They're almost here - less than a week away! Eight players will face off in a series of knockout matches in Kazan, Russia for the right to face world champion Viswanathan Anand for the title in early 2012. As there are eight players, there will be three rounds of matches: four-game quarter-finals, four-game semi-finals, and a six game final. Here's the "bracketology" (to borrow a neologism from US sports) - the winner of the first match plays the winner of the second, and so on:
As you can see, seedings have little to do with current ratings, so don't base your predictions on pairing numbers! Let's offer a little information about these pairings:
Topalov - Kamsky: You may recall that they played a short Candidates final a couple of years ago. Topalov qualified as the loser of the match with Kramnik, while Kamsky won the preceding World Cup. Topalov won the match 4.5-2.5, but it was in fact very close: Topalov won the last game, but was losing at one point, in which case the scores would have been equalized. Oddly, Kamsky seemed to have the better preparation in that match, while Topalov did a better job controlling his nerves, both factors going against type.
Overall, Topalov has a big plus: 7 wins against 1 loss, with 7 draws in their classical battles, not counting a blindfold win for Topalov and a rapid win for Kamsky from Monaco in 2009. Ratings and history suggest that Topalov is the favorite, but Topalov has not played especially well since 2009 while Kamsky had a very good 2010 and just won the US Championship (even hiding his prep). Still, I think Topalov must be the favorite here.
Gelfand - Mamedyarov: Seven of their first nine games were drawn, but since then they've gone at each other like cats and dogs with an incredible 13 of their last 14 games having a decisive result. In classical games, Gelfand has five wins to just one loss, with six draws; in rapid it's 1-0 for Gelfand to 1-0 for Mamedyarov in blindfold. Finally, in blitz, it's +4 -3 =2 in Mamedyarov's favor. As these Candidates matches may come down to rapid and then blitz tiebreaks, these stats may be relevant!
Picking a winner here is tough. Mamedyarov is younger and higher-rated, but Gelfand just keeps marching on, prepares extremely well, is a great fighter in events of this nature and has very good nerves. Gelfand has been in these battles many times before, and has consistently risen to the occasion, while this is new territory for Mamedyarov. I'll go with experience here and pick Gelfand.
Aronian - Grischuk: On paper this looks pretty easy to predict, with a sizable rating gap for Aronian, who keeps going up and up and up while Grischuk alternates excellent results with fair ones and time at the poker table. Still, Grischuk is tremendously talented too and seems to have been working pretty hard on his chess the last year or so.
In classical chess, Aronian leads their series pretty convincingly, +6 -2 =9. This includes a victory in their last classical game, played earlier this year in Wijk aan Zee. In blindfold, they're 1-1-1, and likewise in rapid. (Grischuk won the last game they played, a rapid in the final Amber tournament in March.) Finally, in blitz, Aronian leads by one: +2 -1 =4.
Anything's possible, but I can't see any good reason to pick against Aronian here.
Kramnik - Radjabov: Kramnik has everything on his side but youth and their last blitz game: rating, experience, superior preparation (to go by the past, anyway) and a plus score in their head-to-head battles. It's not quite as bad as it might at first seem, because while Kramnik is +2 =7 against Rajdabov in classical chess, he hasn't beaten him in a classical game in 8 years. In blindfold Kramnik leads 2-0, in rapid they drew their first four games before Kramnik beat him in the President's Cup last year, and in blitz they each won their white game in the last December's World Blitz Championship.
As with the Aronian match, anything is possible, but I can't see any good reason to go against Kramnik here.
I'll look more carefully at the semis once the quarter-finals end, but just to fill out the bracket now for the sake of making false predictions, I'll go for Topalov to beat Gelfand, Aronian to beat Kramnik, and in the finals Aronian will beat Topalov.
Your turn!