re: FIDE Candidates Tournament for Chess now underway

Grischuk gets his first victory of the tournament with his win over MVL. Also Giri got a win over Ding Liren (can't overstate how rough this tournament has been for Ding). Caruana/Nepo and Wang/Alekseenko were draws

So with 3 rounds remaining, Nepo is a half point over Giri, and Giri is a half point over Caruana. Nepo has the tie breaker over Giri since Nepo beat him round 1 so he essentially has a full point lead when you factor that in.


There's still time for Giri and Caruana to catch up. They play each other tomorrow and Caruana has the white pieces so we'll see if Caruana can fight out a win, he definitely needs it. Nepo plays Wang tomorrow, we'll see how that goes, Wang hasn't been doing that great in the 2nd half of this tourney but he does have the white pieces so who knows.

quote:

---

Giri Carlsen would be a bloodbath. No thanks.

Nepo is too full of himself. No thanks.

Come on, Fabi

---

Fabi would definitely be the toughest challenge for Carlsen in classic controls, but if it goes like it did in 2018 and they have to go to rapid controls for tiebreaks, then Fabi is dead in the water because he kinda sucks at faster controls compared to all of the other potential challengers.

I think Giri and certainly Nepo could actually hold their own for the tiebreaks. Only thing is Nepo and Giri would also probably induce decisive results in classic controls (which can be a good thing, a lot of people had a problem with the 12 draws in 2018) and probably wouldn't even get to tiebreaks lol.

I'm rooting for Fabi as well. Only American in the tourney and also you gotta respect him for having the best prep in the game right now. But I'm not gonna whine about Nepo or Giri getting their shot either. Got a feeling Magnus is gonna win again no matter who he faces anyway

Sorry for not updating, had a busy weekend. But yesterday's slate produced all 4 decisive results. First time that's happened in the Candidates since the 60s so that was quite something to say the least.

Nepo beats Wang
Giri beats Caruana
MVL beats Alekseenko
Ding beats Grischuk


After these results, Nepo is right there on the cusp of winning this thing. Giri is only half a point behind him but due to tiebreaks it might as well be a full point with only 2 rounds left. But Nepo does have to play MVL as white and Ding as black, while Giri has Grischuk as black and Alekseenko as white. So Giri still has a path even if it's small.

The final round has concluded. Giri actually ties with Nepo for final points, but due to Nepo's victory over Giri in round 1 and drawing in round 8, Nepo has the head to head tiebreak and wins the tournament. Giri had a great 2nd half of the tournament but fell just short. I feel like Nepo kind of mailed it in today since he had already clinched so I don't want to say that if Giri hadn't lost yesterday that he'd have ended up winning, but still that's gotta be a tough pill to swallow.

Nepo vs. Caruana for the World Chess Championship. First game starts on November 24. See you guys then!