impact on the odds, but drawing a game you’re expected to win this often is – from the model’s perspective – equivalent to leaving some points on the table and actually would cost Ding a couple percentage points of win equity in the tournament standings. And of course a loss would be a disaster.
As for Rapport, black against the highest rated player in the field is an unenviable position to be, but his 12% winning chances are exactly what the model said Nepo had when he won with black against Ding in the first round. So Rapport ought not to write this game off entirely. If he gets a chance to match Nepo’s feat and wins, he actually brings his win chances for the tournament up to the range where he’d find himself grouped in with the favorites. Though of course a draw would be a fine result too.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (31%)
Draw (57%)
Black wins (12%)
White
Firouzja, Alireza
18.9%
26.9%
15.5%
7.0%
Black
Nakamura, Hikaru
6.4%
1.9%
6.4%
14.8%
Alireza has successfully defended worse endgames twice now, but his Houdini act has kept him alive as one of the tournament favorites, and now he gets his first chance to play the white pieces. Undoubtedly he hopes that might bring with it a more comfortable game, and some solid winning chances. Our model expects it to, giving him better than a 30% chance to win the game. And his opponent has already lost once in this event, which could be taken as a sign of vulnerability.
Of course the opponent in question is Hikaru who is fresh off a win and not one to back down just because he has the black pieces. Our model rates Hikaru as a relative underdog in the tournament, and winning as an underdog requires risk taking. It’s very notable that if Hikaru can win this game he’ll suddenly shoot up to nearly a 15% chance of winning the tournament and transition from underdog to contender status in one fell swoop.
This is the first time these players have faced each other in classical chess, despite countless battles online in blitz and bullet. Both are known for their aggressive styles, and both would benefit greatly from a win at this point in the event. This seems likely to be the most interesting game of the round, and has significant potential to swing the tournament odds. Don’t miss it!
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (32%)
Draw (56%)
Black wins (12%)
White
Caruana, Fabiano
29.1%
40.0%
23.6%
14.2%
Black
Duda, Jan-Krzysztof
4.9%
1.7%
5.5%
12.7%
From pure potential to swing odds though, our model ranks the most potentially impactful game of the round as the one featuring the current favorite – as will usually be the case. Caruana could push his chances of winning the event up to 40%, far higher than anyone in the field has been at any point so far, if he takes full advantage of the white pieces here, but should he slip up and lose his odds drop all the way down to 14%. Duda, meanwhile, has been steadily holding at around 5% to win since the beginning, and would continue to do so with a draw, but if he fails to hold off the dangerous favorite in this game, those odds would tumble down under 2% and working his way to the top would suddenly look less like a longshot and more like a miracle. That said, if he finds a way to win with black and shake everything up, essentially resetting the odds for the whole field, he would suddenly find himself as one of the many contenders right there in it above 12% to take first place.
One possibility is that given the high volatility for both players, where the high reward of a win is balanced against the high risk of a loss, we might see a more cautious approach. On the other hand, our model is built to assume that draw odds drop as rating differential increases, which is why it sees the odds of a draw in this game (56%) as well below the average expected draw rate (63%) for the tournament overall.
CONCLUSION
This round sees the three highest rated players all get an extra boost by having the white pieces, so the model predicts unusually low risk of draws. Specifically it estimates that two decisive games are more likely than one, and that we have a better chance of seeing three games with a winner than none. The first two rounds have already shown that nobody seems to have come here with the intention of playing cautious chess, and there hasn’t been any kind of “feeling out” period as players get their bearings and settle in; they came out swinging instead! Furthermore, this third round is followed by the first rest day, so nobody has any reason to hold back any ounce of energy. All told, plan on witnessing some fireworks, and definitely make sure you catch all the action!
The first round of this year’s Candidates Tournament absolutely delivered on even the highest of expectations. Four hard fought games delivered drama, excitement, and unpredictability, and set a tone for what looks more than ever like it will be an amazing event to follow. Ultimately two victories were scored, while two games were settled as draws, and the results immediately shook up the projected standings.
Let’s start by looking at our model’s updated odds for each player to win the tournament:
We can see our two winners from the first round now sit atop the chart, bolstered by their 1-0 start as the new favorites to win it all. We also see that they both added more than 10 percentage points to their chances with their excellent start. Caruana is now in the best position when we assess the combination of current score and expected future results (based on rating). Right behind him sits Nepomniachtchi, but it’s important to note that an opening win is a long way from a guarantee of success. Fabi and Nepo have approximately a 50% combined chance of winning the tournament, while there is also a coin flip’s chance that the ultimate winner will be someone that did not win their game today. We can also see from the average finish column that while Fabi may be 10 times more likely than Naka to win the tournament, the players are still pretty tightly grouped in expectations. Nobody is expected to finish 2nd or 7th yet.
The flip side of the big gains for our two winners is that we see that the losers of those games of course dropped dramatically in their projections. Ding went from tournament favorite to a fourth place projection, albeit with a decent chance to bounce back thanks to his rating which is still the highest in the field for now. Nakamura was already enough of a longshot that he couldn’t lose as many percentage points off of his chances, but he did drop from an initially projected 6th best chance of winning to the very bottom and 8th place in the new odds table.
One of our core predictions for this tournament was that it would be fundamentally unpredictable, and that we would have to be ready and willing to adjust our assumptions frequently as it progresses. We certainly saw that right off the bat. Of all eight players, our model gave the lowest round one win chances to Nepomniachtchi, and here he is tied for first knocking off the pre-event favorite. The safe bet is that the surprises are unlikely to stop here, as we’re only 7% of the way to the finish line.
So what should we look for in the round two games? Here are all four of them, complete with how the odds might shift based on various possible results in each one.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (27%)
Draw (60%)
Black wins (13%)
White
Nakamura, Hikaru
2.8%
5.8%
2.7%
0.6%
Black
Radjabov, Teimour
3.5%
1.2%
2.8%
7.2%
The two players who currently appear least likely to ultimately win the event square off in the game our model deems least impactful. It’s way too early to write anyone off though, and a decisive result here would offer the winner a decent improvement of their odds from which to hopefully springboard to further success. Radjabov is unlikely to win according to the model, but his 13% chance is better than Nepo’s round one odds of winning, and if it happens Radjabov would suddenly be sitting on a plus score and we would have to quickly reconsider the pre-tournament theory that he is the field’s biggest underdog. Naka, on the other hand, gets the white pieces and a chance to bounce back, even his score, and return to striking distance with plenty of time left to make a run.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (14%)
Draw (67%)
Black wins (19%)
White
Duda, Jan-Krzysztof
4.8%
10.4%
4.2%
1.6%
Black
Ding, Liren
11.2%
4.3%
10.3%
19.0%
Ding losing takes a fair amount of luster off of this matchup, but from a narrative perspective it will be fascinating to see how he responds to such a disappointing start. He would surely love to immediately bounce back and even his score, but having to do so with the black pieces is not ideal and he may instead be relatively comfortable with the idea of trying to stabilize by drawing this game, knowing there is plenty of time to find winning opportunities later on. Duda on the other hand looked for much of the first round like he had chances to open his own tournament up with a win, but ultimately had to settle for the half point. He now gets white for the second game in a row, and an opponent who has obviously shown vulnerability. If he can find a way to hand Ding a second consecutive loss, his chances of winning the tournament would significantly improve to a quite reasonable level in the vicinity of 10%. That said, notwithstanding the first game, Ding is historically the most solid player in the field, and trying to play for a win against him isn’t the safest idea, so if Duda chooses to press we will be very curious to watch how it plays out.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (16%)
Draw (69%)
Black wins (15%)
White
Rapport, Richard
8.3%
17.5%
6.9%
3.4%
Black
Firouzja, Alireza
18.9%
8.9%
19.5%
30.7%
Firouzja starts the tournament with consecutive games with black. He certainly didn’t let that deter him from initiating complexities and dragging the game into highly double-edged territory in round one, and while that did end in a draw, it seems quite reasonable to expect another sharp exploration of relatively unexplored territory in round two. Especially with Rapport on the other side of the board. The model ignores names and repertoires, looking only at rating, so it sees players rated almost identically (after adjusting for piece color) and sets the expected draw rate near its maximum of 70%, but what we know of the two players suggests otherwise. If this game does generate a decisive result, it could be a very important one, as either player would immediately become a much stronger contender to win the event if they can win this game.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (19%)
Draw (67%)
Black wins (14%)
White
Nepomniachtchi, Ian
22.3%
36.9%
21.8%
9.1%
Black
Caruana, Fabiano
28.1%
13.3%
29.7%
45.4%
But none of the other games carry nearly as much importance as this matchup between the two co-leaders. After they each won their first game, Nepo and Fabi bring the two highest chances to win the tournament into this game, but must immediately test those chances against each other. This means that there is roughly a 30 percentage point difference between winning and losing for each player. One possible way that could play out is both players choosing caution, not wanting to immediately lose the lead they just gained, and we do see that they will both remain well positioned – likely still as the two favorites in the event – should they draw. However they also both have a chance to become the sole favorite to win by a relatively large margin, so if either of them spots an opportunity to do so there’s no reason they shouldn’t go for the throat.
IN CONCLUSION
Round one was everything we hoped for. Exciting and unpredictable. Will that drama persist into day two, or will we get a chance to catch our breath with some slightly calmer games? What will happen when the two early leaders have to face each other immediately after starting off hot? Who might reject their status as an underdog and make an unexpected move of their own?
We were reminded during the first round of how perfect this format is for viewers. Four classical games that are all interesting move at just the right pace where it’s possible to keep track of all of them, but that the overall action never really comes to a halt. This early in the tournament nobody is out of contention yet, even if they started slow, so all the games will remain critical for both players for several more rounds, so we should continue to be able to enjoy the pace. We eagerly await seeing what the next surprise might be that this tournament has in store for us!
The crown jewel of the 2022 chess calendar is finally here. Eight Candidates will converge on Madrid and from the 17th of June until the 4th of July will, over 14 rounds, determine who earns the right to challenge Magnus Carlsen for the world championship.
Why are we so excited for this event? Of course the stakes are higher than anything other than a world championship match, and of course the talent level is through the roof. The field consists of players rated 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 15, and 18 in the world (per live ratings at the time of publishing this preview). In addition to all of that though, one of the most beautiful things about this tournament is how unpredictable it is. As critical as this tournament is to the world chess landscape, we go into this event with very little idea who will ultimately win.
Of course the cornerstone of our analysis, as always, is our computer model that simulates the event to translate the players’ Elo ratings into odds of winning first place. We will open this preview with the model’s projections, and then break down each participant in more detail. But we also have a lot of reason to be skeptical of exactly how accurate the model really is in this case, for a variety of reasons that are relatively unique to this particular tournament, and we will close this preview with a breakdown of all the extra reasons for uncertainty. Because to our mind, that only makes it more exciting to watch, as we have to wait and see what will ultimately happen!
But with no further ado, let’s take a look at our model.
THE ODDS
These numbers are based pretty much exclusively on Elo ratings, so how much they tell us about an individual player’s chances is limited by the accuracy of that player’s rating – we’ll look closer at how accurate those ratings might be later on – but cumulatively there’s a lot to be gleaned from this chart. First of all: while there is an order of magnitude difference between first and eighth, it’s nevertheless true that everyone has a chance to win. This tournament does not have a pure sacrificial lamb whose chances can be entirely discounted, everyone starts out with a valid shot.
The second point is a corollary to the first. Nobody is positioned to run away with this. There is not an odds-on favorite whom the entire field is chasing from the beginning. And this is consistent with history – since this particular Candidates format was introduced in 2013 we have seen five tournaments and the pre-event rating favorite has only won once (that was Magnus in 2013, when he had a 62 point rating advantage on #2, yet only snuck through on tiebreaks). It certainly can’t be a bad thing to be the highest rated player in the field, but it’s no guarantee of anything in this format.
Our third takeaway is that collectively the top three ratings do impress our model. There is almost a 20 point rating gap between #3 and #4, and the odds really show how big of a gap that is if we assume the ratings truly reflect playing strengths. According to our model the three co-favorites have a combined 66% chance to win, while the rest of the field has just a 34% shot. Interestingly this does not align so well with recent history, as the #2 and #3 seeds have never won in this format. After Carlsen won as the #1 seed, the other four winners we’ve seen were seeded 4th, 7th, 5th, and 4th respectively.
So to summarize: everyone has a shot, the rating favorites are probably marginally more likely to win than those who are lower rated, but the uncertainty factor is through the roof here. Which as far as we’re concerned, uncertainty means excitement. This should be an amazing tournament to follow!
How did these eight players get here, how have they performed over the course of the qualifying cycle, and what do we need to consider about each of them beyond their rating, so that we can be more informed than if we just blindly followed the odds generated by the model? Let’s take a look.
THE FIELD
First things first, some data. Here are performance ratings (and the sample size of games played in parenthesis) for each of the eight Candidates over three timeframes. Going back to January 1, 2020, as well as just the last year and just the last six months. This list is sorted from most to least active across the three time periods.
We will refer back to these numbers in each individual player’s writeup, so for now we won’t elaborate too much beyond this raw data, but it gives us a sense of both how active these players have been and how successful.
So with that said, let’s start at the bottom of our odds table and consider each player in turn (note: world rankings will be based on the live rating list as of this article being published, while ages are as of the tournament start date).
Teimour Radjabov
World Rank: #18
Age: 35
Qualifying method: Wild Card
Odds to win: 3.7%
Radjabov qualified for the 2020 Candidates tournament by winning the 2019 World Cup, but when he saw the perils of Covid on the horizon, he objected to holding the event, and after his objection was ignored, he withdrew. When that tournament was then postponed halfway through, his objections were validated, and FIDE ultimately committed to essentially compensate him by guaranteeing him a spot in the next Candidates. So now here we are in the odd situation where he essentially qualified for this event three years ago and has barely played chess since.
Our activity chart shows that Radjabov has played just 26 games in the past two and a half years, and has not impressed. After not playing at all in 2020, he played two events in 2021 and drew every single game (17 in total). Then just this month we finally saw him in action again, as he played dismally in the 2022 Norway Chess tournament, finishing in 9th place out of 10 and failing to win a classical game while losing three.
Importantly, we want to emphasize that struggling in one’s final tournament prior to the Candidates is most likely not a major concern. We will be mentioning such a struggle many more times as we work through this list of players. And it stands to reason that with the Candidates on the horizon, one might not go all-out in other events. Whether it’s a matter of conserving energy, keeping preparation hidden, or just not being fully focused on a “less important” tournament, it isn’t that odd that someone might underperform in any tournament they play after they’ve qualified for the Candidates. And especially as it draws closer.
So we strongly advise not to use the Norway results as a reason to dismiss Radjabov outright. But there are other reasons for concern as well. His inactivity runs deep and long, and it seems like a reasonable default to be highly skeptical of anyone who has been so inactive, until proven otherwise. So far, Radjabov has not proven anything (by say winning even one game) in the timeframe we’re looking at.
All of that said, Teimour was once ranked as high as #4 in the world, and even as recently as nine months ago was still ranked in the top ten. If this is the biggest underdog in the field, that drives home how strong of a field it really is. There may be many reasons for doubt here, but let’s be clear: he could win the whole thing. It’s a longshot, but we can’t rule it out completely.
Best case: If it turns out that time off hasn’t led to rust, the lack of recent wins has been circumstantial to low importance games, and old-school elite Radjabov shows up with years of accumulated preparation, he will almost certainly finish in the top half of the field and have serious chances to win the whole thing. We don’t think this scenario is likely, but it is possible.
Worst case: In an extremely strong field, Radjabov has been least active – and least successful when he did play – over the last couple years, and comes in with the lowest rating. Inevitably someone will end up at the bottom of the table, being the key target of everyone battling for first, and Radjabov is the player most likely to land in that victim role and suffer his way to a last place finish.
Jan-Krzysztof Duda
World Rank: #15
Age: 24
Qualifying Method: World Cup – 1st place
Odds to win: 5.5%
Duda is the second youngest player in the field, and the seventh youngest Candidate going back to 2013. He is still something of an up and comer, not yet having ever cracked the top ten of the world rankings in his career, but he has been excellent over the past year posting a 2783 performance rating despite a disappointment in his most recent tournament (Tata Steel 2022). As we said, disappointments in most recent tournaments will be a very common theme here, and not one we find concerning. Before that, the highlight is of course a 2832 performance rating at the World Cup to earn this spot (including famously being the player to knock Carlsen out of that event), but that was bracketed by a 2828 performance at the Prague Masters and a 2792 showing at the European Team Championships. In other words we know Duda can perform at a high level (although winning the Candidates has always required a performance of 2850+ in this format, and we haven’t quite seen him hit that high mark yet).
For Duda to win this tournament, it would take the greatest performance of his life. He has never before quite reached the heights it takes to win an event like this, but no doubt he has shown the potential to do so. Perhaps inexperience will be too great an obstacle to overcome, but like everyone in the field we also can’t count him out. It does seem like he’s on the cusp of a breakthrough and there’s no reason it can’t happen here on the largest stage. That’s why his odds sit at better than 1 in 20.
Best case: The Magnus-killer can clearly beat anyone when he’s on point, and if Duda shows up in top form he will be able to do very well even against a field as strong as this one. A performance like he had at the World Cup will likely be enough for a top three finish, and an outside shot at first place.
Worst case: Success at this stacked event will require a performance at the caliber we expect from a top ten player. Duda will be one someday, but isn’t one yet. If his time hasn’t yet come and his play here doesn’t live up to that standard, it won’t be pretty, and a bottom half finish becomes very likely.
Hikaru Nakamura
World Rank: #11
Age: 34
Qualifying Method: FIDE Grand Prix – 1st place
Odds to win: 7.5%
Until quite recently, Nakamura hadn’t played classical chess since November 2019 and was considered retired, having traded in his career as a tournament player for a spectacularly successful new career as a professional chess streamer instead. As a result he has played even fewer games than Radjabov since 2020, but a key difference is that the games he did play, he made the most of. After receiving a wild card invitation to the 2022 Grand Prix, Nakamura shed any concerns that he might be “just” a streamer, by winning the first leg with a 2842 performance rating, then following up with a 2812 performance and second place finish in the final leg. This secured first place in the overall Grand Prix standings, and thus a berth in the Candidates.
Nakamura’s inactivity is in some ways comparable to Radjabov’s. Both have played very little classical chess in recent years, and both have strong histories as top players when they were active. There are also some key differences though, that point to Nakamura having the better chances of the two – and perhaps better chances than our model gives him credit for. First of all his past peak is higher, as Hikaru was once the #2 player in the world. Additionally, it’s sort of misleading to keep calling him inactive because in his “retirement” he has actually done nothing but play chess. Of course it’s been online, mostly blitz, and framed largely to entertain his audience. Streaming chess is different than playing a classical tournament. But it is still chess, and he has been immersed in the game. And from what we saw at the Grand Prix, that perhaps translates very well back to the tournament environment.
Our model measures Naka’s chances based on his current rating of 2760. That is up 24 points from where he was at the beginning of the year; that’s how many points he gained while winning the Grand Prix. But the open question is whether 2760 really reflects his playing strength. It certainly falls far short of his 2830 performance rating. Now the Elo formula is built that way intentionally, 20 games is too small of a sample size to simply assume that performance rating reflects “true playing strength”, so rating increases are intentionally more gradual. In this particular case though, from what we’ve seen so far it’s certainly believable to think that maybe his current strength is better than his current rating. Perhaps the rating gain at the Grand Prix was too conservative. Perhaps he is back in similar form to when he was rated over 2800 earlier in his career. Or perhaps not. We’re not making any promises here, but we’ve already seen him play that way twice this year, the only two times he’s played. If his play at the Candidates is in any way comparable to his play at the Grand Prix, he will be a very serious contender to win the whole thing. Is that going to happen? We will just have to wait and see.
