BJJ, are you going to wait for the World Cup winner to post the current Candidates status?

Topalov and Giri must be pretty much locks to qualify, right?

That means we can only speculate on the wildcard now.

What a brutal way for Eljanov to go out. Win the first rapid. Build a great position in the second, only to lose on a simple blunder.

Lose the first blitz. Have a totally winning position in the second blitz, make a simple inaccuracy in an endgame, and let Karjakin claim a repetition out of nowhere.

Disbelieve the repetition claim. Replay the whole 70 move game with the arbiters until you see the repetition on the board. Shake hands and miss out on the Candidates.

Yeah that was a brutal way to go out.

I think this is true but I'm sure that BBJ will clear it all up fairly soon.

And the wildcard is very likely to come from the country that hosts the Candidates tourney. Nakamura said that it's not going to be in the US as St Louis is the only place that could host it and the Sinquefields aren't interested, also they have 2 people taking part already, as do Russia.

Iirc you have to be above 2725 in the July FIDE list to qualify for a wildcard spot so only Mickey Adams would qualify from the UK and he can't win, so we could get a Russian bid for Kramnik or an Armenian bid for Aronian but I personally think the Chinese will make a bid for Ling Diren.

Topalov os a 99.999% lock, give or take. Giri maybe just 99.9%, but yeah, the field (other than WC) is pretty much settled unless Giri loses every game he plays for the rest of the year while either Grischuk or Kramnik wins every one of their own games.

99.999% or 0%?!

http://2700chess.com/

Isn't there a problem with FIDE and the Bulgarian Chess Federation.

err unfortunately I forgotten how to post an image on the forums.

update: he's still on the top October 2015 list

Yes, he is still on FIDE's rating list. Not sure why 2700chess isn't listing him at all... I assume it's unintentional, some kind of database update or whatever. Your broader point though has merit, I'm talking about odds of Topalov meeting the stated criteria, and not considering political factors. I highly doubt that any such factors will prevent Topalov from competing, but cannot quantify that doubt.

It looks as though we're in the middle a traditional end-of-month update because there are other irregularities: Eljanov's rating is shown as the same as his September FIDE, Wei is missing, etc.

Plus, as far as I understand, the World Cup results will be accounted for in the November rating list, not the October one, even for those who've already busted out, because the tourney as a whole ends in October.

Typical stuff. Nothing to see here.

Of course it is, but Svidler seems to be on another level.

Svidler is a great guy, but there is one thing that I don't like about him: He is always nice and friendly.
In a way he is the exact opposite of Nakamura who never hides his feelings nor his opinion from anyone.

svidler wasn't very nice today!

Nice win by Svidler today.

I enjoyed seeing him opening nf3, g3, bg2, 0-0 and winning a nice game (transposing to a KIA).

YET MORE SVIDLER!

Whoa, big blunder by Karjakin. Svidler 2-0 now.

Svidler

Suck it Karjakin. Svidler for everything!

I still have Karjakin at a 2% chance of winning... slightly lower than two days ago though.

SVEEDLER

Ooops.

This is all Lawrence Trent's fault.

Terrible choice of opening by Svidler. The resulting Macrocy-type positions leave a full game ahead.

Instead the good old Najdorf with Bg5 was perfect for the match situation (also compare Anand-Kramnik, 2008), because white can cut down the amount of lines by simple elimination. The Poisoned Pawn is a forced draw, the Gelfand-system is a forced draw, Be7 loses, as does the Polugavsky. So the only line credible left is Qc7 (this is what Kramnik played) or some crazy stuff with an early Nbd7. All he had to do was to look what Negi wrote about it and that's it. There isn't that much room for decisive improvements by Karjakin, since it's already 100% engine-tested on a rather deep level.

Up to 16% now!

I'm surprised that Sveedler missed 23. Qc3! (As it looks like a natural move, pinning the f6 rook) which wins pretty much on the spot. And he had 13 minutes on the clock as well.

Svidler is known to be very unstable and he can fall into a depression rather easily. In fact, he simply sees too much during a game.

Karjakin - who was described by Kortchnoi as lacking talent - on the other hand is the product of memorizing lines and working with computers from early childhood on. His mind is far less complicated than Svidler's and he isn't fighting any ghosts under the bed. In fact if you watch his interviews, you may even think that he is some sort of simpleton who only excels at one thing in life, chess.

In his game with black Svidler won, because he managed to use a huge novelity. Today Karjakin will be prepared for that. Nevertheless, the Ruy Lopez is a hard nut to crack, so the chances for a draw should be around 80% and that's where Karjakin's overall 16% come from. If he wins today he is a virtual lock to win the match.

There is a reason why a guy of Svidler caliber never played for a world championship and that's Svidler himself. He doesn't shoot himself in the leg like Ivanchuk usually does, but he is certainly reducing his own chances by thinking too much about it.

Oh Svidler