Roller-coaster day

Here’s the highlights:

  • Four decisive games = odds shakeup!
  • Esipenko got blown off the board by Aronian, and in the interviews he said he thought he was playing Hikaru with the white pieces today.
  • Aronian’s win made Hikaru’s qualification chances in question as it looked like he was in a drawn position.
  • Hikaru grinded out a win in the endgame to create a Pool A tie between himself and Aronian.
  • Round 6 is going to be great!

Other decisive results included Wesley So beating MVL with the black pieces and Sam Shankland beating Predke with the black pieces.

Rapport is still nearly a lock, and Nakamura jumped up to a 46% chance to qualify.

Results below based on 100,000 simulations. Check back later for the ‘what-if’ senarios for Round 6.

Odds to Win Leg 3

Name Win % Expected GP Points
Wesley So 25.9 8.3
Anish Giri 15.0 6.5
Hikaru Nakamura 14.5 6.2
Levon Aronian 14.1 6.7
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 12.2 6.6
Leinier Dominguez 10.6 6.1
Yu Yangyi 4.6 3.9
Sam Shankland 1.8 4.8
Nikita Vitiugov 0.8 2.6
Grigoriy Oparin 0.3 2.5
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 0.2 1.4
Alexandr Predke 0.1 1.0
Vincent Keymer 0.0 2.4
Amin Tabatabaei 0.0 1.9
Andrey Esipenko 0.0 0.1
Daniil Dubov 0.0 0.0

Leg 3 Pool Odds

Pool A

Name Win % Expected Pool Rank
Levon Aronian 54.5 1.5
Hikaru Nakamura 42.2 1.6
Grigoriy Oparin 3.4 2.7
Andrey Esipenko 0.0 3.9

Pool B

Name Win % Expected Pool Rank
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 50.6 1.5
Leinier Dominguez 46.9 1.7
Vincent Keymer 2.4 2.8
Daniil Dubov 0.0 4.0

Pool C

Name Win % Expected Pool Rank
Wesley So 76.9 1.3
Sam Shankland 20.8 1.8
Alexandr Predke 1.7 3.2
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 0.6 3.0

Pool D

Name Win % Expected Pool Rank
Anish Giri 58.4 1.6
Yu Yangyi 28.7 2.1
Nikita Vitiugov 10.1 2.4
Amin Tabatabaei 2.8 2.8

Possibilities for Qualification into Candidates Tournament

Overall odds of qualifying for the Candidates Tournament

Name Qualify % Expected GP Points
Richard Rapport 98.3 20.0
Hikaru Nakamura 46.4 19.2
Levon Aronian 26.4 16.7
Anish Giri 12.2 13.5
Leinier Dominguez 9.7 13.1
Wesley So 6.4 12.3
Sam Shankland 0.4 8.8
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 0.1 8.4
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 0.0 9.6
Nikita Vitiugov 0.0 5.6
Alexandr Predke 0.0 4.0