Best case: If the Grand Prix truly represented Nakamura’s current strength, that would mean he’s playing the best chess of his life. A peak like that would make him a serious threat to win, or possibly even the overall favorite, even if he also literally doesn’t care.
Worst case: If the Grand Prix was a fluke, running hot over a relatively small number of games, and regression to the mean catches up with him, then Nakamura will not be able to contend. And if early struggles lead to a loss of focus or interest, that could snowball into a bad finish, perhaps even last place.
Richard Rapport
World Rank: #8
Age: 26
Qualifying Method: FIDE Grand Prix – 2nd place
Odds to win: 8.5%
Nine months ago Rapport was in almost exactly the same position as we previously described Duda having been in prior to Tata Steel: an up and coming player in his mid-20s rated in the 2760s who hadn’t quite cracked the top 10 of the world rankings yet. The difference is that Rapport proceeded to take that next step. He posted a 2832 performance rating at Norway Chess 2021 and climbed to #10, and then in 2022 added a 2793 performance at Tata Steel, and most importantly a spectacular 2870 performance in the second leg of the Grand Prix, which punched his ticket to the Candidates. In the process his world rank climbed as high as #5.
He has dropped a little from that peak. He struggled in his most recent tournament – there’s that refrain once again – but like with everyone we’re not super concerned about his 12 rating points lost at the Grand Chess Tour event in Bucharest. That event actually had half of the Candidates field in it, and all four lost rating. Not really a red flag for any of them, as previously discussed. Overall Rapport’s performance ratings over the various timeframes we’re looking at all strongly support his current rating being accurate, but individual events (particularly that Grand Prix leg he won) show that he has a spectacular ceiling when he plays his best chess, and that ceiling would definitely put first place at this event within his reach.
Best case: A highly creative player, Rapport can beat anyone when he’s sharp. We saw his potential peak in the Grand Prix, which was absolutely a caliber of play sufficient to also win a Candidates Tournament, should he maintain it for 14 rounds. Rapport is a serious threat to win.
Worst case: Creativity can backfire. If he overreaches, Rapport could lose a couple games early, and at that point he might be fortunate even to finish in the middle of the pack, while facing risk of dropping to the bottom of the table.
Ian Nepomniachtchi
World Rank: #7
Age: 31
Qualifying Method: World Championship Match
Odds to win: 9.1%
Nepomniachtchi won the previous Candidates Tournament in 2020/21, and earned the privilege of losing to Magnus Carlsen in a world championship match for his trouble. With that comes entry back into the Candidates to try his hand at earning a rematch. Obviously we know with certainty that Nepo can win a Candidates because we have seen him do it, albeit under somewhat odd circumstances as the event was split into two halves. Combining the two, we get a performance rating just over 2850, and know that Nepo has that kind of capacity. However we have not seen it since.
After winning the Candidates, Nepo has only played three events. First at Norway Chess 2021 he posted a 2718 performance. Then in the world championship his performance came in at 2722. Finally he was the second of the four players we mentioned had disappointing results in Bucharest on the Grand Chess Tour, with a performance there of 2717. For those who want to aggressively overreact and assume that Nepo is just a ~2720 level player now, let’s be clear: that is very unlikely. A couple disappointing results and a rating drop from 2792 to 2766 are a slightly worrying trend, but it’s just three tournaments. Nepo hasn’t really been active enough to have any certainty about whether anything has truly changed for him or not, and clearly the player who won last time around is still in there somewhere.
Nepo’s ascent to world championship challenger is intriguing and worth taking a look at. His path actually looked quite similar to (and in fact even slower than) what we’ve previously observed in looking at both Duda and Rapport. He didn’t actually crack the top 20 in the world rankings until he was 26 years old, and was 28 by the time he reached the top ten for the first time. Then he climbed as high as #5 while bringing his rating up to a new peak of 2776 and earning a spot in the first Candidates of his career, but he entered that event seeded 4th by rating, and with no history of proving he could compete at a level quite high enough to win such a prestigious event. That did not stop him, as we well know.
Perhaps Nepo’s story last time around bodes well for the chances of others who are in their first Candidates or who don’t have the most astronomical peak ratings yet in their career – it at least shows that those aren’t hard prerequisites to win this event. Alternatively, maybe it just says something about Nepo himself, and rather than extrapolating to others, the takeaway should be that he is a bigger threat to win than our model gives him credit for, for some unique reason. Of course since our core emphasis is uncertainty, we also have to recognize that if he does come in playing around a 2720 level like he did the last couple times he sat at a chess board, it could get bad for him fast in an event this tough. So there is a wide range of possible outcomes here, as there are for everyone, but certainly any former winner of this event is a threat to win it again.
Best case: He won the last one, and he could win this one too. Don’t let his struggles in the match against Magnus make you forget how strong Nepo is. He did go punch for punch with the world champ for 5 ½ games, and if he plays like that (or the way he played in the 2020/21 Candidates) it’s not clear how anyone can finish ahead of him here.
Worst case: There have long been concerns about Nepo’s stamina over the course of long events. He was perhaps fortunate that the last Candidates got split in half, allowing him to essentially play two strong 7-game tournaments rather than having to maintain his level for 14 straight games. After his strong start, we saw him collapse in the world championship match, losing some games in relatively shocking fashion. A collapse like that in the second half here could lead to a dismal bottom-half finish, even if he starts out strong.
Fabiano Caruana
World Rank: #4
Age: 29
Qualifying Method: FIDE Grand Swiss – 2nd place
Odds to win: 15.5%
For much of recent memory, Caruana has been a fixture in the #2 spot in the world rankings. He held that position on every rating list from May 2018 through September 2021. Carlsen was the world champion, ranked #1, and then there was Fabi behind him. He hasn’t been ranked outside of the top ten since 2013, when he was just 20 years old. This will be Caruana’s fourth consecutive Candidates appearance and in the prior three he tied for second, then won, then tied for third, and never scored worse than 7.5/14. So we are talking about a well established veteran of this format, with a long history of success both in the Candidates and overall. History suggests perhaps he ought to be seen as a favorite to win.
However there is cause for concern in his recent results. Fabi has played more games in the past year than anyone else in the field, but hasn’t been quite so dominant as we’re used to seeing. At the 2021 Superbet Chess Classic he had an uncharacteristic negative score and a performance rating of just 2700. Then he was knocked out of the 2021 World Cup in just the second round he played. Then he struggled in the US Championships, only posting a 2733 performance even after a late surge. And in 2022 we’ve seen underperformances at Tata Steel and – like half the field – the Superbet Classic in Bucharest.
Don’t misunderstand. It hasn’t been all doom and gloom for Caruana. He has had positive results, and even some of the “struggles” we’ve listed would be solid results for most players, and are only disappointing because he has established such high standards for himself. A great reality check is that he is currently ranked #4 in the world and that has us asking “what’s wrong with him?” when only three of his opponents in the event have ever been ranked higher. But his overall performance ratings in the 2760 vicinity over the past year do make it look like perhaps he’s dropped slightly from definitively being the best player not named Magnus to being “just” a typical top ten caliber player. Of course even if that’s true, he would have chances to win this tournament, but it also might mean a risk of another disappointing event and perhaps the first bottom-half result we’ve ever seen from Candidate Fabi. Alternatively though, if he shows up in the vintage Caruana form from years past then he’ll have even better chances than what our model says. So he’s very likely to be one of the top players in the field, competing until the end, and he may be the “real” favorite despite what the numbers say, but we want to see him prove at the board that nothing is “wrong” with him before we buy in fully.
Best case: If experience is the deciding factor, we could see the veteran win this event once again. He’s had a plus score in three prior Candidates, and if he does it again he should easily finish in the top half, and probably have first place within his grasp through the final rounds, leaving conversion as the only question.
Worst case: There’s a nagging feeling that something about Fabi’s play has been “off” for the last couple years, and if there turns out to be truth to that and he stumbles at the wrong time, he does run the risk of quickly turning from favorite to also-ran, perhaps dropping into the bottom half of the standings, and failing to maintain his streak of plus scores.
Alireza Firouzja
World Rank: #3
Age: 18 (Turns 19 on day 2)
Qualifying Method: FIDE Grand Swiss – 1st place
Odds to win: 20.7%
Firouzja is perhaps the hardest player in the field to predict. Let’s start with the upshot. He comes in as the second highest rated player in the field, making him a favorite of our model, and on top of that there are a variety of reasons one could argue he might still be underrated. For one, he’s still a teenager, which is an age at which most chess players are still rapidly improving their game. Since qualifying for the Candidates last fall, he has been almost entirely off the grid. If he spent that time improving, and can avoid any issues with rustiness, he could play the Candidates at a higher level than we last saw from him. Which is a proposition that should terrify his opponents, because we last saw him at a nearly inhuman level.
Let’s talk about the fall of 2021. In September, Firouzja had a remarkable 2871 performance rating at Norway Chess, finishing second to Carlsen (and notably ahead of two of his opponents in this event – Rapport and Nepomniachtchi). From there he proceeded to win the Grand Swiss with a 2855 performance rating, locking up his spot in the Candidates. How did he celebrate? With an astonishing 3015 performance at the European Team Championship, scoring 8/9! Suddenly Firouzja was the youngest player ever rated 2800+ and ranked #2 in the world. A prodigy’s potential had been realized. In total, since the beginning of 2020, Firouzja has the second best performance rating in this field, and in a much larger sample of games (86) than the player who has performed better (Nakamura with just 20 games).
Firouzja also has the highest score against other players in the field, having scored 56% in his collective games against the 7 opponents he will face here. We want to take a moment to discredit a persistent but false narrative. Many discussions of Firouzja claim he got to 2800 by beating up on players rated in the 2600 range, but that he hasn’t proven himself yet against the 2700+ opposition he will face in this event. That is simply false. From October 2020 to November 2021, as he improved his rating from 2754 to 2804, Firouzja played 19 games against opponents rated between 2700 and 2799, winning 8 and losing just 1. Only two of those wins (and only four of the games) came against opponents under 2750, and the wins included five games against other Candidates: Nepomniachtchi, Rapport, and Duda (thrice). It can be said that Firouzja hasn’t yet proven himself against 2800+ opposition, but he’s not the only player with a Magnus problem and that probably can’t be considered a black mark for this tournament where Magnus isn’t competing.
