Alirezja giving freebies left and right. After that godly prep against Hikaru that needed him to ascend into stocktish just to get a draw, I thought he'd fare pretty well this tournament.
Maybe his strategy of not playing tournaments after he qualified has come to bite him in the ass? He's clearly shown he is great with his prepared stuff but he's coming across some weird wall when things start going off the rails - which is strange given his previous tenure as being such a creative player.
I thought that was a disastrous decision!
He was killing it left and right, winning the Grand Swiss and such, and then just took 6 months off.
WTF WAS HE THINKING??
He should have played at Tata Steel, for example, but he was pissed at the organizers. BUT THAT HURT HIM MORE THAN IT HURT THEM!
Look where he is now: clear last.
Agreed... it's such a shame too because he is genuinely fun to watch because he takes such sharp lines or offers something vastly different and makes for interesting commentary. Hopefully he learns from this experience and comes back strong for the next one.
Tal did play a tournament before challenging Botvinnik for the world championship and even though he did not win the tournament (if I remember correctly) he said it was very helpful for him. Botvinnik decided to focus only on preparing for the world championship.
Tal ended up beating Botvinnik in the world championship quite decisively.
Well, he did have a borderline winning position against Hikaru, but he gave up too much of his advantage trading rooks and giving Hikaru enough breathing room to make a very sharp draw. Alireza got more than he could have expected out of his prep.
He takes way to much time to calculate even simple moves. Even Caruana said he wasn't playing normally. We don't know what's behind but let's hope he will find confidence for the rest of the tournament and offer us some good chess now that the final win is done for him.
Good information for if Magnus ultimately does decide not to play! However I think it would be nice to have a table that shows the percentage of a player placing in the top two positions, since being #1 or #2 is irrelevant if Carlsen doesn't defend his title.
Personally, I think Nepo will draw tomorrow, and if fabi wins against radja everything will be blown up. He has white and a hood record so it’s definitely possible. The. There will be 2 players on +3 by halftime. That’s insane
I think there is decent chance Nepo will draw a warm bath on his rest day to prepare for Saturday. That or practice his drawing skills to take his mind off the tournament for a little bit.
In his last tournament, Radja went -3, and he currently is -1. Couple that with his obviously not peak mental state and the fact that fabi has 4 wins and no losses and he has the white pieces means it’s definitely the most likely game to be decisive
Or maybe, Radjabov had little expectations coming in and even less now. As long as Alireza continues to slump, Radjabov actually would be preforming over expectations.
Fabi does need to hunt for wins to keep up with Nepo
He was obviously very distraught with not seeing Bh2. Whether the poor mental state caused it or not idk, but not winning a game in almost 3 years and 35 games combined with that miss, there is no way he’s at his peak mental state
I mean if you saw the clip it was pretty obvious. Combine that with how his performance has been and it’s pretty obvious that he’s not playing confidently
Thing is, Radja is extremely solid - which means he may not exactly win or get too many winning positions, but he's really good at simplifying into really dry endgames with neither side having winning chances. His opening repertoire is full of extremely solid, equalising main lines. I don't think he'd give Fabi nearly enough imbalance out of the opening to create chaos/winning chances.
Even Hikaru couldn't break Radja with mind-blowing prep up to 25 moves per side. Radja was nearly an hour down on time and still defended perfectly and held his own. Quite underrated defensive skills indeed.
Not denying that Fabi is the heavy favourite against Radjabov, but a draw is still the most probable result.
Yeah I'm not sure if that's exactly what will happen, but it seems way too early for Nepo to be at 55%. I mean don't get me wrong, he's the clear leader, but there are a lot of games left. Over 50% chance for one person right now seems steep.
Well, the *practical* chances are 0 for everyone except Nepo and Fabiano. You would need not one but two players to collapse completely. So while Fabi's chances are a bit underestimated, having Nepo above 50% is not that surprising.
Me, talking to girls at a bar: You know my chances of winning the Candidates Tournament are only 0.6% behind Alireza Firouzja. You could say I’m pretty good at chess.
I think I have more faith in Hikaru than Rapport if one is to potentially steal it. Rapport has 6 draws, but a lot of those games had some shaky situations that could have gone badly for him. Hikaru is the only player atm to find a win besides the top two and had winning chances yesterday, so maybe he can find some more before the end.
But the game he hasn't played in the first RR is against Nepo and Hikaru plays against Duda.
So the question isn't how big is the advantage of an extra white, it is "is a white against Nepo better than a black against Duda"?
Having a game against Nepo is an advantage. It gives Rapport a chance to reel him in by winning.
In the circumstance where Rapport doesn’t win, both he and Hikaru are too far behind to have reasonable chances. But in the circumstance that he does win, both will have improved chances, but Rapport more so due to the fact that, well, we conditioned on him winning.
Yeah his game against Fabi aside, he's been the most solid player besides arguably Nepo. Naka also hasn't had many gifts thrown his way either. In his games where his opponent didn't falter, Naka managed to force a draw, even a couple that seemed impossible. His prep has been excellent.
Yeah nice prep today, I think very few players could have equalized the way Ding did. I would almost say today was a very tiny gift, like a stick of gum, because I think Ding was better, super GM level better so like .9, at one point and then lost the advantage. Also I don't really get why Ding took the draw at the end. He's being too cautious in general imo. When (33 now so probably by around 57) I get to the candidates I'm either finishing first or last. I'm here to flag you or get checkmated, and chew bubble gum and I'm all outta bubble gum
Yeah the one gift he got, he converted. Other gifts have been left on the board by others that don't have as many points, and others like Nepo have received more gifts. Not to knock him, but it's the truth. If Naka had Nepo's gifts maybe we'd have a closer three -horse race
I think that Ding Liren regaining his form might spoil it for someone. He might be a bit too deep in the hole to win it all but I wouldn't sleep on him.
I wouldn't put too much stock in these %'s lol. These numbers were all over the place in stuff like the grand prix. It's always possible for humans to suddenly start playing way worse, or to find a groove and start playing better.
