Pretty sure the colours are decided by a draw. So no way of knowing which colour you will get.

Well fine then, I just don't understand his strategy at ALL then.

Well heck, what is there to understand? Just draw 8 straight games, never push with white, then when you have white in Armageddon play 1. b3!! and profit!

yeah, completely standard strategy

I did a little opening survey of the 190 classical games played so far in this event:

White's opening move:
1. e4 - 85 games, white scores 50.6%
1. d4 - 72 games, white scores 60.4%
1. c4 - 16 games, white scores 59.4%
1. Nf3 - 16 games, white scores 59.4%
1. g3 - 1 game, white scores 50%

Against 1. e4 black plays:
1. ... c5 - 35 games, white scores 48.6%
1. ... e5 - 32 games, white scores 51.6%
1. ... e6 - 9 games, white scores 44.4%
1. ... c6 - 6 games, white scores 50%
1. ... d6 - 2 games, white scores 75%
1. ... d5 - 1 game, white scores 100%

Against 1. d4 black plays:
1. ... Nf6 - 51 games, white scores 60.8%
1. ... d5 - 16 games, white scores 56.3%
1. ... f5 - 2 games, white scores 50%
1. ... e6 - 2 games, white scores 75%
1. ... d6 - 1 game, white scores 100%

Edit: "e4 - most popular by test" just doesn't have quite the right ring to it

Do you guys follow the tiebreak games on the official web site? I cannot really get it to work properly on my mobile device.

Obviously Larsen got sick of watching the nonsense and possessed Dubov for the final game.

How did Dubov's final game go? I'm away from a computer and the site isn't working for my phone.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=83185 (if that works on your phone...)

The good old Kansas City Shuffle.

Can you bet on the matches anywhere?

Amazing, wow. What a game. That's how you move on in style. Still questionable strategy I think

Thanks for the link, that was awesome.

Well for better or worse, the strategy seems to still be in force. Dubov drew in 16 moves with white today.

I just don't think you can count on drawing ALL your black games against 2700+ opposition. Trying to get through the classical stuff 1-1 is fine if you're a strong blitz player, which Dubov is, but I still don't get why he didn't push for wins in the fast games with white. I'm torn because I kind of want to root against him because I don't like his strategy and don't really want to see it work, but on the other hand I want to root for him because seeing a 2638 rated 17-year-old continue to advance is awesome.

Lagrave on 5/5, Aronian close to out.

Against Nepo in round 1, Wei Yi drew his first game, then won his second. Against Shirov in round 2, Wei Yi drew his first game, then won his second. Against Mamedyarov in round 3, Wei Yi drew his first game, then ???

Aronian and Grischuk both have win-or-go-home games tomorrow - Aronian with the black pieces. Caruana, Kramnik, and Karjakin also have to win if they want to avoid tiebreaks. Only three of the top eight are in comfortable position to get to round 4 with just a draw.

Tomorrow will be fun!

white not winning this makes my heart hurt

I was bored - so maths! I did some analysis of players odds of advancing through subsequent rounds, factoring in their ratings, who they'll likely face in each round, and in projecting the current round I did account for colors tomorrow. I only did one half of the bracket, but here are the odds of reaching the final for the 16 people fighting for one of the spots:

Player / Odds of reaching final
Mamedyarov 13.4%
Kamsky 12.4%
Svidler 12.0%
Karjakin 9.7%
Tomashevsky 8.1%
Liem 8.0%
Morozevich 7.2%
Eljanov 5.2%
Vitiugov 5.1%
Andreikin 4.7%
Grischuk 4.4%
Aronian 4.3%
Dreev 3.3%
Radjabov 1.6%
Wei Yi 0.5%
Hammer 0.1%

Interesting is that while of course it's very helpful to be up 1-0, being 1/2-1/2 with a much lower rated opponent isn't mathematically much worse, if you also have a high enough rating to be a presumed favorite in subsequent rounds. Hence Mamedyarov coming in at the top.

I didn't run the math on the other side of the bracket, but Nakamura has all the key things going for him - high rating, 1-0 lead, white tomorrow, and a somewhat soft draw (chance of facing Dubov next round helps here). I assume he's not only the most likely on his side of the bracket to reach the final, but probably a bigger favorite than Mamedyarov. Maybe 16-17%. Which interestingly (to us boorish Americans) creates roughly a 2% chance of an all USA final.

courageous play by Tomashevsky

and Granda is outplaying Giri, too bad he messed up the move order yday and lost

Aronian has been knocked out (only drew today). Of course Aronian is in the Candidates anyway. This hurts Radjabov more than anybody.

As a Dutchie I'm rooting for Giri, but Granda has been playing better today and yesterday. Let's hope tomorrow's different!

No kidding. Have to admire that kind of play in that particular situation.

Grischuk ftw! A win in 154 moves.

rescpect for grischuk and hiss "stubbornness"

jesus. most of my games don't make move 30...