So why isn’t Firouzja the clear and definitive favorite? Experience. For all the success we saw last fall, and as splashy as he’s been as a prodigy, we have not yet seen him play on a stage like this. We simply can’t be certain how he’ll hold up over 14 rounds, under the pressure a Candidates Tournament brings. And yes, this is an open question for many other players in the field as well, but it seems like an effect that could be magnified for a teenager. The Candidates Tournament is a relatively unique challenge in the chess world, where rating is less predictive than normal (more on that later) and other factors could ultimately determine who emerges on top. We don’t know – yet – how those factors will shake out for Alireza. Maybe very well, but maybe not.
Best case: He is the heir apparent. If he was only getting started last fall, and this teenager has spent the last six months continuing to improve, there’s a hidden chance that he’s truly on another level by now, with a chance to steamroll the field. Alireza may have the highest upside of anyone, and if everything clicks he might win first place in dominating fashion.
Worst case: It’s not his time yet. The Candidates is a grueling high pressure test, the likes of which Firouzja has never experienced. Raw talent may not be enough to carry him if he cracks under that pressure, and things could go very wrong very fast if he’s not ready for this challenge. Of the top three players, Alireza might be the one most likely to win by a large margin, but if his mental fortitude fails, he’s also probably the one most likely to finish in the bottom half of the standings.
Ding Liren
World Rank: #2
Age: 29
Qualifying Method: Alternate by rating
Odds to win: 29.4%
This spot initially belonged to Sergey Karjakin who finished second in the World Cup, but he was then banned from competitive play for six months for violating FIDE’s code of ethics with his vitriolic comments supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. With Karjakin unable to play, the rules called for the highest rated active player as of May 1st to replace him. Ding was the highest rated player not already in the field, but “active” status required 30 games and he had only played four in the designated timeframe. And so the Chinese Federation went to work on his behalf, rapidly organizing a series of tournaments allowing him to play an astounding 28 games in 30 days, meeting the activity criteria with just a few days to spare. Perhaps even more impressively, Ding managed to gain rating over the course of this marathon, as he posted a 2818 performance rating over the span and moved up to the #2 spot in the world rankings.
Ding is, along with Nakamura, one of only two players not entering this event after a poor showing in their last tournament. However if we’re looking for reasons not to anoint the highest rated player as the favorite, it’s worth considering that it’s not entirely clear how motivated anyone was – him or his opposition – during the 28 games that earned his spot here. The games just needed to be played, the results didn’t make a huge difference, so although the results were actually quite good it’s not certain that we should interpret that as him coming in with a high level of play. Aside from those games, we have almost no meaningful recent activity from him, and with that comes questions about what type of form to expect. So if – as a premise – we treat his recent games with skepticism, we could then logically raise some doubts as a result. It’s a shaky premise though; we generally are very reluctant to toss out data arbitrarily.
So all in all Ding is just quite simply a favorite. He has rating. He has the experience – this is his third consecutive Candidates appearance. He has the talent – he once went 100 games without a loss, and he has proven he can beat anyone. Unlike in 2020, all signs are that he had the proper opportunity to prepare for this event, and he is on his way to Madrid having successfully procured a visa (a challenge since Covid hit that largely explains his inactivity).
Best case: The favorite wins. There are no complex justifications needed for Ding, absolutely nobody should be remotely surprised if he wins this event. He may not be an odds-on favorite, but we have him as the most likely winner and we can’t imagine any way to analyze this event that doesn’t at least have him as a top three contender; he’s the only player we can say that for.
Worst case: Something unexpected could go wrong. Whether illness strikes, or whether it’s just a fluke, as solid as we typically expect him to be, Ding is of course not guaranteed to finish in the top three. He could drop lower in the standings, and even last place might be a possible result although of everyone in the field we would say he is the least likely to finish last.
THE MODEL
We’ve gone over every player’s chances of winning based on our model, but how accurate is it as a predictor? To be entirely frank: not very. Bear with us please because we shared those odds for a reason and believe sharing them is valuable, but let’s first look at the reasons they aren’t everything. Our model is designed to be relatively simple. We believe we do the most to enhance the experience of following the tournament as a fan (our ultimate goal) if the model makes sense to our readers rather than being a black box. This simplicity comes at the expense of including every possible variable, even if doing so might possibly increase accuracy.
So what does our model do? Simply put the only inputs are the players’ ratings, a rough estimate of how much having the white pieces is worth, and a rough guess at the expected draw rate. Essentially the model is translating Elo to percentages. What is the purpose of this? Why not simply sort by rating? If a player is rated higher then of course a rating-based model will say they have a better chance to win, but we feel it’s not at all intuitive how much bigger. What is a 10 point rating edge worth? What about a 20 point edge? A 50 point edge? We use the model before the tournament begins to answer that question. Even though we know that the model is only accurate to the degree that those ratings accurately reflect the level of play we will see from each competitor.
Now most of the time this disclaimer isn’t necessary because Elo really is an excellent predictor of chess tournaments most of the time. But the Candidates is simply different. Players can often be rated slightly off from their level of play, and their form can vary from event to event, but those errors are generally relatively small. And most tournaments have relatively large rating gaps between the best and worst players, so those small errors get swallowed up and the odds come out relatively on point. The Candidates does not have those large rating gaps, and it’s a longer tournament (relative to the size of the field) than we often see, so that reduces variance, meaning that even small errors between a player’s rating and their “true strength” can throw off the model’s accuracy much more than normal.
And at the same time, those errors tend to be larger at the Candidates. This is an entirely unique event in that most players see it as the most important opportunity of their career, other than a world championship match should they reach one. Players will hold back opening novelties for years, not using them in other tournaments, just so they have a chance to use those ideas here. Players prepare much more rigorously for the Candidates than a “normal” event, and just approach these games differently. Which sometimes means that many players here don’t play in a manner that might be typical for them, and as a result their level of play is far more divorced from their rating than we usually expect.
Okay, enough words, you want numbers. This current Candidates format has been used five times dating back to 2013, so five events times eight players gives us 40 data points. Here is the graph of players’ ratings before each Candidates began versus their performance ratings in those events.
That is a random cloud of dots. While the trendline has a very minimal upward slope, the ultimate conclusion here is that rating simply doesn’t predict performance at the Candidates. So again, why are we building all our coverage of the event around a rating-based model? Well, to paraphrase Winston Churchill: Elo is the worst way to predict the Candidates except for all the other ways.
We searched for other variables that might do a better job, and were willing to consider tossing our regular model aside in order to build one more suited to the unique elements of the Candidates, but we couldn’t find a way to improve. Part of the problem is that 40 data points just isn’t that much to work with. So we’re rolling with the same model we’ve always used.
We want to emphasize that understanding this about our model’s odds is precisely the reason why we also investigated recent performances, and why we chose to highlight the things we did in our player writeups. We specifically wanted to add the context that is missing from the model’s output.
That being acknowledged, we also do believe the model still has a lot of value. It does still show, quite clearly, how much value (percentage-wise) can be found in various differences in playing strength (as measured in Elo terms). So even if you believe we have the players in the wrong order, the odds should still give a meaningful sense of how big of a favorite the top players are, whichever players those are. And, critically, we will be updating the model after every round. As games go into the books, each player’s chances to win the tournament will rapidly depend less on how they might play in the remaining games (hard to predict) and more on the known quantity that is completed results.
So while our pre-tournament odds answer the relatively nebulous question of how valuable 20 Elo points might be, as the tournament progresses our updated odds will answer more concrete questions like “how valuable is a 1 point lead over the field” or “how hard is it to come from behind with this many rounds remaining?” We believe that seeing how the odds shift as the tournament progresses can bring tremendous added value to the fan experience, even if there are valid doubts about whether the pre-tournament odds started out perfectly accurate. And in our round by round updates we will walk you through the key takeaways from whatever shifts we saw in the odds, and help identify which upcoming games are the most critical to the overall results.
So to close out this preview, let’s look at a more concrete question now. Exactly how valuable or damaging is it to win or lose in the first round of a long tournament like this?
ROUND 1
We are now going to look at all four games in the first round, and see what would happen to each player’s odds to win the tournament, if that game ends in either a white win, a draw, or a black win.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (20%)
Draw (66%)
Black wins (14%)
White
Duda, Jan-Krzysztof
5.5%
9.7%
5.1%
1.6%
Black
Rapport, Richard
8.5%
3.9%
9.2%
17.9%
Duda and Rapport are two of the model’s relative underdogs, so this game grades as the least important of the round. However we do see that each player has a chance to roughly double their odds of winning the tournament if they can get off to a 1-0 start, with the counterpoint that a loss for either player would be extremely costly, cutting their already slim odds more than in half. Clearly this creates a challenging risk/reward question should a situation arise where a player has the opportunity to take a safe draw, or to seek complications. How the players handle this question in the first of 14 rounds will be a very interesting question to consider as the game unfolds.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (14%)
Draw (66%)
Black wins (20%)
White
Radjabov, Teimour
3.7%
8.0%
3.5%
0.9%
Black
Firouzja, Alireza
20.7%
10.2%
19.2%
32.0%
Alireza opens with black, yet our model favors him to win, as his rating edge exceeds white’s advantage. If he did win, his odds of first place would improve to a much more favorable 32% – possibly enough to make him the new favorite if Ding didn’t also win – but again this comes with a serious risk as his odds could be cut in half should he lose. So is the youngster prepared to play for a win with black? He’s going up against ostensibly the weakest player in the field, and it’s possible that wins over Radjabov may prove a deciding factor at the top of the final standings, but we also haven’t actually seen confirmation yet that Radjabov really is a weak opponent that can be picked on at this event. We talked before about how volatile Firouzja’s range of possible outcomes is, and how aggressively he approaches this game (and how that decision works out) may set the tone for his entire tournament.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (29%)
Draw (59%)
Black wins (13%)
White
Caruana, Fabiano
15.5%
23.7%
13.0%
6.6%
Black
Nakamura, Hikaru
7.5%
2.7%
8.7%
15.4%
The two Americans come in both relatively middle of the pack in the odds, but with Fabi’s chances about twice those of Naka – according to the model. Those numbers would almost exactly flip, though, if Nakamura can win this game and serve notice to the field that he’s the same threat here that he was to the opponents he shredded in the Grand Prix. Fabi, on the other hand, has the comfort of the white pieces, and according to the model a 29% chance to win the game, and if he can do so it would be his own opportunity to make an assertion: don’t worry about a couple stumbles I may have had in previous events, I’m back to my true self and ready to win.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (33%)
Draw (55%)
Black wins (12%)
White
Ding, Liren
29.4%
39.0%
23.7%
12.4%
Black
Nepomniachtchi, Ian
9.1%
4.0%
10.1%
21.0%
In the game our model deems most important (measured in terms of how much both player’s odds could potentially swing) our favorite rolls in with a chance to start off on his best foot with the white pieces, and cement his status as the most likely winner. However if he slips up and loses, he would drop to essentially the average odds to win (if all eight players had equal chances, that would put each of them at 12.5%) and in that scenario suddenly Nepo would be better than a one in five shot to win the Candidates for the second time in a row.