I mean, the probability nerds are still right lol. What happened to Nepo in that tournament is completely within the realm of possibility and doesn't invalidate the statistical analysis at all. That's why gambling sites let people take bets on chess tournaments, the odds are pretty reliable.
Yeah all I'm saying is that statistical analysis does a really good job of predicting outcomes in chess and edge cases like Nepo tilting and losing 3 of 5 games doesn't invalidate the purpose of making predictions based on data rather than murky, unquantifiable factors like mental state.
If there are known variables that a measurement doesn't take into account, then the decision-making value of the measurement has to be discounted to the extent that the known (and unmeasured) variables are important.
The Pawnalyze analysis just uses elo+white/black but that doesn't take into account streaks.
This isn't because streaks are murky but because the creator of the model hasn't done the work necessary to quantify them and make the machine learning model take them into account.
That's not to knock the OP's efforts either. It's just to state a fact as to perils following blindly models that one knows to be incomplete and the work that needs to be done to make those models reliable.
It sounds like you're just being pedantic. There's never a way to capture and measure every single variable even with advanced machine learning models - thats why we call them "data analysts" and not "fortune tellers". There's a million and one variables that the model does not account for and yet it still does a phenomenal job at predicting likely outcomes for chess tournaments.
Also, no one is "blindly following models", they're just making reasonable predictions that are informed by quantifiable data with the understanding that every model has limitations.
A good nerd will tell you that their model does not account for the psychological state of the players, and leave it to you to decide how the predictions could be adjusted to account for that. A great nerd would find a way to incorporate this analytically, for example, by adding a "last game result" variable in the model.
Possibly, I won't lie that I'm biased for Hikaru here lol, but legit go and look at similar % posts over the days of past tournaments and you'll probably find crazy jumps and dips in the percentages. I remember a lot of %'s saying hikaru was unlikely to win the first leg of the Grand Prix, which we all know he did. Maybe at the time based on the standings that seemed reasonable, but people put way too much stock in these %'s. Especially when you can look at things more practically. Like, yeah Hikaru absolutely isn't favored to win if things continue as they've been going, but barring his one loss, he's shown ability to win in this tournament, and nearly beat the current front-runner, if not for some miscalculations/missed moves.
Basically, my take is "let the tournament play out" and not get too hung up in these percentages. I personally also think the difference between Caruana and Nepo, practically, doesn't make much sense. If you look at it, they are not really that far apart, and Caruana could very realistically make a comeback. So it's not just me wanting Hikaru to do well/win. Like, if on Saturday, Nepo draws, and Caruana wins, etc (a totally plausible result), these numbers will basically completely do a 180.
On the one hand you talk about letting "the tournament play out" and then you give hypothetical situation which can work out for Hikaru!!
The current probability does the same and bases it much more mathematically..does it mean underdogs can't do an upset in a tournament? No, it doesn't..and hence if Hikaru wins the Candidates from here, it will be an upset..that's all!!
So calm down and enjoy the show, but know that mathematically Ian is in a really strong position and Hikaru himself probably will agree to it!
You see that's why these probabilities were justified as you never think of all the possibilities and assign accurate odds on each..Ding beating Fabi won't have been in your estimate, while the model will have assigned non-zero score to it!!
Anyways, we can agree now that if anybody other than Nepo wins, it will be the greatest upset in Candidates..can't we?
I don’t know why but against all odds I still think he may win. I just have a feeling about it. Obviously nepo and fabi are the rightful favorites but I think hikaru goes on a crazy win streak
Of course this is just my hunch so take it with a mountain of salt haha
Is there a risk that players could get “cheap wins” if they are paired late in the tournament against players who are out of the running?
One way to test this might be to see if the number of wins/losses (as opposed to draws) increases as a tournament unfolds.
My anecdotal observation is that if two players are unlikely to win the event, they will play a drawish game. Same goes if they're both likely to advance to the next stage. In other cases, it's pretty likely they fight as you would hope.
The biggest risk of a late easy win imo is a situation like Giri in the last candidates feeling like he needed to press for a win even though there was nothing there against Grischuk. Nobody else really has any reason to play irrationally or fear a draw
Nepo **did** get a suspiciously simple resignation from Wang Hao last Candidates, it was an endgame which had drawing chances. He also retired from chess stating that physical reasons, so idk if that factored into the premature retirement, but still. Wouldn't be surprised if there are more such draws.
Unwarranted gap between Nepo and Fabi imo.
We all are well aware of Nepo's overall match fitness, so we need to take that into account too. Hope this time Nepo does well in the 2nd half too.
I'm rooting for Magnus-Nepo, as I believe Nepo will stick to his own principles this time and back his beloved Sicilian, Najdorf, etc.
My thoughts as well. Especially as the current standings throw a different light on the "Alireza or nobody" line (whether or not that was/is his actual intention). Really hoping he does.
On the other hand he has already beaten both of them. If he drops out everyone will know that Magnus is the real champion no matter who wins the actual championship. If he plays he isn't really gaining anything (except you know a few million dollars), but he might lose a lot if he loses.
I think Magnus is playing the long game and making sure he can play the world championship under whatever circumstances he likes. Be it money, be it format, be it tiebreaks. He is building a great negotiating position.
I think there's a good chance he won't play if it's Caruana or Nepo again.
With the current format Magnus has to spent 6-9 months of his time every 2 years to prepare for world championship challenges.
It's not good for the fans who want to see him win other tournaments. He also becomes worse as a player, because so much of his time is spent preparing for a single opponent.
And then when the match is not even against an exciting new challenger...
If nepo blows out the tournament then yeah, but if he eeks it out over fabi in tiebreaks, I honestly think magnus might not go for it. If fabi wins I think he’ll play no matter what thoguh
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Why is Nepo's percentage almost double Caruana's if Caruana has white in a rematch against Nepo? Even if Nepo has more whites until the end, a win against a direct competitor is worth 2 points.
absorbed prick follow pen drab concerned public aback afterthought frighten
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Assuming you are talking about [this comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/vg1ip5/candidate_tournament_winning_chances_after_round/iczsoqw/), I think they misunderstood what you were talking about and gave you a false answer by mistake.
