Candidates/World Championship Tournament 2016

[ajay]

Anish Giri draws all the 11 matches. A joke doing the round in the chess-circles.

I forgot how many rounds have been played, then I remembered it's just Anish Giri points times two

It is ridiculous how many times Giri came in winning position and could not land that knock out punch.
On the other hand, no body could put him under any pressure. On point table he has nothing to show, however, I still think he has been playing very well. Remember that unlike others, this is his first candidate tournament where even likes of Carlsen (when he was playing challengers) have shown lot of nerves and blundered. Not losing any game and creating winning chances in many games is very positive. So I'm quite optimistic about Giri for future.
PS: Only if he had not let slip his winning chance against Caruana, Anand could have been the favorite now.

[ajay]

Only three players, Caruana, Anand and Karjakin, are in running now and Caruana is currently the favorite to win the tournament. Here is the latest point table:

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#	Name	Pts	
1	Caruana, Fabiano  	 6.5 	
 	Anand, Viswanathan 	6.5 
3	Karjakin, Sergey   	6.0	
4	Giri, Anish  			5.5	
 	Svidler, Peter  		5.5  
 	Aronian, Levon  		5.5	
7	Nakamura, Hikaru		4.5	
8	Topalov, Veselin		4.0	

The tiebreaks are applied in this order: head-to-head results, number of wins, Sonneborn-Berger score, rapid game match, blitz game match, and finally an Armageddon game.
Head-to-head scores and wins in bracket for the top 3 as of now are:

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          Anand  Caruana Karjakin
Anand (4)      X      ½ 0      0 1
Caruana(2)    ½ 1      X       ½ -
Karjakin(2)   1 0     ½ -       X

And remaining rounds for each player with colors are:

Anand: (b) Nakamura, (w) Giri, (b) Svidler
Caruana: (w) Aronian, (w)Svidler, (b)Karjakin
Karjakin: (w) Topalov, (b) Aronian, (w) Caruana

Karjakin can be back as leader in next round itself as he plays off-form Topalov holding white advantage.

Will be rooting for Aronian in the rest of the tournament , especially next two rounds. C'mon Aronian!

[prashanthm]

Code: Select all

          Anand  Caruana Karjakin
Anand (4)      X      ½ 0      0 1
Caruana(2)    ½ 1      X       ½ -
Karjakin(2)   1 0     ½ -       X

Irrespective of the result between Caruana and Karjakin, Vishy cannot win if there is a 3-way tie at the top...

So, the best bet is to hope for a Karjakin win against Caruana, but not win against Topalov and Aronian...

Update: But first, Vishy has to avoid losing to Naka today... He's significantly worse already even before the 20-move mark...

Update 2: And he's losing it fast......

[prasen9]

Looks like a lost match.

[ajay]

What's going on? Anand got crushed by Nakamura who was 2nd from the bottom. The jinx against Nakamura goes on. Last four round for Anand have all been decisive. Won two with white and lost 2 with black.

[prashanthm]

Vishy lost...

Karjakin is looking good for a win against Topalov...

Caruana is probably going to draw against Aronian...

That would put Karjakin and Caruana at the top at 7 points a-piece and Vishy at 6.5...

which means that Vishy needs to win the last two games against Giri and Svidler to have a shot at this...

[prasen9]

Winning against Giri is going to be hard. Let's hope for the best.

[prasen9]

Anand has a lifetime losing record against Aronian, Carlsen, Giri, Caruana, Girischuk, Wang Hao, Kasparov, Nakamura, Sasikiran, and, Tiviakov. Among these, the worst is against Giri (0-1) and Sasikiran (0-1). Among those he has won at least one game, the worst is against Nakamura (1-6) and then Kasparov (4-16). Kasparov, I can understand. But, what on earth is the case wrt Nakamura? Caruana is trending that way (1-3) but maybe they have played too few.

[Tolamu]

Whew! Anand makes the time control - 10 moves in 3 mins. But Giri in slightly better position with black. Nakamura is in winning position vs Topalov.

Nakamura beats Topalov. Caruana in winnable position.
Anand may be safe for a draw. But disappointing regarding his chances for a Carlsen fight.

[Tolamu]

Predictably, Anand draws vs Giri.

[Tolamu]

Anand lost both bishops, so he has almost no chances of a win.

And the consequences are Karkajin needs to draw vs Caruana, and Caruana needs to win with black to be the challenger to Carlsen

[Prashant]

Caruana is probably the only one who has a legitimate shot of beating Carlsen, so I hope he wins...

[Tolamu]

Perfect 14 for Giri. A historic (dubious?) record

I mean.14 draws.

Kar-Car still slugging it out.

[prashanthm]

Caruana slips and Karjakin earns himself a match against Carlsen. I hope he can fight it out against MC!

They used to be wonder kids way back when they were 12/13...

[ajay]

I didn't want to start a new thread, so I'm modifying this to include World Championship as continuation of the Candidate tournament.

Astonishing result today as in Game 8 of the 12 game championship, Karjakin makes the first strike and that also with black. Karjakin now leads Magnus Carlsen 4½ - 3½. With 7 draws in a row, Carlsen was already frustrated and in 8th game he didn't want to let go an opportunity to get ahead. It was an equal game but MC tried too much to force a win from the equal position, and ultimately got punished by Karjakin. With only 4 games left, Karjakin is in a strong position to create a big upset in the chess world.