CONCLUSION
We can see that this tournament has a chance to start off with a bang. Even in round one, and even in such a long event, a first round win can have a very positive impact on your chances to win the event, while an opening loss can be extremely damaging. Does the former point mean players will come out swinging? Or will the latter point mean that this round sees some cautious starts as the players feel each other out? The stakes are astronomical from day one, and now you know as much as we do about all the implications. We have a number of possible storylines that we’re ready to watch for, and are prepared to spot others as they emerge. We have acknowledged that we really have almost no idea what has happened, and embraced that as a cause for excitement. So there’s only one thing left to do. Wait impatiently for the games to begin!
Over the next two weeks the “Wimbledon of Chess” – the elite annual tournament at Wijk aan Zee in The Netherlands – will be contested. New faces join familiar stars as many of the top players in the world seek the title but will have to fend off underdogs to do so.
We will be providing full coverage of the tournament with daily updates, driven by our model that predicts each player’s chances of winning as the event progresses and picks out which games in each round might most strongly impact the ultimate results. We hope that our analysis can offer a lens through which to follow the event with a better understanding of what’s at stake in individual dramatic moments – hopefully increasing your ability to enjoy that drama as a fan.
The format of the tournament is a 14-player Round Robin, meaning each player faces each other player once over the course of 13 rounds. If 13 rounds aren’t enough to produce one single clear winner, a new tiebreak format guarantees that all players tied for first will qualify for a playoff with a variable structure that depends on the number of players involved.
The field:
To begin with, let’s take a look at all 14 competitors, and our model’s calculations of their chances to win the tournament as well as where they might land, on average, in the final standings:
Name
Rating
Win%
Avg Place
Carlsen, Magnus
2865.0
53.3%
2.2
Caruana, Fabiano
2792.0
13.8%
4.5
Giri, Anish
2772.0
7.6%
5.5
Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar
2767.0
5.6%
6.1
Rapport, Richard
2763.0
5.0%
6.3
Duda, Jan-Krzysztof
2760.0
5.6%
6.1
Karjakin, Sergey
2743.0
2.7%
7.3
Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi
2727.0
1.8%
7.9
Dubov, Daniil
2720.0
1.5%
8.2
Esipenko, Andrey
2714.0
1.2%
8.6
Shankland, Sam
2708.0
0.8%
9.2
Van Foreest, Jorden
2702.0
0.8%
9.2
Grandelius, Nils
2672.0
0.2%
10.9
Praggnanandhaa, R
2612.0
0.01%
12.9
Now let’s take a closer look at a few of the favorites and a couple players who have extra narratives in play beyond the simple question of “will they win this tournament”.
Magnus Carlsen – 53.3% chance to win
The world champion is fresh off a successful title defense, retaining the world title he has held since 2013. He has since suggested that he may be growing bored with the same type of achievements he’s managed before, such as winning tournaments or even – depending on the next challenger – world championship matches. And speaking of things he’s done before, Carlsen has won this tournament seven times in his career. Instead of such redundant pursuits he has declared a new goal: setting a nearly inconceivable ratings record by becoming the first player ever rated over 2900.
It is perhaps notable that mathematically speaking he could achieve that goal right here. He would have almost no margin for error, it would take either 12 wins and one draw, or a perfect 13 wins, to get there. Realistically speaking this is essentially impossible; draws are simply too common in chess. The highest score we are aware of in this event was 10/13. But for those who live by the slogan “So you’re saying there’s a chance” our model shows higher scores are at least theoretically possible and does offer roughly a 0.04% chance (or about 2500 to 1) that Carlsen could indeed score 12.5 or 13 points and shoot past the 2900 mark.
For more realistic considerations, Carlsen could make progress towards his rating goal with a strong performance here. He has an 11% chance of scoring 10/13 (almost certainly winning in the process) improve his rating to 2876, and also has roughly a 10% chance of scoring even higher and pushing his rating somewhere over 2880. Of course that being said, he also runs the risk of losing rating points – perhaps even without particularly bad results given the extraordinary expectations the rating formula places on him. Last year’s winner scored 8.5/13 and it’s entirely possible that Magnus could win this year with the same score. If he did, he would lose four rating points.
It will be very interesting to see what form Magnus shows up in. If he wants to make meaningful progress in improving his already stratospheric rating, he will have to play nearly to perfection. If he does so the 53% chance our model gives him of winning the event may look like we underestimated him by the end. When Magnus plays in his top form he can make the results look like they were inevitable after the fact. But if we don’t see that version of Magnus we can still expect him to contend for first place, and even if he’s “struggling” by his standards, he should be in it to the end.
Fabiano Caruana – 13.8% chance to win
Fabi had some struggles in 2021, losing 31 rating points and dropping from 2nd to 4th in the world rankings. However he closed the year with a second place finish at the FIDE Grand Swiss tournament, clinching a berth in the Candidates Tournament coming up next June. Caruana won this tournament before, in 2020, and may be motivated to build upon his success from last November and become a repeat champion here – and perhaps to reclaim his #2 spot in the world ranking along the way, if he does so with a strong enough performance. It’s a new year and we’ll see if that brings a new Fabi with it.
Anish Giri – 7.6% chance to win
The local hero and third highest rated player in the field, Giri is ranked #7 in the world. He is a four time Dutch champion and in this particular event he has reached tiebreaks twice in recent years, losing to Carlsen in 2018 and to van Foreest last year, but has never won first place. Undoubtedly he would love to finally take home a title at Tata Steel.
Jorden van Foreest – 0.8% chance to win
We now deviate from going in order by win chances to highlight the other Dutch player in the field – and the defending champion. By rating, which drives our model, Jorden is a huge underdog. Only two other players are lower rated than him. But those are actually higher chances than our model gave him before last year’s event began and he won it! Plus the year prior he also greatly overachieved his rating on the way to finishing tied for third. None of our models has never factored in any form of “home field advantage” but it seems that Jorden may indeed have such an edge at Tata Steel. We’ll see if he can overperform his rating-based expectations once again this year, and if so it will be very interesting to see if he once again contends for the title.
R Praggnanandhaa – 0.01% chance to win
The lowest rated player in the field – by a large margin – is the youngest rated player in the field as well. Our model sees essentially no chance of him seriously contending for first place, but given his young age there is reason to suspect he may be stronger than his rating indicates so the interesting question is to see whether he is competitive against the 2700 opposition he will face here and whether he can stay out of the standings basement.
It’s worth remembering that two years ago as of March 2020 Pragg, then 14 and rated 2608, was the highest rated player of all time at his age. Then he went 17 months without playing a single rated game of chess because of the Covid pandemic’s impact on the chess world. Only over the last four months has he begun playing again, and while the results so far have been a little mixed we have seen clear signs of his potential that earned him this invitation. Now we’ll find out if he is ready to live up to that potential now against elite opposition.
Round 1 Matchups:
So what’s at stake in the first round? Here are notes on all seven games, sorted from most to least important to the final standings, based on how much the players’ chances to win the event could possibly shift.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (10%)
Draw (49%)
Black wins (41%)
Importance
White
Esipenko, Andrey
1.2%
4.9%
1.5%
0.2%
34.2%
Black
Carlsen, Magnus
53.3%
33.1%
47.3%
62.5%
Carlsen starts his journey with black against a player who handed him a shocking loss in this very event one year ago. Even with black, he is a significant favorite in the game with a 41% chance to get his revenge for last year. And with a win his odds to win the tournament would shoot even higher, but the flipside of that is that even a draw would be a little disappointing and he would no longer be favored against “the field”.
Esipenko of course isn’t likely – based just on ratings – to beat Carlsen (10% according to the model). But that didn’t stop him last year and if the 19 year old were to do it once again, he would start to become a little bit of a longshot contender himself with his odds of winning first place approaching 5%. More consequentially he would also drop Carlsen’s odds under 1 in 3 opening the race wide open right out of the gate and putting everyone else into better contention. So this game has a lot of opportunity – whichever way it goes – to set the tone for the whole event. Not just for these two players, but for the entire field.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (37%)
Draw (51%)
Black wins (12%)
Importance
White
Caruana, Fabiano
13.8%
18.5%
11.0%
5.0%
19.6%
Black
Karjakin, Sergey
2.7%
0.9%
3.0%
7.0%
This duel pits two players who have both competed for world championships (both losing their matches to Carlsen) and who both had disappointing rating slides more recently. Our model is largely dismissive of Karjakin’s hopes, while Caruana is pegged as the next most likely tournament winner should Carlsen stumble. And in addition to his rating edge Caruana also has black so he’s a strong favorite in this game, but if Karjakin did manage to win he could flip the script right there and emerge from the first round with better chances than Fabi to ultimately win the tournament.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (27%)
Draw (56%)
Black wins (17%)
Importance
White
Duda, Jan-Krzysztof
5.6%
9.9%
5.0%
1.7%
17.3%
Black
Rapport, Richard
5.0%
1.8%
4.8%
10.9%
Duda and Rapport sit in very similar places as the event begins. They’re in the top half of the field (and separated from each other by just three rating points) and have non-negligible chances to win the event in the range of one in 20, but they just don’t hold up to the favorites in our model. If this game has a decisive result either way, though, the winner will see his chances to win the tournament roughly double. That would be a good way to draw some more serious attention when we preview the next round!
