I offered brief details the other day, but now it's time to paint the full picture of how things work, and stand, in the Finals of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. Ten players are participating in a round-robin that's a modified version of the regular tour events. Each round is a four-game rapid (15'+10") match, with the winner getting 3 points and the loser 0. If it's tied 2-2, then there are two 5'+3" games, and if it's still tied after that there's a 5'+0" vs. 4'+0" Armageddon game. The player who wins the playoff (if one is needed) gets 2 points for match victory, the loser 1. Thus the maximum possible score for the tournament is 27 points.
Simple enough, but recall that the results in the earlier tour events have some carryover. For every 20 points' difference in the tour standings, a player receives an extra point. So there are pre-tournament standings, which look like this:
1. Magnus Carlsen 16.5
2. Wesley So 12.5
3. Levon Aronian 8
4. Teimour Radjabov 6
5. Anish Giri 5.5
6. Hikaru Nakamura 4
7. Vladislav Artemiev 3.5
8. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 2.5
9. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov .5
10. Jan-Krzysztof Duda 0
The maximum possible score is therefore not 27 (except for Duda), but as high as 43.5 points (if Carlsen runs the table).
Ok, on to today's pairings:
Carlsen - Duda (already won by Carlsen, 2.5-.5)
So - Mamedyarov (currently 1.5-.5, So)
Aronian - MVL (currently 2-1, Aronian)
Radjabov - Artemiev (1-1)
Giri - Nakamura (1.5-1.5)
Tournament site here.