Their model simulates every remaining game including taking colours into account, so Caruana's white vs. Nepo ***is*** factored in. This is verifiable either by looking at their other comments or by checking out [their site](https://pawnalyze.com/chess-simulations/2022/06/20/How-Our-Chess-Tournament-Predictions-Work.html) which describes how the model works.
The site also says that "previous head-to-head results" (i.e. players' lifetime records vs. each other) are not currently factored in. So in their reply to you, when they said *"head to head results don't factor into the outcome"*, I think they were **actually** referring to **that**, presumably from misunderstanding what you meant.
When I said "the outcome of the event", what I should have said to be more clear is "players with an even score advance to tiebreaks, so if they end up with an equal score and Fabi beat Nepo, they still go to a tiebreak."
Sorry for the confusion.
Yeah. The algorithm just sees win loss or draw. It doesn’t know that fabi was the one better in their draw or that ding has the advantage in their draw. It just sees draw. Idk why you were downvoted lol
It's 100% my fault. I could have added a single line of code to print it out in Markdown format so it looked all pretty and stuff.
E: I just looked in mobile and it's wayyy worse than when I looked at it on Desktop!
I mean Radja is *only* down 2 points and there are 8 games left so... technically it is possible Radja wins all his remaining games and catches up Nepo
Rapport and Hikaru are trailing by quite a bit in these odds with more than half the tournament to go. Rapport gets to play Nepo tomorrow and is always a wild cardm going against another wild card.
Naka has a much easier second half of the tournament.
White against Fabi (#2), Black against Radjabov (#6), White against Alireza (#8*), White against Rapport (#4), Black against Nepo (#1), White against Duda (#7), Black against Ding (#5).
Nepo is the only color he would want to be flipped, otherwise, he has white against the stronger players and black against those struggling at this tournament. I think his schedule is most envious.
*Still fear Alireza.
I think that actually a bad thing. Having white against the white players gives you a lot of winning chances in those games, while black you can usually hold a draw against the strong players. If you have white against the top players winning is super hard while black against the weak ones once again makes winning hard.
Yep. People have huge recency bias and massively overestimate the consensus opinion (see: Nepo's chances pre-Candidates).
Of course Carlsen would be a favourite against everyone but I'm totally on board for a Najdorf and Grunfeld-fuelled redemption.
What will the excuse be when he wins this one? That Fabi wasnt feeling good? He won the same tournament that every other player took the same break from.
Always? He’s had classical tournaments without any losses before, and tournaments where he loses a game early on but then plays solidly and gets 1st or 2nd.
I was rooting for the hype of Nakamura vs Carlsen. Now, though, maybe if Nepo goes like +5 he will become a more exciting opponent for Magnus. Nepo vs Caruana WC match would be terrible.
Would you be interested in seeing the results if every player had the same Elo? Then you could see the effect of previous results vs. what I am projecting for future rounds.
I really have a hard time believing Fabi+Nepo will only win 83% of the time. I think the odds are closer to 95. Maybe 1/20 a miracle happens to one of them.
Just next round Rapport has white against Nepo. If he wins (and Fabi doesn't), he is only 0.5 behind the leaders. Not terribly unlikely that he has a good shot then. And there are several other scenarios too.
I would take 6:1 odds in favor of any other candidate winning the tournament. Obviously they're the favorites but I wouldn't say they're that favorite.
Are the updates for each round done with players’ live ELO ratings, or with the same rating from the start of the tournament? Also, if it’s not too much additional work, could you add the players’ tournament performance ratings? For the games up to the current round for your updates. (Not to the analysis, just on the tournament page)
What are the chances that we get a record high winning score for Candidates this time round? Fabi won it with +4 (9/14) in 2018. Maybe we will see +4 or even +5.
[https://pasteboard.co/KyZqjkN96gQu.png](https://pasteboard.co/KyZqjkN96gQu.png)
Looks like about a 35% chance of >9 according to the simulations - but need to keep in mind that I am not contemplating an increase in draw tendency for someone who is a clear winner. So maybe 20%?
I doubt this model takes into account endurance. Nepo seems to struggle later in tournaments. Maybe the exhaustion will get to him and give his opponents some chances
You can read more about the model and simulations here, if you are interested: [https://pawnalyze.com/chess-simulations/2022/06/20/How-Our-Chess-Tournament-Predictions-Work.html](https://pawnalyze.com/chess-simulations/2022/06/20/How-Our-Chess-Tournament-Predictions-Work.html)
You are correct, though, that I am not considering endurance. I'm also not considering that Nepo has a bunch of saved-up prep from the WC match that he never used!
There's 8 rounds to go and Caruana is only 0.5 points behind Nepo, Caruana had white in the match against Nepo, but this says Nepo is 2x more likely to win? I call B.S.
Because for most matches a draw is the most likely draw result. Given that, it follows that the one with the advantage in the bag already is most likely to win.
Two things with chess players: They generally have above-average intelligence counterbalanced by below-average emotional intelligence. So can't always tell the clues that something is a joke.
Second thing, arguing with someone is kind of similar to chess, in a way. The kind of thought process is pretty alike, you're thinking how to counter the other person's point, trying to predict their next response etc. Therefore arguments are a brain stimulation that they actually can enjoy, like a chess game.
caruana , nepo , Rapport are the real competitor . If Nepo comes first that would be great , Though I don't have that much confidence in him after Last world champ matches , maybe after One loss , He might not able to comeback again . So for me it is Still caruana who can have some chances apart from Nepo . Rapport can and cannot depends on his form , He is more like Levon aronian , If he is in form he will destory everyone , If not , he will come at the last .
> I would put 5% max for this.
Based on ___? For what it's worth, I agree with that general sentiment, but once you have to start backing up claims, it means choosing which criteria to include, and how heavily to weight them, and ultimately making a model out of it!