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (19%)
Draw (59%)
Black wins (21%)
Importance
White
Dubov, Daniil
1.5%
3.2%
1.3%
0.3%
10.5%
Black
Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar
5.6%
2.1%
5.1%
9.7%
Mamedyarov is the fourth seed, and could establish himself as a serious early contender with a win here, but his rating edge is almost fully negated by the disadvantage of the black pieces, so our model sees the chances in this game as nearly equal. All three results could occur.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (56%)
Draw (40%)
Black wins (4%)
Importance
White
Giri, Anish
7.6%
8.9%
4.8%
2.3%
6.7%
Black
Praggnanandhaa, R
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.1%
This game doesn’t grade highly in our “importance” measure because Giri is so likely to win it according to our ratings-obsessed model. Especially with white. However with those high expectations comes a downside: should Giri not win (and especially if he loses) his chances to win the tournament drop. Our model currently assumes Pragg will be a relative pushover, and that the favorites kind of have to beat him to hold their favored status. Of course as we discussed earlier Pragg may well prove far more competitive than his rating suggests. If that proves to be the case, our model will temporarily dock Giri if he doesn’t win this game, but that will even out in the long run if other top players also fail to beat the 16 year old. This is a good moment to remember that none of these round one games are grading too highly on our “importance” measure simply because no matter what happens on day one there will be 12 more rounds left! Games this early do a lot to set the stage and frame the narratives of the tournament, but they can’t be entirely decisive in the end. There’s plenty of time for further twists and turns as the tournament progresses.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (31%)
Draw (54%)
Black wins (15%)
Importance
White
Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi
1.8%
3.2%
1.5%
0.5%
4.3%
Black
Shankland, Sam
0.8%
0.2%
0.6%
1.8%
This game gives us our first look at two players who have never before competed in the top section at Tata Steel. By rating they are the #8 and #11 seeds, so our model doesn’t find this to be the most compelling game, but it’s a big opportunity for both of them and even if neither seems likely to ultimately contend for first place there are still other goals for them to pursue and both would like to start strong. If anything the idea that this is one of the least interesting games of the day (relatively speaking) is perhaps the best testament to how wonderful this tournament is, as this is a fascinating matchup and should make for great chess!
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (33%)
Draw (53%)
Black wins (14%)
Importance
White
Van Foreest, Jorden
0.8%
1.4%
0.6%
0.2%
1.8%
Black
Grandelius, Nils
0.2%
0.0%
0.2%
0.7%
The second and third lowest rated players start out facing each other. So in terms of who will win the tournament, our model sees little meaning here. But let us not forget that Jorden won the tournament last year when our model gave him just a 0.4% chance so it’s not quite so easy to dismiss his chances now! This game will be our first chance to see what kind of form the defending champion is in, and whether he can continue his mission from the past two years of playing well above his rating at Tata Steel.
What’s next?
We are publishing this preview just a few hours before the first games begin. As the tournament continues we will update these odds daily, and provide previews in this same format of all seven games in each upcoming round, showing how much impact each game might have on who eventually wins the tournament. Additionally we’ll track how storylines develop and offer other little tidbits as they come up. This is one of our favorite tournaments of the year and we look forward to sharing it with you!
Last month we re-launched our Prodigy Watch feature with an extensive article covering 15 of the top prodigies of the chess world. Going forward we won’t be quite so ambitious, but we have updated our main “current prodigy watchlist” to reflect the newly published December 2021 ratings list, and in this article we will talk about five players who either took additional strides since last month or else didn’t make it into last month’s article.
It’s official, Alireza is the youngest player to ever break the 2800 barrier! He broke the record, previously held by Magnus Carlsen, with a dramatically successful November that felt borderline superhuman. He started by winning clear first place in the FIDE Grand Swiss on an 8/11 score and with a 2855 performance rating; earning a coveted berth in the next Candidates Tournament. This means that he didn’t just pass an arbitrary ratings milestone this month, he took a tangible step toward his ultimate goal of an eventual world championship.
But he wasn’t done there. He followed up that performance by taking on the challenge of board one at the European Team Championships – his first international team performance representing France. All he did was score an astounding 8/9 and a performance rating of 3004! It wasn’t just a great individual result, as he led France to a tie for first place (ultimately taking a silver medal by tiebreaks) in the competition. And when the dust had settled he had gained 34 rating points over the course of two tournaments, leading to a published rating over 2800 a full 170 days faster than Carlsen managed the same feat.
Here we show everyone to ever boast a published rating of 2800+ and the age at which they first reached the milestone. This is admittedly slightly unfair to some of the older players (e.g. Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand, Topalov) who played most of their peak years in an era before rating inflation made 2800 a realistic goal for anyone other than a dominant #1 ranked player. However it’s not a meaningless measure, particularly in comparison to anyone from Carlsen’s generation or younger, as rating inflation has relatively stagnated over the past decade. So it seems notable to observe how many years separate the top two on this list from the next few names. Getting to 2800 as a teenager is undoubtedly a remarkable result, and that is one main reason why Firouzja’s ascendency to #2 in the world rankings feels different from anyone else who has previously climbed to the #2 spot behind Carlsen over the past decade. Nothing is guaranteed, but this chart emphasizes why Firouzja feels like the heir apparent. Time will tell if those feelings prove justified.
Vincent Keymer, GER, 17.04 years old, 2664 Elo, Prodigy Rank #10
Keymer also had a remarkable November, gaining 25 rating points at the same two events as Firouzja. He did most of his damage at the Grand Swiss scoring 7/11 and placing 5th on tiebreaks (having tied for 4th-16th place, but with an excellent Buchholz score). Critically this top-eight finish means he also takes a step forward in the world championship cycle, securing a spot in the 2022 FIDE Grand Prix series (which will ultimately determine the final two competitors in the next Candidates Tournament). By rating he’s unlikely to place top two in the Grand Prix, but it’s an excellent opportunity no matter what, and if he makes an unexpected run at the Candidates we would welcome the surprise!
Following that tremendous success, Keymer acquitted himself nicely on board three for the German team with a solid 5/8 score to gain three more rating points, which was enough to move him into fourth place on the current ratings list for juniors (and he is younger than any of the top three) and carry his prodigy rank back into the top ten all-time highest ratings at or before his current age.
Keymer’s prospects as a top prodigy have been more up-and-down than most of the players we follow, but at the moment he appears on track to re-establishing some new peaks at the most important time – as he’s on the verge of shedding “top prodigy” status and attempting to transition to “top chess player” more generally. He is now ranked 73rd in the world and the next step is a run at 2700 (if he gets there in the next 10 months he still has a chance to be the 5th youngest 2700+ player ever).
Is it too early to start the search for Alireza’s next challenger from his own country? Okay, yes, yes it is. But Coles is currently the highest rated player in the world to be born in 2012 or later – and he was in fact born in 2013! If any of our readers know his exact birthday we would welcome that information. We know that if he was born on January 1st his prodigy rank is a strong #23, but if he was born on December 31st his prodigy rank would be a far more impressive #6!
We generally tend to be very wary of taking the time to mention kids younger than 10 for a few reasons. For one our database is far more incomplete at that age; we include the early ratings of anyone that went on to achieve enough success to later catch our attention, but there is no shortage of young players who may have spiked at age nine and quit chess by 11 that we may have never noticed. So prodigy ranks can be lower than we think at this age. However they can also be higher when we’re assuming January 1st birthdays because exact birthdates aren’t yet public record, so that potentially balances out.
A second reason we don’t usually include kids this young is most of them have relatively limited numbers of games driving their ratings. That’s no concern here though, as Coles has played 70 rated games in the past 7 months, with some in every rating period. And after a dip in the first of those, his last 65 games over the last 6 months have netted a rating gain of 251 points. A third reason we usually are reluctant to discuss players this young is just the sheer unpredictability. While we have some decent idea how a record-setting 12 year old might progress and have pretty clear understanding of the possible trajectories in front of a record-setting 16 year old, a record-setting 8 year old could do anything, from skyrocket to plummet. So we don’t know where Ruben will go from here, but he has our attention.
Savva Vetokhin, RUS, 12.91(?) years old, 2416 Elo, Prodigy Rank #30
Another unknown birthday means #30 is a worst case prodigy rank, Savva could also be as high as #6 if born at the end of December (again, if you know his exact birthdate please let us know). Either way, he’s the third highest rated player in the world born in 2009 or later. Vetokhin had a prodigy rank as high as #10 around the age of 11 but that had dropped a bit through the pandemic hiatus and as of last month he was only at #73 but the December rating list saw him gain 77 rating points in 29 games. The highlight was a 7/9 score against average opposition of 2393 at the GM ASK 4 2021 which looks to us like a GM norm, although we haven’t found definitive confirmation with cursory Googling. It looks like Savva is hunting a new title so we should have numerous results to track in the near future and if those efforts lead to continued rating gains he may shoot rapidly up our watchlist!
Someone had a nice November. On last month’s prodigy watch list we had Begmuratov at #229 as a rating of 2082 just wasn’t setting any records for an 11 year old. But then he gained 215 rating points in just 19 games! He scored 2/4 against GM opposition and 3.5/6 against IMs along the way and suddenly we’re watching very closely to see if he can replicate that success going forward. Perhaps fortunately his rating landed at 2297, meaning his k-factor remains high (it would have dropped if he hit 2300) so his next batch of rated games will produce bigger rating gains (or losses) than if he had gained those extra three points. This could give him a big boost if his next event goes well – or could cost him his recent gains if it goes poorly. Either way, for the time being he’s the second highest rated player born 2010 or later in the world right now and we’re eager to see if that holds up!
