Svidler yet again can't convert a nice but not easily winning advantage obtained from good and inventive opening preparation.

Topalov blunders again yet this time his opponent, Caruana, after making time control no less, randomly blunders back for no good reason.

Karjakin continues to build up pressure until his opponents crack without making mistakes. Like a "Carlsen-lite" if you will.

Giri engineers a safe draw.

hikaru sought perpetual check bc he's a wuss

Thanks!


You mean good preparation by Aronian?

Sorry, no, I fixed that. Svidler had great preparation again which lead to what may have been a potentially winning advantage, although a thin one, which he didn't convert.

He's not finding the same way to exert more pressure like his compatriot, Karjakin, to have his opponents make slight mistakes in order to convert. But he seems to be very well prepared and is playing well, which is encouraging (if you are rooting for Svidler which I can't imagine anyone not doing).

Svidler is a good dude afaict

A Russian cricket fan gets the thumbs up here.

Is anyone here rooting for Karjakin?

It's very hard for me to want to root for Karjakin since he is from Ukraine yet is a very big supporter of Putin.

Day-to-day I work with a development team in Ukraine and....well, it's hard to be pro-Putin in any way hearing about what's going on in places he's involved.

It's kind of like if Fischer defected to the USSR on his rise to the top because he needed "better government support" and then was a big supporter of them as they invaded the US. I mean, not exactly the same of course but it makes the guy very hard to root for.

this guy gets it.

Damn homie

How does Hikaru's expected win % (1st place) compare to Karjakin's based on the current standings (ceteris paribus)?

I have it on pretty good authority that Hikaru is contemptible. No one should feel too bad if he loses.

To win the tournament you need to score 3/4 against Anand and Svidler, 2/2 against Topalov and get lucky with one of the guys from the upper half. Karjakin got 1.5/2 from Anand and Svidler and he got lucky in his game with Nakamura. So far everything went well for him. Today has to/will beat Topalov to stay on schedule. Even though Karjakin is somewhat lacking creativity, he has good preparation and very good technique and this gives him a lot of stability.

Nakamura on the other hand is a player with extreme variance. He can beat everyone, but he can also try too hard and blow up. His openings are trash and therefore I doubt that he gets enough good positions to convert in such a field. He still has to play Topalov and Anand, so he could catch up fast.

Btw, the guys who left the most points on the table are Svidler and Caruana. On this level you have to convert your chances, because you don't get them too often. They failed to do that and this shows really bad form. You simply can't draw Topalov with white and expect to win this tournament. Therefore I would go so far and even count them out already.

In case of Svidler there is an additional problem: Nice guys finish last!

I have a problem with his friendly attitude during the press conference where he is laughing and making funny comments in analysis. Instead he should be pissed that he screwed up two good positions already in the last important tournament of his career.

Kind of agree with the last statement.

I really like svidler like everyone else. However hate to say it but the truly top in any 'sport' always have am almost insane amount of self confidence brushed with a bit of arrogance. He is just not a killer when it matters he is too nice almost.

Not a fan of karjakin at all but he turned the screws ruthlessly on anand whereas svidler let it slips and versus the top top guys you can't give them chances.

Prior to the tournament I fancied Giri actually because if he gets wins against the tournament 'marks' he is so unlikely to lose other games. Not so sure now karjakin has made a super solid start and is a tough cookie to beat also.

He hails from Crimea, where Russian has been predominantly spoken instead of Ukrainian throughout his life. Though Putin's annexation of Crimea was a mistake, I'm not surprised that some Crimeans favour the Russian government over the Ukrainian one, especially seeing as massive amounts of taxpayers' money are being pumped into this unprofitable region (well, a significant part of it goes into officials' pockets, but some value is left over for ordinary residents too).

Odds of winning, based on projecting rounds 5-14 using live ratings after round 4:

Aronian - 28.3%
Karjakin - 26.6%
Caruana - 14.2%
Giri - 13.5%
Anand - 6.4%
Svidler - 5.5%
Nakamura - 4.0%
Topalov - 1.5%

All four games were drawn today.

They were all spineless salamanders.

You can't use live ratings for these predictions. Live ratings include games that Nakamura won in the Gibraltar Open against some IMs and those that Anand lost to them. The candidates should be handicapped on the basis of how these guys performed against each other in recent years. This excludes games from 2006 for instance, when Topalov dominated the competition in "advanced chess".

To make a rather sophisticated prediction you also need to handicap opening repertoires. Typical 1.e4 players like Caruana and Anand have a much more tougher time because of the Berlin than 1.d4 guys like Aronian and Giri.

The full set of games from 2006 have effectively zero weight for any of these guys, +/- 1 point at the most.

Do you imply that Caruana's and Anand's repertoires are more tailored to beating fish while Aronian's and Giri's are more suited for battling sharks?

Otherwise, if 1. e4 were much weaker than 1. d4, how could the former two gentlemen have ever reached the top two of the FIDE rating list in 2015?

Nope, I am claiming that certain openings run into difficulties from time to time. That's currently the case with 1.e4 and that's the reason why we saw 1.d4 from Karjakin and 1.c4 from Svidler already. It takes one good novelty to put a line out of business or to make a questionable line fashionable again. Right now nobody can refute the Berlin and most of these guys have it in their repertoire, even a Najdorf-specialist like Topalov plays it, as Svidler found out in the second round.

Topalov playing h4 on move 3.

I guess it will eventually put Giri into the race.