Tbilisi Grand Prix Starts Sunday
The third Grand Prix tournament of the 2014-2015 cycle opens Saturday and commences play on Sunday in Tbilisi, Georgia, and features the following players:
- Alexander Grischuk (2810)
- Anish Giri (2797)
- Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2775)
- Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2759)
- Peter Svidler (2739)
- Dmitry Andreikin (2737)
- Dmitry Jakovenko (2733)
- Teimour Radjabov (2731)
- Lenier Dominguez Perez (2726)
- Evgeny Tomashevsky (2716)
- Rustam Kasimdzhanov (2705)
- Baadur Jobava (2696)
The top two finishers in the overall Grand Prix automatically qualify for the next Candidates' event, and right now those spots are held by Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura. Dmitry Andreikin is a relatively close third, however, and a big result here would give him a decent chance to qualify. Andreikin will not play in the final Grand Prix event (scheduled for Khanty-Mansiysk this May) while Caruana and Nakamura will be there. Also, Grischuk, Svidler and Tomashevsky scored as many points as Nakamura did in the Baku Grand Prix while skipping Tashkent; they too could conceivably equal or surpass Nakamura or even Caruana with a sufficiently strong performance in this tournament. The Candidates' spots are very much up for grabs! (More Grand Prix details and stats here.)
Reader Comments (6)
Also, Vachier-Lagrave (and Jobava) scored as many GP points as Caruana in Tashkent, while skipping Baku. While Giri is rather far down in the GP standings (Tashkent was his only bad event in the last half year), a good result in Tbilisi would also improve his chances for a rating spot - this race is also rather wide open.
I ran some ELO driven simulations of both Tbilisi and Khanty-Mansiysk, and estimated each player's odds of finishing top-2 in the final Grand Prix standings (and thus qualifying for the Candidates Tourney). The favorites are of course those with strong scores in the first events (Caruana, Nakamura, Andreikin), and those with strong ELO (Caruana, Grischuk, Nakamura, Giri, MVL). My full calculated odds for all 16 players:
Player ODDS
Fabiano Caruana (ITA) 62%
Alexander Grischuk (RUS) 42%
Hikaru Nakamura (USA) 36%
Anish Giri (NED) 13%
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA) 13%
Dmitry Andreikin (RUS) 9%
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (AZE) 6%
Boris Gelfand (ISR) 6%
Sergey Karjakin (RUS) 5%
Peter Svidler (RUS) 5%
Evgeny Tomashevsky (RUS) 1%
Dmitry Jakovenko (RUS) 0%
Baadur Jobava (GEO) 0%
Leinier Dominguez (CUB) 0%
Teimour Radjabov (AZE) 0%
Rustam Kasimdzhanov (UZB) 0%
What is Vladimir Kramnik's status regarding participation in the 2016 Candidates' Tournament. Has he already qualified?
[DM: Not at all. Unless he picks his rating up (and soon) his only way in will be through the World Cup, or if he somehow gets the wildcard - typically a special invitation by whoever ends up organizing the Candidates'.]
@Tai Pruce-Zimmerman: Details of your algorithm might be too complicated, to me it seems that your model may put too much emphasis on current Elo.
Giri vs. Vachier-Lagrave: 22 Elo points (or 24 if you used the live rating list) compensate for 35 GP points!?
Vachier-Lagrave vs. Jobava (tied in the GP standings): How much closer would they be in your list if Jobava hadn't lost 30 Elo points in Wijk aan Zee?
Gelfand vs. Mamedyarov: Equal chances because Mamedyarov is currently a bit higher-rated.
Any rating list (official or live) is just a snapshot IMO. Does it affect your calculations (relative chances of Andreikin, Gelfand, Mamedyarov and Karjakin) that the Tbilisi GP is nominally a bit weaker than the next one in Khanty-Mansiysk? But this might mostly affect the bottom of the standings: three "Elo favorites for last place" (Andreikin, Radjabov and Kasimdzhanov) will play in Tbilisi and skip the last event.
Would Caruana already qualify by virtue of his rating? Then would an extra spot open up?!
[DM: It's almost certain that he will, though it can be superseded. For instance, Kramnik was going to qualify by rating for the last cycle, but when he won the World Cup he got that slot and Karjakin wound up qualifying by rating. If Caruana gets one of the top two spots in the Grand Prix, that will take precedence.]
Btw, The relevant period for qualifying by rating to the next Candidates is all of 2015 (average of the 12 monthly lists), so I’d say Caruana is actually still far from guaranteeing his qualification by that path.