Draws, draws everywhere

Today’s action ended with eight draws in eight games, but there was plenty of fighting chess.

Hikaru played with white against Esipenko and allowed a passed pawn that proved difficult to remove, but he managed to find a draw despite the engine suggesting he was a bit worse most of the game. Esipenko ran into time trouble, which may have provided Hikaru what he needed to head into round three with a draw.

After eight draws not much changes with the odds, but those with a point advantage are a little more secure in their chances to win their pool. Interestingly, there was less than a 1% chance all 8 games would end in a draw.

I’ve found that this early in the tournament, the odds are quite volatile so I simulated 250,000 times to try and get some credible numbers.

Odds to Win Leg 3

Name Win % Expected GP Points
Levon Aronian 19.8 6.9
Wesley So 18.0 6.0
Leinier Dominguez 17.0 6.8
Anish Giri 8.7 4.2
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 7.5 4.2
Yu Yangyi 6.3 4.6
Hikaru Nakamura 4.9 2.9
Nikita Vitiugov 4.8 5.3
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 3.8 2.7
Andrey Esipenko 2.4 3.1
Alexandr Predke 2.3 4.0
Daniil Dubov 1.8 2.5
Sam Shankland 1.7 2.7
Grigoriy Oparin 0.9 2.5
Vincent Keymer 0.2 1.7
Amin Tabatabaei 0.0 0.9

Leg 3 Pool Odds

Pool A

Name Win % Expected Pool Rank
Levon Aronian 61.1 1.6
Andrey Esipenko 15.0 2.5
Hikaru Nakamura 12.7 2.6
Grigoriy Oparin 11.2 2.7

Pool B

Name Win % Expected Pool Rank
Leinier Dominguez 61.0 1.5
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 24.9 2.2
Daniil Dubov 9.8 2.7
Vincent Keymer 4.4 3.1

Pool C

Name Win % Expected Pool Rank
Wesley So 44.9 1.8
Alexandr Predke 29.4 2.2
Sam Shankland 14.8 2.7
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 10.9 2.7

Pool D

Name Win % Expected Pool Rank
Nikita Vitiugov 39.0 1.8
Yu Yangyi 33.6 2.1
Anish Giri 25.7 2.2
Amin Tabatabaei 1.7 3.4

Possibilities for Qualification into Candidates Tournament

Overall odds of qualifying for the Candidates Tournament

Name Qualify % Expected GP Points
Richard Rapport 99.5 20.0
Levon Aronian 36.6 16.9
Leinier Dominguez 18.3 13.8
Hikaru Nakamura 16.7 15.9
Wesley So 11.0 10.0
Anish Giri 9.2 11.2
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 3.3 9.7
Andrey Esipenko 2.2 7.1
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 1.3 7.2
Sam Shankland 0.9 6.7
Nikita Vitiugov 0.4 8.3
Alexandr Predke 0.3 7.0
Daniil Dubov 0.2 5.5
Amin Tabatabaei 0.0 3.9
Grigoriy Oparin 0.0 2.5