By rating:
GM Gata Kamsky
By Zonals:
GM Yury Shulman
GM Sam Shankland
GM Ray Robson
GM Alexander Onischuk
GM Alexander Ivanov
Round 1 starts Sunday August 28 at 3pm (Khanty-Mansiysk time)
How did Nakamura not make this list? Did he refuse a spot?
My guess is that he is attempting to qualify by rating into the final 8.
ChessBase has posted the full list. Naka isn’t on it.
Neither is Anand, Carlsen, Aronian, Kramnik, Topalov, and Gelfand.
The list of rating qualifiers starts with Grischuk. Obviously, Naka and the others above have qualified for the next step.
It is far from obvious. According to FIDE’s list of rules and regulations for the 2012 Candidates, only three players will qualify by rating for the Candidates tournament. The July 2011 and January 2012 rating lists will be averaged to determine the list.
On the July 2011 list, Nakamura is 5th. Carlsen (2821), Aronian (2805), Karjakin (2788), Kramnik (2781), Nakamura (2770), Ivanchuk (2768), Topalov (2768). [If he loses his match with Gelfand, Anand will qualify automatically regardless of rating] Of these super-elite players, only Karjakin and Ivanchuk are participating in the World Cup.
So Nakamura will need to move up two spots in order to qualify for the Candidates. Here’s three plausible scenarios that could make that happen. Of course, at least two of them would have to occur for Nakamura to qualify.
- Carlsen refuses to play in the Candidates again
- Karjakin takes one of the three qualifying spots in the World Cup
- Nakamura is at least 11 rating points higher than Kramnik on the January 2012 rating list.
Plus Nakamura can’t be passed by anybody else who is a few points lower on the list! Seems pretty tough.
Sources:
ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=men
fide.com/FIDE/handbook/regsc … es2012.pdf
Yes it’s quite tough especially if Naka gets nicked in any tournaments along the way. We’re lucky that the match with Pono got submitted in enough time to be counted for the July 2011 rating list (tournament was over the 25th of May but not submitted to FIDE till the 23rd of June - calling it close!) as it helped recoup some of the lost points from Banza.
One thing Naka is, among many, is that he never ceases to amaze us like Tata Steel.
I don’t get it. The list of World Cup qualifiers by ratings starts with someone (Grischuk) who is lower rated than Hikaru. How is this not construed other than that the players above Grischuk on the rating list have qualified for the next step? Why would Hikaru not be on the list of the qualifiers by rating if this was not so?
Here is list of qualifiers on the FIDE website: fide.com/component/content/a … -2011.html
It makes clear that this is a list of qualifiers, not those who already confirmed their participation.
A possible explanation is that Nakamura (as well as Carlsen, Aronian, Kramnik, and Topalov) believed he had a better chance of qualifying by rating than by finishing in the top three in the World Cup.