Interesting data on 538:
fivethirtyeight.com/features/am … reat-again
One takeaway – if the 2018 Candidates Tournament were held today there is a better than 50 percent chance an American would win and play Magnus.
Well, if the Candidates were held today and all three Americans qualified, that would be true. At the moment, that’s not very likely. We will get one or two by rating & cross our fingers for the World Cup.
The Candidates lineup may approximate the Sinquefield Cup scoretable.
The 538 stats said Wesley So had a 25-plus percent chance of winning the Candidates. He should have had that chance in St. Louis.
Judging by what happened this week, these numbers should be taken with a grain of salt.
Still, you have to like Pence calling Rex back.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Che … nship_2018
Two US qualifiers (both by rating) seems likely, even after So’s bad Sinquefield Cup.
Nakamura could outright qualify via the World Cup (given his rapid & blitz prowess, this is doable), and there are one or two bank-shot scenarios in which he could qualify by Grand Prix and/or rating.
It’s conceivable that MVL, Aronian, and Kramnik will all fail to qualify. So the resemblance of the Candidates to the Top Ten is questionable.
Both Mamedyarov & Grischuk are great players, but neither would have any chance against Carlsen.
Hmm: this spreadsheet suggests that Kramnik is now very slightly ahead of So for the second ratings spot.