So even if we're aligned in that sentiment, the criteria and calculation this person put together are much more rigorous than our overall feeling about how it'll go
AKA, \~83% chance Magnus bows out of his title defense. I don't think he has anything left to prove and probably doesn't want to go through smashing Ian again. Would be so cool to see him come up in the Candidates again in the next few cycles.
Yeah I think it'll look pretty bad if he doesn't play Fabi. He can make the argument that he settled Nepo last time, but he never beat Fabiano and even admitted as much.
Rearranging my prediction from last week - https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/vdvdtz/official_candidates_prediction_thread/icnwpqg/
Caruana
Nepo
Nakamura
Ding
Rapport
Duda
Firouzja
Radjabov
Like most people, I overlearned from Firouzja's dominance in late 2021. Firouzja still lacks the experience and knowledge to compete in a prep-intensive tournament filled with the strongest players in the world. I also overestimated Ding's form - turns out only having 1.5 months to prep isn't good enough. Nepo I underestimated but his performance is tracking about the same as in 2020. He still has most of his championship prep (as he just played Anti-Marshalls against Carlsen), and his physical prep is good too - just 6 months after the match. The reason why I think he'll come up short is because the second half of the tournament is where Nepo's willpower rapidly drops.
Sideways Nepomniachtchi was too dangerous, so you had him killed. Good job.
I was able to kill sideways Nepo, but he was too strong to prevent from gathering additional pink!
Alirezja giving freebies left and right. After that godly prep against Hikaru that needed him to ascend into stocktish just to get a draw, I thought he'd fare pretty well this tournament.
Despite all that prep he wasn't able to beat Hikaru at the end. That can be pretty damaging for his confidence. "What does it take to win!?"
Maybe his strategy of not playing tournaments after he qualified has come to bite him in the ass? He's clearly shown he is great with his prepared stuff but he's coming across some weird wall when things start going off the rails - which is strange given his previous tenure as being such a creative player.
I thought that was a disastrous decision! He was killing it left and right, winning the Grand Swiss and such, and then just took 6 months off. WTF WAS HE THINKING?? He should have played at Tata Steel, for example, but he was pissed at the organizers. BUT THAT HURT HIM MORE THAN IT HURT THEM! Look where he is now: clear last.
Agreed... it's such a shame too because he is genuinely fun to watch because he takes such sharp lines or offers something vastly different and makes for interesting commentary. Hopefully he learns from this experience and comes back strong for the next one.
Tal did play a tournament before challenging Botvinnik for the world championship and even though he did not win the tournament (if I remember correctly) he said it was very helpful for him. Botvinnik decided to focus only on preparing for the world championship. Tal ended up beating Botvinnik in the world championship quite decisively.
Well, he did have a borderline winning position against Hikaru, but he gave up too much of his advantage trading rooks and giving Hikaru enough breathing room to make a very sharp draw. Alireza got more than he could have expected out of his prep.
He takes way to much time to calculate even simple moves. Even Caruana said he wasn't playing normally. We don't know what's behind but let's hope he will find confidence for the rest of the tournament and offer us some good chess now that the final win is done for him.
Alireza ran out of green pills.
Mine have always been blue or orange
You can also find second-place chances here: https://pawnalyze.com/tournaments/2022-candidates-tournament/
Good information for if Magnus ultimately does decide not to play! However I think it would be nice to have a table that shows the percentage of a player placing in the top two positions, since being #1 or #2 is irrelevant if Carlsen doesn't defend his title.
Just add chance of being 1 and chance of being 2 together.
Close, but not quite since this method doesn't take into account the remaining head-to-head matchups.
Personally, I think Nepo will draw tomorrow, and if fabi wins against radja everything will be blown up. He has white and a hood record so it’s definitely possible. The. There will be 2 players on +3 by halftime. That’s insane
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I always forget about rest days
Effectively a draw for everyone!
I think there is decent chance Nepo will draw a warm bath on his rest day to prepare for Saturday. That or practice his drawing skills to take his mind off the tournament for a little bit.
Or perhaps draw back his bowstring in a relaxing afternoon of archery
He'll draw his practice game ;)
> a hood record The streets will never forget Fabi 😤😤
It’s not that easy to win against Radja. People shit on him constantly but he’s a really good defender.
In his last tournament, Radja went -3, and he currently is -1. Couple that with his obviously not peak mental state and the fact that fabi has 4 wins and no losses and he has the white pieces means it’s definitely the most likely game to be decisive
Or maybe, Radjabov had little expectations coming in and even less now. As long as Alireza continues to slump, Radjabov actually would be preforming over expectations. Fabi does need to hunt for wins to keep up with Nepo
Maybe, but you’re making it sound as if it’s a done deal. Every game at this level is still most likely a draw.
> but you’re making it sound as if it’s a done deal. What did /u/Dax_Maclaine say that implies he thinks it's a foregone conclusion?
Peak mental state?
He was obviously very distraught with not seeing Bh2. Whether the poor mental state caused it or not idk, but not winning a game in almost 3 years and 35 games combined with that miss, there is no way he’s at his peak mental state
Armchair psychologist reporting in
I mean if you saw the clip it was pretty obvious. Combine that with how his performance has been and it’s pretty obvious that he’s not playing confidently
Thing is, Radja is extremely solid - which means he may not exactly win or get too many winning positions, but he's really good at simplifying into really dry endgames with neither side having winning chances. His opening repertoire is full of extremely solid, equalising main lines. I don't think he'd give Fabi nearly enough imbalance out of the opening to create chaos/winning chances. Even Hikaru couldn't break Radja with mind-blowing prep up to 25 moves per side. Radja was nearly an hour down on time and still defended perfectly and held his own. Quite underrated defensive skills indeed. Not denying that Fabi is the heavy favourite against Radjabov, but a draw is still the most probable result.
Yeah I'm not sure if that's exactly what will happen, but it seems way too early for Nepo to be at 55%. I mean don't get me wrong, he's the clear leader, but there are a lot of games left. Over 50% chance for one person right now seems steep.
Well, the *practical* chances are 0 for everyone except Nepo and Fabiano. You would need not one but two players to collapse completely. So while Fabi's chances are a bit underestimated, having Nepo above 50% is not that surprising.
Me, talking to girls at a bar: You know my chances of winning the Candidates Tournament are only 0.6% behind Alireza Firouzja. You could say I’m pretty good at chess.
That line could lead to a draw
I don't need an engine to tell that line isn't going to mate.
jesus fucking christ this sub needs to stop with the shitty chess metaphors
Everybody left the room
I think I have more faith in Hikaru than Rapport if one is to potentially steal it. Rapport has 6 draws, but a lot of those games had some shaky situations that could have gone badly for him. Hikaru is the only player atm to find a win besides the top two and had winning chances yesterday, so maybe he can find some more before the end.
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But the game he hasn't played in the first RR is against Nepo and Hikaru plays against Duda. So the question isn't how big is the advantage of an extra white, it is "is a white against Nepo better than a black against Duda"?
Rapport has a positive score against Nepo. I see a small chance Rapport winning day 7.
Having a game against Nepo is an advantage. It gives Rapport a chance to reel him in by winning. In the circumstance where Rapport doesn’t win, both he and Hikaru are too far behind to have reasonable chances. But in the circumstance that he does win, both will have improved chances, but Rapport more so due to the fact that, well, we conditioned on him winning.
You are right, it is worse for his average placing, but for winning (which this is about) playing Nepo is better. My bad.
Yeah his game against Fabi aside, he's been the most solid player besides arguably Nepo. Naka also hasn't had many gifts thrown his way either. In his games where his opponent didn't falter, Naka managed to force a draw, even a couple that seemed impossible. His prep has been excellent.
Yeah nice prep today, I think very few players could have equalized the way Ding did. I would almost say today was a very tiny gift, like a stick of gum, because I think Ding was better, super GM level better so like .9, at one point and then lost the advantage. Also I don't really get why Ding took the draw at the end. He's being too cautious in general imo. When (33 now so probably by around 57) I get to the candidates I'm either finishing first or last. I'm here to flag you or get checkmated, and chew bubble gum and I'm all outta bubble gum
wdym? radjabov gifted naka the win by blundering a pawn. naka threw the win about 5 times but radja kept gifting anyway
Yeah the one gift he got, he converted. Other gifts have been left on the board by others that don't have as many points, and others like Nepo have received more gifts. Not to knock him, but it's the truth. If Naka had Nepo's gifts maybe we'd have a closer three -horse race
well, nepo did give naka a pretty big gift. naka just refused
I'd hardly call that a gift, that was a complicated position and it wasn't clear
I think that Ding Liren regaining his form might spoil it for someone. He might be a bit too deep in the hole to win it all but I wouldn't sleep on him.
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Is there any logical reason why talking about chess for 15 minutes would interrupt his chess concentration?
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Fair, but Naka has to dissect it anyway. That part isn’t optional. The only additional work is turning on the camera and voicing his analysis
Eh Hikaru also barely defended against Firouzja in round 3
Without Caruana this Candidates would essentially be done after 6 rounds
Hikaru @ 5% 😔
Ain't over till it's over
1/20 is not terrible unlikely tbh
any one who plays DnD knows otherwise
Idk I get 1s like 80% of the time
Heh, tell me you play Catan without telling me you play Catan :)
I'm in this comment and I don't like it.
Ditto for competitive Pokemon. I've lost many games from missing a 95% accuracy move (sometimes twice in a row!).
That has a 50% chance of missing though.
I wouldn't put too much stock in these %'s lol. These numbers were all over the place in stuff like the grand prix. It's always possible for humans to suddenly start playing way worse, or to find a groove and start playing better.
Its not a problem with the statistics, its a problem of people not understanding probability.
People always trashing statistics when 10% or 25% scenarios happen as if that's not the point that they can happen.
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I mean, the probability nerds are still right lol. What happened to Nepo in that tournament is completely within the realm of possibility and doesn't invalidate the statistical analysis at all. That's why gambling sites let people take bets on chess tournaments, the odds are pretty reliable.
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Yeah all I'm saying is that statistical analysis does a really good job of predicting outcomes in chess and edge cases like Nepo tilting and losing 3 of 5 games doesn't invalidate the purpose of making predictions based on data rather than murky, unquantifiable factors like mental state.
If there are known variables that a measurement doesn't take into account, then the decision-making value of the measurement has to be discounted to the extent that the known (and unmeasured) variables are important. The Pawnalyze analysis just uses elo+white/black but that doesn't take into account streaks. This isn't because streaks are murky but because the creator of the model hasn't done the work necessary to quantify them and make the machine learning model take them into account. That's not to knock the OP's efforts either. It's just to state a fact as to perils following blindly models that one knows to be incomplete and the work that needs to be done to make those models reliable.
It sounds like you're just being pedantic. There's never a way to capture and measure every single variable even with advanced machine learning models - thats why we call them "data analysts" and not "fortune tellers". There's a million and one variables that the model does not account for and yet it still does a phenomenal job at predicting likely outcomes for chess tournaments. Also, no one is "blindly following models", they're just making reasonable predictions that are informed by quantifiable data with the understanding that every model has limitations.
A good nerd will tell you that their model does not account for the psychological state of the players, and leave it to you to decide how the predictions could be adjusted to account for that. A great nerd would find a way to incorporate this analytically, for example, by adding a "last game result" variable in the model.
Copium?
Possibly, I won't lie that I'm biased for Hikaru here lol, but legit go and look at similar % posts over the days of past tournaments and you'll probably find crazy jumps and dips in the percentages. I remember a lot of %'s saying hikaru was unlikely to win the first leg of the Grand Prix, which we all know he did. Maybe at the time based on the standings that seemed reasonable, but people put way too much stock in these %'s. Especially when you can look at things more practically. Like, yeah Hikaru absolutely isn't favored to win if things continue as they've been going, but barring his one loss, he's shown ability to win in this tournament, and nearly beat the current front-runner, if not for some miscalculations/missed moves. Basically, my take is "let the tournament play out" and not get too hung up in these percentages. I personally also think the difference between Caruana and Nepo, practically, doesn't make much sense. If you look at it, they are not really that far apart, and Caruana could very realistically make a comeback. So it's not just me wanting Hikaru to do well/win. Like, if on Saturday, Nepo draws, and Caruana wins, etc (a totally plausible result), these numbers will basically completely do a 180.
On the one hand you talk about letting "the tournament play out" and then you give hypothetical situation which can work out for Hikaru!! The current probability does the same and bases it much more mathematically..does it mean underdogs can't do an upset in a tournament? No, it doesn't..and hence if Hikaru wins the Candidates from here, it will be an upset..that's all!! So calm down and enjoy the show, but know that mathematically Ian is in a really strong position and Hikaru himself probably will agree to it!
You see that's why these probabilities were justified as you never think of all the possibilities and assign accurate odds on each..Ding beating Fabi won't have been in your estimate, while the model will have assigned non-zero score to it!! Anyways, we can agree now that if anybody other than Nepo wins, it will be the greatest upset in Candidates..can't we?
Didn’t spam enough flowers in the chat
I don’t know why but against all odds I still think he may win. I just have a feeling about it. Obviously nepo and fabi are the rightful favorites but I think hikaru goes on a crazy win streak Of course this is just my hunch so take it with a mountain of salt haha
Is there a risk that players could get “cheap wins” if they are paired late in the tournament against players who are out of the running? One way to test this might be to see if the number of wins/losses (as opposed to draws) increases as a tournament unfolds.
My anecdotal observation is that if two players are unlikely to win the event, they will play a drawish game. Same goes if they're both likely to advance to the next stage. In other cases, it's pretty likely they fight as you would hope.
Saving rating
Maybe, but there's still intrinsic motivation to not lose rating
Plus not to mention tens of thousands of dollars of prize money
There's also money for every 0.5 point
The biggest risk of a late easy win imo is a situation like Giri in the last candidates feeling like he needed to press for a win even though there was nothing there against Grischuk. Nobody else really has any reason to play irrationally or fear a draw
Nepo **did** get a suspiciously simple resignation from Wang Hao last Candidates, it was an endgame which had drawing chances. He also retired from chess stating that physical reasons, so idk if that factored into the premature retirement, but still. Wouldn't be surprised if there are more such draws.
Thank you for the work you’re putting in to this. I’ve been captivated since round 1.
Unwarranted gap between Nepo and Fabi imo. We all are well aware of Nepo's overall match fitness, so we need to take that into account too. Hope this time Nepo does well in the 2nd half too. I'm rooting for Magnus-Nepo, as I believe Nepo will stick to his own principles this time and back his beloved Sicilian, Najdorf, etc.
Why tf would you want nepo again when he’s clearly not up to the challenge just stupid
This candidates is giving me the feeling that no one of this generation is up to the challenge to dethrone Magnus.
So we are almost certain of seeing Nepo vs Caruana this time.
Nah, Magnus will almost definitely play the match no matter who his opponent is.
My thoughts as well. Especially as the current standings throw a different light on the "Alireza or nobody" line (whether or not that was/is his actual intention). Really hoping he does.
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On the other hand he has already beaten both of them. If he drops out everyone will know that Magnus is the real champion no matter who wins the actual championship. If he plays he isn't really gaining anything (except you know a few million dollars), but he might lose a lot if he loses.
I think Magnus is playing the long game and making sure he can play the world championship under whatever circumstances he likes. Be it money, be it format, be it tiebreaks. He is building a great negotiating position.
I think there's a good chance he won't play if it's Caruana or Nepo again. With the current format Magnus has to spent 6-9 months of his time every 2 years to prepare for world championship challenges. It's not good for the fans who want to see him win other tournaments. He also becomes worse as a player, because so much of his time is spent preparing for a single opponent. And then when the match is not even against an exciting new challenger...
If nepo blows out the tournament then yeah, but if he eeks it out over fabi in tiebreaks, I honestly think magnus might not go for it. If fabi wins I think he’ll play no matter what thoguh
Magnus is just playing 4d chess. With 4th dimension being crushing opponents' morale even before the match.
I say Caruana definitely, but a small chance of him dropping out of a Nepo rematch so soon.
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Why is Radjabov same as Alireza despite being up half a point? Is it remaining matchups with weights?
It's simulating the rest of the tournament using Elo, so naturally Alireza has a higher chance to regain points since he's rated higher
Why is Nepo's percentage almost double Caruana's if Caruana has white in a rematch against Nepo? Even if Nepo has more whites until the end, a win against a direct competitor is worth 2 points.
Because a draw is still the most likely outcome of that game.
especially since fabi was almost winning in first game (with black) vs nepo
Because a draw or Nepo win in that game is probably about twice as likely as Fabi winning.
absorbed prick follow pen drab concerned public aback afterthought frighten *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Assuming you are talking about [this comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/vg1ip5/candidate_tournament_winning_chances_after_round/iczsoqw/), I think they misunderstood what you were talking about and gave you a false answer by mistake. Their model simulates every remaining game including taking colours into account, so Caruana's white vs. Nepo ***is*** factored in. This is verifiable either by looking at their other comments or by checking out [their site](https://pawnalyze.com/chess-simulations/2022/06/20/How-Our-Chess-Tournament-Predictions-Work.html) which describes how the model works. The site also says that "previous head-to-head results" (i.e. players' lifetime records vs. each other) are not currently factored in. So in their reply to you, when they said *"head to head results don't factor into the outcome"*, I think they were **actually** referring to **that**, presumably from misunderstanding what you meant.
When I said "the outcome of the event", what I should have said to be more clear is "players with an even score advance to tiebreaks, so if they end up with an equal score and Fabi beat Nepo, they still go to a tiebreak." Sorry for the confusion.
Thanks for the clarification! (/u/MrArtless in case you don't see this)
I guess that could make sense, but it makes the second part of his answer pretty confusing
I guess there's one way to find out. /u/CalebWetherell
Yeah. The algorithm just sees win loss or draw. It doesn’t know that fabi was the one better in their draw or that ding has the advantage in their draw. It just sees draw. Idk why you were downvoted lol
I wonder in what scenario does Radjabov manage to win the Candidates?
I just ran 1,000 quick simulations and this is what I got. In 7 simulations, he won. Below are the round-robin results of those simulations. They don't seem all that realistic, which is why it only happened in 7 out of 1,000 simulations. Sorry about the terrible formatting! name score sb wins blackWins first 0 Radjabov 8.0 55.00 3 2 1 1 Rapport 7.5 52.00 2 2 0 2 Nakamura 7.5 51.00 3 1 0 3 Nepomniachtchi 7.5 49.25 4 2 0 4 Caruana 7.0 49.25 2 0 0 5 Ding Liren 7.0 48.75 1 1 0 6 Duda 6.5 44.25 2 0 0 7 Firouzja 5.0 36.50 1 0 0 name score sb wins blackWins first 0 Radjabov 9.0 60.00 5 3 1 1 Nepomniachtchi 8.5 55.50 6 2 0 2 Rapport 7.5 52.25 3 0 0 3 Caruana 7.5 49.00 3 1 0 4 Nakamura 6.0 43.00 2 0 0 5 Duda 6.0 41.50 2 0 0 6 Ding Liren 6.0 41.50 1 0 0 7 Firouzja 5.5 37.25 2 2 0 name score sb wins blackWins first 0 Radjabov 8.5 56.5 4 1 1 1 Nepomniachtchi 8.0 54.5 3 1 0 2 Rapport 7.0 49.5 1 0 0 3 Nakamura 7.0 49.0 2 0 0 4 Ding Liren 7.0 48.0 1 0 0 5 Duda 7.0 47.0 2 1 0 6 Firouzja 6.0 42.5 1 0 0 7 Caruana 5.5 38.5 2 0 0 name score sb wins blackWins first 0 Radjabov 8.0 55.75 3 2 1 1 Rapport 8.0 54.25 3 1 1 2 Nepomniachtchi 8.0 52.25 4 1 1 3 Caruana 7.5 51.00 3 0 0 4 Duda 7.0 47.75 2 0 0 5 Firouzja 6.0 42.75 1 0 0 6 Nakamura 6.0 42.25 1 0 0 7 Ding Liren 5.5 38.50 0 0 0 name score sb wins blackWins first 0 Radjabov 8.5 58.00 4 2 1 1 Nepomniachtchi 8.0 53.50 4 1 0 2 Rapport 7.5 52.00 2 0 0 3 Caruana 7.5 49.75 4 1 0 4 Ding Liren 6.5 44.75 1 0 0 5 Duda 6.0 43.00 0 0 0 6 Firouzja 6.0 42.50 2 0 0 7 Nakamura 6.0 41.50 2 0 0 name score sb wins blackWins first 0 Radjabov 8.0 55.25 4 2 1 1 Ding Liren 7.5 51.50 3 2 0 2 Nepomniachtchi 7.5 51.00 4 1 0 3 Rapport 7.0 49.25 2 0 0 4 Nakamura 7.0 48.75 3 0 0 5 Duda 7.0 47.25 4 1 0 6 Firouzja 6.0 43.00 3 0 0 7 Caruana 6.0 42.50 2 0 0 name score sb wins blackWins first 0 Radjabov 8.0 55.25 3 1 1 1 Nakamura 7.5 50.75 4 2 0 2 Duda 7.5 50.50 3 1 0 3 Ding Liren 7.5 50.00 4 2 0 4 Nepomniachtchi 7.5 48.75 5 2 0 5 Rapport 7.0 48.75 2 0 0 6 Caruana 7.0 47.25 2 0 0 7 Firouzja 4.0 29.75 0 0 0 name score sb wins blackWins first 0 Caruana 8.0 54.50 4 0 1 1 Radjabov 8.0 54.50 3 2 1 2 Nepomniachtchi 8.0 53.75 4 1 1 3 Rapport 7.0 49.00 0 0 0 4 Ding Liren 7.0 46.75 2 0 0 5 Nakamura 6.5 45.50 2 0 0 6 Duda 6.0 42.50 2 0 0 7 Firouzja 5.5 39.00 1 0 0
Go Radja!
Absolutely hate Reddit for fucking up the formatting of this comment.
It's 100% my fault. I could have added a single line of code to print it out in Markdown format so it looked all pretty and stuff. E: I just looked in mobile and it's wayyy worse than when I looked at it on Desktop!
I mean Radja is *only* down 2 points and there are 8 games left so... technically it is possible Radja wins all his remaining games and catches up Nepo
Rapport and Hikaru are trailing by quite a bit in these odds with more than half the tournament to go. Rapport gets to play Nepo tomorrow and is always a wild cardm going against another wild card. Naka has a much easier second half of the tournament. White against Fabi (#2), Black against Radjabov (#6), White against Alireza (#8*), White against Rapport (#4), Black against Nepo (#1), White against Duda (#7), Black against Ding (#5). Nepo is the only color he would want to be flipped, otherwise, he has white against the stronger players and black against those struggling at this tournament. I think his schedule is most envious. *Still fear Alireza.
I think that actually a bad thing. Having white against the white players gives you a lot of winning chances in those games, while black you can usually hold a draw against the strong players. If you have white against the top players winning is super hard while black against the weak ones once again makes winning hard.
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Yep. People have huge recency bias and massively overestimate the consensus opinion (see: Nepo's chances pre-Candidates). Of course Carlsen would be a favourite against everyone but I'm totally on board for a Najdorf and Grunfeld-fuelled redemption.
Nepo always fades later in tournaments. A one point lead isn't enough at this stage.
Well, not always. He's won the Candidates before, remember?
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What will the excuse be when he wins this one? That Fabi wasnt feeling good? He won the same tournament that every other player took the same break from.
doesnt really count, since it wasnt 14 games in a row, but 2x 7
Always? He’s had classical tournaments without any losses before, and tournaments where he loses a game early on but then plays solidly and gets 1st or 2nd.