Three rounds are in the books in Dubai, with Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi drawing the first three games of their best-of-fourteen match for the world championship title. This brings us to the first rest day of the match, so we’re going to take a quick look at how these three draws have impacted the match odds so far, how likely we are to continue seeing draws, and what the implications might be if we do.
First things first, with three draws in the books where do we stand now?
This is our baseline format for our daily odds updates, that you’ll see after each game on Twitter, and we can see that Carlsen (who started the match with an 81.5% chance to win) has dropped very slightly to 80.6% and another draw in the next game would bring that another two percentage points lower, while a decisive fourth game will have a dramatic impact.
There are a couple notable nuances here though. One interesting point is that Nepomniachtchi would still be a match underdog even if he scores the first win and takes a lead. This makes sense with 10 games left; Carlsen (who the model assumes to be the stronger player) has plenty of time to catch up even with a loss now. At some point though that will no longer be the case. Should draws continue until later in the match, and then Nepo scores the first win, there would eventually come a point where that win immediately makes Nepo the match favorite. Upon some investigation, that point turns out to be game 8:
Here we see what happens (or would have happened) if Nepo scores the first decisive result at various points of the match (following a string of draws). We see that should all games in the first half of the match be drawn, Nepo gains the ability to become the match favorite with a win. And by the latest games the first win of the match would also have a very high chance of deciding the match.
But how likely are we to actually see so many draws in a row before the first decisive result? Presuming that our initial assumptions about draw rates were valid, and that this question is just a matter of probability, we have a chart for that as well:
The good news for fans hoping to see decisive results is that there is still only a 2% chance that every classical game will end up drawn. This is up from the beginning, but obviously unlikely. One key note on this chart is that you may notice the odds of 14 straight draws (now) and the odds of 11 straight draws (originally) aren’t quite the same. At first thought this seems odd because both cases are 11 draws in a row, but the key is that we assume different draw rates based on who has which color. So even now it’s roughly a coinflip whether we’ll even see two more draws before someone scores a win. Getting through the next four games (finishing the first half of the match) with all draws is only a one in four chance (or risk, if you hate draws).
So it’s not so likely for the draw streak to continue too much longer, but if it does how do the match odds shift for Carlsen? So far he’s been gradually seeing his winning chances drift downward as the match essentially shortens, although drawing with white has been the culprit as his draws with black have slightly improved his odds. However this pattern doesn’t completely hold if the draws persist.
The key to making sense of this chart is to keep in mind that Carlsen’s odds of winning the match if it goes to tiebreaks are 72.3% so while a long streak does lower his chances from the 81.5% mark they started at, it isn’t as if they are moving so low. In the final games, particularly, given that one win in an otherwise even match is far more likely to be decisive (as we saw earlier) potential draws begin to have a little bit more impact and piece color matters more.
So what are our takeaways?
First of all, for fans hoping for decisive games, it’s far too early to give up hope. We assumed from the beginning that 71% of classical games would be drawn in this match, and three straight draws to start it out isn’t a shock, but a significantly longer draw streak would be. We should start seeing some decisive results sooner or later. That said, as long as we don’t see anything decisive, we can count on the match odds staying relatively stable, with Carlsen the favorite to win a little under 80% of the time. And, the deeper we go without a decisive result, the more important such a result will eventually be. Every successive draw increases the stakes and builds more pressure on the players, as if the match is still tied closer to the end a single win could nearly clinch the overall victory, and a single loss would become a devastating shot from which recovery may not be possible. So one way or another we have a guarantee of drama. Over the next several games we’ll find out more about exactly what kind of drama that might turn out to be.
In a shocker of a 12th round, all four games saw decisive results! Ding Liren scored a win over Grischuk to climb out of last place in the standings. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave kept his slim tournament hopes alive by beating Alekseenko on demand. And in the game of the day Anish Giri managed to outmaneuver Caruana, eliminating the latter from contention to win the event but setting himself in contention. At the point those three games concluded the final game looked drawn, which would have left Giri tied for first place with almost a 40% chance to win the event, while our leader would have had just under a 60% chance to win it. We wouldn’t have been too far from a coin flip.
But Ian Nepomniachtchi wasn’t done with Wang Hao. He played on and managed to squeeze a win out of that equal endgame, locking up sole possession of first place as we head into the final rest day, followed by the final two rounds of the tournament. After today’s games, here are the current standings and, at the top, the odds of tournament victory for those players still in contention:
Name
Rating
Score
New Win%
Prior Win%
Avg Finish
Nepomniachtchi, Ian
2797.3
8
84.9%
74.6%
1.2
Giri, Anish
2791.5
7.5
13.5%
11.7%
1.9
Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime
2754.1
6.5
1.7%
2.0%
3.5
Caruana, Fabiano
2816.0
6
0.0%
11.3%
3.9
Grischuk, Alexander
2770.8
5.5
0.0%
0.5%
5.5
Wang, Hao
2753.3
5
0.0%
0.1%
6.3
Ding, Liren
2790.1
5
0.0%
0.0%
6.1
Alekseenko, Kirill
2696.9
4.5
0.0%
0.0%
7.6
We can see that thanks to this win, Nepo is in great shape. Giri’s win did slightly increase his own odds, but it wasn’t the dramatic jump he might have seen had Nepo drawn, as it failed to close the gap in the standings. Not only is Giri half a point behind, but he loses all potential tiebreak scenarios so he has to find a way to outscore Nepo by a full point in the last two rounds. MVL can win any tiebreak he might end up in, but at 1.5 points behind the leader with two rounds left his margin for error is almost nonexistent. He has to win both his games and see Nepo score no more than half a point and also see Giri score no more than one point out of two. Such perfection is not likely, as the odds show, but at least he still has a sliver of a chance.
Round 13 Preview
So when play resumes on Monday the 26th, what games are we looking at and what impact can they have on the results?
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (13%)
Draw (59%)
Black wins (28%)
White
Alekseenko, Kirill
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
Black
Ding, Liren
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
This one won’t affect who wins the tournament. Both players are eliminated from contention. However they sit half a game apart at the bottom of the standings so it does have implications there. Ding was having a very disappointing Candidates Tournament playing well below his expectations and falling from third to fifth in the world live rankings, but he salvaged some pride with his recent win and perhaps will want to build on that momentum. Alekseenko exactly flips that script, as he was overperforming his low expectations and had brought his rating above the 2700 threshold, before his loss this past round brought him back down to earth. He may be able to rebound and win this game, or that last loss could be the beginning of a freefall if he drops yet another game here. Last place is on the line and both players may fight to avoid it.
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (14%)
Draw (65%)
Black wins (21%)
White
Wang, Hao
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
Black
Caruana, Fabiano
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
Fabi could have been in serious contention if he won with white last round, which is presumably why he pressed and the result was disaster. He is now mathematically eliminated from the tournament – as while there are some extremely unlikely ways he could still tie for first, even then he loses those tiebreaks. The question then is how he will react. If neither player in this game has any interest in playing, as both are eliminated from the only prize that really matters in this event, we could see a quick bloodless draw. But also perhaps one or both may instead decide they have nothing else to lose and choose complications. If the latter occurs we may get a treat of a chess game, even if it isn’t impactful at the top of the standings.
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (20%)
Draw (66%)
Black wins (14%)
White
Grischuk, Alexander
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
Black
Giri, Anish
13.5%
0.8%
11.4%
41.3%
Giri’s chances are slim because he trails the leader and has losing tiebreaks, so of course a draw wouldn’t do anything to improve his situation. He could still win the event with a draw, but those scenarios are out of his hands and rely on Nepo losing games. The far more promising path would be to win this game, which opens up a world of possibilities for Giri to chase sole first place, as we can see. Of course winning with black is easier said than done, but then again he did it last round against the second best player in the world, and now he may need to do it again to really get on track.
If you recall our event preview, we noted that prior to round 8 Giri had just a 4% chance of winning this event, but if he were able to guarantee seven decisive results and zero draws those hopes would increase to almost 12%. He didn’t quite go that far but he’s produced three decisive results in five games so far, and critically those have all been wins! This has gotten him into his current position and now he needs at least one more win, maybe two, to reach the top. Our model says it’s unlikely, but the chance is definitely there. Winning this game would help tremendously, but again remember that it isn’t quite a must-win either.
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (35%)
Draw (53%)
Black wins (12%)
White
Nepomniachtchi, Ian
84.9%
98.4%
85.3%
39.4%
Black
Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime
1.7%
0.0%
0.0%
14.5%
Giri, Anish
13.5%
1.6%
14.7%
46.1%
And finally we have the game of the day. This is either Nepo’s chance to lock the tournament up for good, or MVL’s chance to create carnage. Note in the table above we were able to include Giri’s chances to win the event in any of the three scenarios as well, but keep in mind those numbers are with the Grischuk/Giri game still being randomized. Winning on demand with black is certainly not easy, and MVL has been much maligned for his struggles with black in both this tournament and Tata Steel earlier this year, but that could be predictive of another struggle – or it could be the setup for a redemption arc! If MVL can find a way to win this game, it throws the standings into chaos, as depending on Giri’s results we may go into the final round with three contenders and no clear favorite!
It’s notable that Nepo has some added value from a win over a draw. A draw would open the door for Giri to tie him for first place prior to the final round, while a win nearly clinches things. That said, a draw probably still is enough to get him to the World Championship match so it would be reasonable for him to play it safe. A loss and he might no longer even be the favorite, although he would still have a chance to recover in the final round.
With only two games that affect the results, we’re able to put together a crude chart of all *nine* possibilities across those three games as well. Here are all the possible ways the odds could look prior to the final round (at low sample sizes, please forgive us of one of these results occurs and our round 14 preview gives different numbers):
If you prefer words to numbers, essentially the scenarios are thus:
If Nepo wins and Giri doesn’t, it’s over. Nepo clinches first place. Also if Nepo draws and Giri loses, ditto.
