Ian Nepomniachtchi only qualified for the knockout stage with a win (against Alexander Grischuk) in the last round of the preliminaries, while Magnus Carlsen might have failed to qualify had he not won in the last round against Teimour Radjabov. But they both did, and so the quarterfinals of the FTX Crypto Cup will include both contestants of the forthcoming world championship match.
At the top of the pile was Fabiano Caruana, whose 3.5/5 score on the day left him with 10/15 overall, a point clear of his closest pursuers. There were four of them: Anish Giri, Hikaru Nakamura, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Wesley So. Carlsen and Radjabov were a further half a point back at 8.5 points apiece, and Nepo - who qualified - and Levon Aronian - who didn't - each had 8/15.
The rest of the field: Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (7.5); Alireza Firouzja, Peter Svidler, and Ding Liren (7); Daniil Dubov (6); Alexander Grischuk (5); and Alan Pichot (1.5).
Pairings follow the customary 1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7 (etc.) model, so we've got this to look forward to today (Wednesday), given in bracket order: