Round 5 sets up fireworks in Round 6

In Round 5 of the pool stage in Belgrade we saw two decisive games. Round 6 will be tomorrow and a lot is left to fight for, so we should see some exciting games.

Richárd Rapport took down Vidit Gujrathi, gaining a full 1 point lead over Vidit and all but securing Pool C. Tomorrow, he needs either a draw or for Vidit to not win and he will advance to the knockout stage. He upped his chances of winning in Belgrade to 17.9%, and also made his chances to qualify for the Candidates skyrocket from 10% to 24%, as he is likely to score 14 or more GP points. If you looked at the scenario explorer yesterday, you would have known how big this win would be for Rapport. I’ll be updating that interactive tool later today.

Alexei Shirov wielded the white pieces against Vladimir Fedoseev and secured a victory, putting them both out of the running to win Pool C. Neither of them have a path to qualifying for the Candidate’s tournament.

Pool A has Shankland and Andreikin tied for the top spot with both players on 3/5. Andreikin has an edge in sevreral ways. He has the white pieces tomorrow and Shankland has the White pieces, so the most llikely outcome is they go to tiebreaks, next most likely is Andreikin wins the pool outright, and a distant third is Shankland winning the pool tomorrow. In addition, if they do make it to the tiebraks, Andreikin has a higher rating in classical, but more importantly a bigger rating advantage in Rapid, where the tiebreak is likely to be decided.

Last but not least, get your popcorn ready for Memedyarov and MVL tomorrow. If Mamedyarov wins with the white pieces, he will either win Pool D or face Yu Yangi in a tiebreak (If Yu were to win his game as well). MVL secures the pool with a draw and Yu drawing or losing, or with a win himself.

Results from 100,000 simulations.

Belgrade Odds

Name Win % Expected GP Points
Anish Giri 37.0 9.8
Richard Rapport 17.6 8.7
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 16.5 6.4
Dmitry Andreikin 12.4 7.5
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 10.3 4.7
Yu Yangyi 3.5 4.0
Sam Shankland 1.2 4.4
Nikita Vitiugov 0.9 3.5
Vidit Gujrathi 0.2 3.3
Etienne Bacrot 0.2 2.3
Alexander Grischuk 0.0 0.3
Alexandr Predke 0.0 0.4
Alexei Shirov 0.0 0.9
Amin Tabatabaei 0.0 0.9
Pentala Harikrishna 0.0 1.8
Vladimir Fedoseev 0.0 1.9

Possibilities for Qualification into Candidates Tournament

Overall odds of qualifying for the Candidates Tournament

Name Qualify % Expected GP Points
Hikaru Nakamura 48.0 17.9
Anish Giri 36.0 15.6
Levon Aronian 29.0 15.7
Richard Rapport 23.7 15.7
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 13.5 11.2
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 11.7 10.5
Dmitry Andreikin 10.2 10.6
Leinier Dominguez 9.1 11.6
Wesley So 8.0 9.8
Yu Yangyi 4.6 7.2
Sam Shankland 2.5 7.4
Daniil Dubov 1.8 6.2
Nikita Vitiugov 1.5 7.7
Alexandr Predke 0.2 2.2
Amin Tabatabaei 0.2 2.6
Vidit Gujrathi 0.1 6.3
Grigoriy Oparin 0.0 1.8
Vincent Keymer 0.0 1.7
Etienne Bacrot 0.0 2.3
Pentala Harikrishna 0.0 3.8
Vladimir Fedoseev 0.0 3.9
Alexei Shirov 0.0 0.9
Alexander Grischuk 0.0 2.3