If Nepo and Giri both win – or if they both draw – it’s over for MVL, Nepo remains a huge favorite, but Giri has a chance in the final round (he would have to win and Nepo would have to lose in the final game).
If Giri wins and Nepo draws, MVL is eliminated and it’s basically a coinflip.
If MVL wins, everything depends on Giri’s results but no matter what all three players go into the final round with a chance.
In Conclusion
For fans of Nepo, the hope is that this round brings a win or a draw, and an uneventful drama-free tournament win with no final-round surprises the following day. For fans of Giri, MVL, or just those who love a dramatic finish, the hope is that MVL upsets Nepo creating all sorts of new possibilities. Either way round 13 will be dramatic with all eyes on the critical game, that will either clarify the tournament with a round to spare or set up an absolute must-see finale. We’ll find out how it all shakes out on Monday!
It looked like Anish Giri was prepared to place a stranglehold on the first place spot in this tournament, with what appeared to be a won position against Alireza Firouzja. That win would have left him a full point ahead of his closest competitors, and able to clinch sole first place with as little as a final round draw. Our model had him as a 95% favorite to win the tournament in that scenario. But then Firouzja put on his best Harry Houdini impression, escaped, and salvaged the draw. The result is no change at the top of the standings, and we will enter the final round with plenty of chances for chaos. Here are the standings before the last game:
Name
Rating
Score
Giri, Anish
2777.6
8
Caruana, Fabiano
2822.2
7.5
Firouzja, Alireza
2759.8
7.5
Van Foreest, Jorden
2696.3
7.5
Esipenko, Andrey
2696.2
7
Carlsen, Magnus
2842.8
6.5
Grandelius, Nils
2674.6
6
Harikrishna, Pentala
2730.2
6
Tari, Aryan
2636.1
5.5
Duda, Jan-Krzysztof
2729.7
5
Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime
2761.6
5
Guijarro, David Anton
2671.4
4.5
Wojtaszek, Radoslaw
2693.0
4.5
Donchenko, Alexander
2663.6
3.5
Giri does of course still hold sole possession of the lead. He can still clinch the tournament with a win, or clinch at worst a tie for first place with a draw. If he does draw those tiebreak scenarios become interesting though. A two-way tie is simple enough, the tied players would face each other in a blitz playoff. Our model treats that blitz as a tossup and counts that simulation as half a win for each player. Not perfectly accurate as some players are better than others at blitz, but we’re comfortable enough basing our analysis on it. However a three way tie uses tiebreaks to determine the top two players who would then play blitz. Our model is admittedly insufficient in that scenario; we give all tied players equal chances of a win without calculating who’s S-B score actually earns them a playoff berth. And our model is estimating roughly a 22% chance of such a three-way (or more) tie. We apologize for not living up to our promise to better account for tiebreak scenarios in such a tie; but it was a choice between explaining the tiebreaks after the event was already over or admitting what we aren’t certain of and still being able to provide a preview.
So our odds do come with a grain of salt that they may be offering false hope to someone with bad tiebreak chances, but for the sake of narrative drama we will move forward with the odds our model offers.
Projected Results
Before Rd. 12
After Rd. 12
Name
Rating
Win%
Win%
(Outright)
Avg Place
Giri, Anish
2777.6
52.5%
62.7%
44.1%
1.6
Caruana, Fabiano
2822.2
27.3%
14.9%
2.6%
2.7
Firouzja, Alireza
2759.8
12.2%
12.5%
2.0%
2.9
Van Foreest, Jorden
2696.3
7.1%
9.8%
1.4%
3.1
Esipenko, Andrey
2696.2
0.8%
0.1%
0.0%
5.0
Carlsen, Magnus
2842.8
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
5.8
Grandelius, Nils
2674.6
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
7.6
Harikrishna, Pentala
2730.2
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
7.6
Tari, Aryan
2636.1
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
9.3
Duda, Jan-Krzysztof
2729.7
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
10.0
Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime
2761.6
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
10.9
Guijarro, David Anton
2671.4
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
12.1
Wojtaszek, Radoslaw
2693.0
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
12.3
Donchenko, Alexander
2663.6
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
13.9
We can see that despite the pain of missing an opportunity to practically clinch the tournament, Giri’s draw was nevertheless sufficient to actually improve his winning chances for the event from where he stood before the round. Despite all the potential chaos he does still have roughly a four in nine shot at simply winning the event cleanly. Caruana had white against a beatable opponent, so his draw hurt his chances significantly. Round 12 was his best opportunity to catch Giri and while he still has one more chance to do so, it’s harder now. Firouzja and Van Foreest remain in contention with slightly better odds than before thanks to their draws, but essentially must win. And note that at a full point back, Esipenko is not technically eliminated from tying for first himself, although it would take not only a final round win but also a lot of help.
So what are the games we will see in the last round? Amazingly almost all of them can still impact first place as none of the contenders face each other – Giri, Caruana, Firouzja, Van Foreest, and Esipenko all drew every game they played against each other so the top of the standings will be settled by how each of them ends up having performed against the other nine players.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (28%)
Draw (56%)
Black wins (16%)
Importance
White
Duda, Jan-Krzysztof
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
Black
Harikrishna, Pentala
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
Harikrishna scored the one win of round 12, although it didn’t affect the top of the standings in any way. It did improve Pentala’s hopes of finishing in the top half of the field though, and remind us that decisive results and interesting games can certainly still be played even when neither player has chances to finish in first place. Tata Steel is a special tournament, and in their last game of the year both players would love a chance to end things on a positive note.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (43%)
Draw (48%)
Black wins (9%)
Importance
White
Carlsen, Magnus
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
Black
Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
Amazingly this game between the #1 and #3 seeds also has no impact on who will win the tournament. After another draw in round 12, Magnus is finally truly eliminated, as even the best player in the world can’t close a 1.5 point gap in a single round. Again though, that doesn’t mean the game is inconsequential to the players.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (21%)
Draw (59%)
Black wins (19%)
Importance
White
Donchenko, Alexander
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.6%
Black
Esipenko, Andrey
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.6%
By ratings, Donchenko is the favorite here, but he currently sits alone in last place and hasn’t won a game yet in the event. Surely he’d love to take advantage of this one last chance to find a positive result in what has been a very difficult tournament. And he could have chances to do so if Esipenko treats the game as a must-win and presses with black. Esipenko is not mathematically eliminated from contention, but in addition to winning this game his hopes would require Giri to lose, and none of the three second-place players to win. It’s a longshot even if he does his part, but it might be enough to encourage him to seek sharp lines with black.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (32%)
Draw (54%)
Black wins (14%)
Importance
White
Van Foreest, Jorden
9.7%
27.6%
1.1%
0.0%
27.6%
Black
Grandelius, Nils
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
Jorden could tie for first with a draw, but only if Giri loses and neither Caruana nor Firouzja win. If he wants to give himself realistic chances to reach a playoff he must win this game. And he has white against an opponent with a penchant for decisive results (both positive and negative) throughout the event, so certainly he has chances to seek it! Giri is the best possibility for a Dutch player to win this tournament in his home country, but Jorden certainly also has chances to do so.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (40%)
Draw (49%)
Black wins (10%)
Importance
White
Firouzja, Alireza
12.5%
29.6%
1.3%
0.0%
29.6%
Black
Wojtaszek, Radoslaw
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
Firouzja miraculously survived today against Giri and his reward is a chance to put himself into the mix if he can win with the white pieces against Wojtaszek, which is certainly doable (he’s already lost three games in the event). The analysis is the same as for Jorden, a draw technically leaves chances if other games break in very specific ways but for a realistic shot to tie for first a win is required here.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (7%)
Draw (45%)
Black wins (47%)
Importance
White
Tari, Aryan
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
30.3%
Black
Caruana, Fabiano
15.0%
0.0%
1.9%
30.3%
Caruana is the third of the players tied for second place, and his scenario is exactly the same as the last two. A draw isn’t elimination strictly speaking, but can be assumed to be for practical purposes so this is a must win game. Unfortunately for Fabi he has to do it with the black pieces, but it is against the lowest rated player in the field. That said, Tari’s performance rating is almost 2700, much higher than the 2636 live rating we used to calculate these chances, so the point is he’s been sharp so far here at Wijk aan Zee; including a win over Esipenko when Andrey tried to press with black. It’s hard to imagine him doing the same to Caruana, but if Fabi goes all-in for a win anything is possible, and we’ve seen other hard-to-imagine results throughout this tournament.
Adjusted Odds if…
Player
Initial Odds
White wins (14%)
Draw (53%)
Black wins (33%)
Importance
White
Guijarro, David Anton
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
93.7%
Black
Giri, Anish
62.7%
6.3%
54.6%
100.0%
And that brings us to our leader, who has black against Anton. This is a winnable game even with the black pieces, and a win would clinch first place, but even a draw isn’t so bad. It still guarantees at least a tie for first, and even carries a 21% chance of still winning outright if all three second-place players draw. And tiebreaks wouldn’t be a concern unless at least two of the three players chasing him were to win their games. So a draw is acceptable, but a win is better. What about a loss? Dangerous to be sure; after failing to convert a winning position today a loss tomorrow would be a heartbreaking way to cripple his hopes of winning after seemingly having the tournament in the bag, but amidst the chaos of this final round there are scenarios even there where he could still tie for first (if none of the three second-place players win their own games).
In Conclusion:
This tournament has been high drama and it all comes to a crescendo in the final round tomorrow. If you’re watching the games live please remember that this final round starts two hours earlier than the other rounds did. If, like the author of this article, you live on the west coast of the United States that means the games start at 3 a.m. – yes we are complaining – and perhaps you’ll have to miss the opening phases and just set your alarm for the time scrambles. If you are somewhere that the games start at a more reasonable hour though, please don’t miss the openings simply because you forgot about the change in start times. Everything is on the line, five players are still in contention, and almost every game matters. You don’t want to miss that if you don’t have to, so enjoy the show!
Chess by the Numbers 