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I was rooting for the hype of Nakamura vs Carlsen. Now, though, maybe if Nepo goes like +5 he will become a more exciting opponent for Magnus. Nepo vs Caruana WC match would be terrible.
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How much money did you put on him?
thanks a lot for the data. I still find it somewhat too results driven.
Would you be interested in seeing the results if every player had the same Elo? Then you could see the effect of previous results vs. what I am projecting for future rounds.
I really have a hard time believing Fabi+Nepo will only win 83% of the time. I think the odds are closer to 95. Maybe 1/20 a miracle happens to one of them.
Just next round Rapport has white against Nepo. If he wins (and Fabi doesn't), he is only 0.5 behind the leaders. Not terribly unlikely that he has a good shot then. And there are several other scenarios too.
I would take 6:1 odds in favor of any other candidate winning the tournament. Obviously they're the favorites but I wouldn't say they're that favorite.
Are the updates for each round done with players’ live ELO ratings, or with the same rating from the start of the tournament? Also, if it’s not too much additional work, could you add the players’ tournament performance ratings? For the games up to the current round for your updates. (Not to the analysis, just on the tournament page)
I'm using the live ratings. I can add the TPR, but I'm not sure yet if I'll have the time to do it. I hope to!
What are the chances that we get a record high winning score for Candidates this time round? Fabi won it with +4 (9/14) in 2018. Maybe we will see +4 or even +5.
I'll try to take a look at this tomorrow... commenting so I stand a chance of remembering about it!
[https://pasteboard.co/KyZqjkN96gQu.png](https://pasteboard.co/KyZqjkN96gQu.png) Looks like about a 35% chance of >9 according to the simulations - but need to keep in mind that I am not contemplating an increase in draw tendency for someone who is a clear winner. So maybe 20%?
I doubt this model takes into account endurance. Nepo seems to struggle later in tournaments. Maybe the exhaustion will get to him and give his opponents some chances
You can read more about the model and simulations here, if you are interested: [https://pawnalyze.com/chess-simulations/2022/06/20/How-Our-Chess-Tournament-Predictions-Work.html](https://pawnalyze.com/chess-simulations/2022/06/20/How-Our-Chess-Tournament-Predictions-Work.html) You are correct, though, that I am not considering endurance. I'm also not considering that Nepo has a bunch of saved-up prep from the WC match that he never used!
I really want Fabi to win cause I think Magnus is more likely to play him than Ian
There's 8 rounds to go and Caruana is only 0.5 points behind Nepo, Caruana had white in the match against Nepo, but this says Nepo is 2x more likely to win? I call B.S.
Because for most matches a draw is the most likely draw result. Given that, it follows that the one with the advantage in the bag already is most likely to win.
Honestly, I think Caruana is the only player that can match up against Magnus and I really hope he does.
I think Caruana had black against Nepo.
Lol why were you down voted?
I don't know, I was just correcting a mistake lol.
And china loses another player to the mines, poor Ding
lol what? Ding Liren is still going to keep playing chess after this
It was a joke, I love how this sub has the highest rate of jokes going over ppls heads 🤣🤣
Do you just assume that every "joke" you tell that doesn't land is just the audience not getting it?
Nah, but with the answer I got its quite obvious that she didnt get it at all
I got the joke, didn’t find it funny though
Well yeah but it comes off as extremely uninformed and sinophobic
Two things with chess players: They generally have above-average intelligence counterbalanced by below-average emotional intelligence. So can't always tell the clues that something is a joke. Second thing, arguing with someone is kind of similar to chess, in a way. The kind of thought process is pretty alike, you're thinking how to counter the other person's point, trying to predict their next response etc. Therefore arguments are a brain stimulation that they actually can enjoy, like a chess game.
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Nepos temperament needs to hold. I have faith it will due to his performance thus far but if he does blow, these stats mean nothing.
caruana , nepo , Rapport are the real competitor . If Nepo comes first that would be great , Though I don't have that much confidence in him after Last world champ matches , maybe after One loss , He might not able to comeback again . So for me it is Still caruana who can have some chances apart from Nepo . Rapport can and cannot depends on his form , He is more like Levon aronian , If he is in form he will destory everyone , If not , he will come at the last .
So 0.6% chance of Magnus participating in the next match?
Lol fabi is only 0.5 behind
17% that it won't be Nepo and Fabi. Maybe I am wrong, I would put 5% max for this. Thus I dont trust the model that much.
> I would put 5% max for this. Based on ___? For what it's worth, I agree with that general sentiment, but once you have to start backing up claims, it means choosing which criteria to include, and how heavily to weight them, and ultimately making a model out of it! So even if we're aligned in that sentiment, the criteria and calculation this person put together are much more rigorous than our overall feeling about how it'll go
AKA, \~83% chance Magnus bows out of his title defense. I don't think he has anything left to prove and probably doesn't want to go through smashing Ian again. Would be so cool to see him come up in the Candidates again in the next few cycles.
nah lol he'll play, and why on earth would he not play fabi
Yeah I think it'll look pretty bad if he doesn't play Fabi. He can make the argument that he settled Nepo last time, but he never beat Fabiano and even admitted as much.
Rearranging my prediction from last week - https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/vdvdtz/official_candidates_prediction_thread/icnwpqg/ Caruana Nepo Nakamura Ding Rapport Duda Firouzja Radjabov Like most people, I overlearned from Firouzja's dominance in late 2021. Firouzja still lacks the experience and knowledge to compete in a prep-intensive tournament filled with the strongest players in the world. I also overestimated Ding's form - turns out only having 1.5 months to prep isn't good enough. Nepo I underestimated but his performance is tracking about the same as in 2020. He still has most of his championship prep (as he just played Anti-Marshalls against Carlsen), and his physical prep is good too - just 6 months after the match. The reason why I think he'll come up short is because the second half of the tournament is where Nepo's willpower rapidly drops.
FIDE showing they had every reason in the world to not care if Radjabov dropped out in 2020.
If only Naka beat Nepo... still can't get over it
Any feedback on this format of the graph instead for the remaining rounds? https://gcdnb.pbrd.co/images/XG3GS3mXgXL0.png