Stavanger 15-26 June 2015

[Chris Rice]

A couple of weeks away from another Super GM tournament. According to the May 2015 ratings currently we have the world numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6,9,10, 12 plus Hammer who is 75th and at 2665 will be the tournament bunny!

Magnus Carlsen
Viswanathan Anand
Levon Aronian
Veselin Topalov
Hikaru Nakamura
Fabiano Caruana
Alexander Grischuk
Anish Giri
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
Jon Ludvig Hammer


15.06.2015 5.30pm Blitz
16.06.2015 4pm Round 1
17.06.2015 4pm Round 2
18.06.2015 4pm Round 3
19.06.2015 4pm Round 4
20.06.2015 Day off
21.06.2015 4pm Round 5
22.06.2015 4pm Round 6
23.06.2015 4pm Round 7
24.06.2015 4pm Round 8
25.06.2015 4pm Round 9

http://2015.norwaychess.com/supertournament/players-2/

[Mick Norris]

Will be interesting to see how Hammer does, and whether MVL can arrest his slide of 31 rating points in his last 13 games

The other key point is how the Candidates spots for average rating fare with Topalov and Grischuk currently occupying the 2 spots

[Tim Harding]

A couple of weeks away from another Super GM tournament. According to the May 2015 ratings currently we have the world numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6,9,10, 12 plus Hammer who is 75th and at 2665 will be the tournament bunny!

Let's revisit next week when the June ratings are out. Hammer may have moved up a bit and MVL has certainly dropped a lot.
If he cannot recapture his 2014 form the Frenchman will be murdered in these Grand Tour events.

I expect Hammer will make a few draws anyway.

[Chris Rice]

A couple of weeks away from another Super GM tournament. According to the May 2015 ratings currently we have the world numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6,9,10, 12 plus Hammer who is 75th and at 2665 will be the tournament bunny!

Let's revisit next week when the June ratings are out. Hammer may have moved up a bit and MVL has certainly dropped a lot.
If he cannot recapture his 2014 form the Frenchman will be murdered in these Grand Tour events.

I expect Hammer will make a few draws anyway.

I should just add that MVL is currently 29th on the 2700+ live list after dropping those 31 points but as Hammer isn't 2700 yet I used the main FIDE list instead.

[Tim Harding]

The other key point is how the Candidates spots for average rating fare with Topalov and Grischuk currently occupying the 2 spots

Topalov will have to play the World Cup to be eligible, and satisfy the 30 games in 12 months requirement.

[Chris Rice]

The other key point is how the Candidates spots for average rating fare with Topalov and Grischuk currently occupying the 2 spots

Topalov will have to play the World Cup to be eligible, and satisfy the 30 games in 12 months requirement.

Wouldn't he already have to have met this? Looking at 3.1.3 of the regs for the 2015 World Cup its 30 games in 2014 or am I missing something?

http://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/World ... ations.pdf

[Tim Harding]

I meant 30 games to qualify for the Candidates under the rating criterion. Anyway he will do that by playing the Grand Tour, I think.
The issue is that he has to play the World Cup since he wasn't in the GP.

[Mick Norris]

I meant 30 games to qualify for the Candidates under the rating criterion. Anyway he will do that by playing the Grand Tour, I think.
The issue is that he has to play the World Cup since he wasn't in the GP.

Norway and St Louis count, London doesn't according to what I have seen - it is 30 games in the 2015 rating period which would be 1 Dec 2014 (for the Jan 2015 rating) to 30 Nov 2015 (for the Dec 2015 rating)

Topalov (like Aronian and Kramnik) has to play the World Cup after missing the Grand Prix if he wants a Candidates spot by average rating

[Paolo Casaschi]

Norway and St Louis count, London doesn't according to what I have seen - it is 30 games in the 2015 rating period which would be 1 Dec 2014 (for the Jan 2015 rating) to 30 Nov 2015 (for the Dec 2015 rating)

Topalov already has 10 rated games in that period (Gibraltar 2015); two chess tour events (9 games each) and the world cup (minimum of 2 games) should get him at 30 (or more).

[Chris Rice]

This tournament combined with the Sinquefield Cup and London Chess Classic will form the Grand Chess Tour circuit. Each of the three events will award individual prize funds of $300,000, with competitors also tallying points toward a tour prize fund of $150,000.

Unfortunately while the organizers are hyped about establishing a gold standard, the players are not that enthusiastic and cutting through the BS:

Alexander Grischuk said: “I don’t see anything special, it is just three tournaments combined”.

Hikaru Nakamura: “I know everyone makes a big deal about it, but I don’t really see the point. It’s three existing tournaments and I think each tournament had something unique about it before this tour.”

Karjakin was invited then uninvited. Oh dear not a particularly good start for the Grand Chess Tour then, but I think we can rest assured with Kasparov driving this, things can only get worse.

[David Sedgwick]

This tournament combined with the Sinquefield Cup and London Chess Classic will form the Grand Chess Tour circuit. Each of the three events will award individual prize funds of $300,000, with competitors also tallying points toward a tour prize fund of $150,000.

Unfortunately while the organizers are hyped about establishing a gold standard, the players are not that enthusiastic and cutting through the BS:

Alexander Grischuk said: “I don’t see anything special, it is just three tournaments combined”.

Hikaru Nakamura: “I know everyone makes a big deal about it, but I don’t really see the point. It’s three existing tournaments and I think each tournament had something unique about it before this tour.”

Karjakin was invited then uninvited. Oh dear not a particularly good start for the Grand Chess Tour then, but I think we can rest assured with Kasparov driving this, things can only get worse.

The Grand Chess Tour arrangement appears to have secured the future of the London Chess Classic.

Each to his own, but personally I regard it as a very positive development.

[Chris Rice]

The Grand Chess Tour arrangement appears to have secured the future of the London Chess Classic. Each to his own, but personally I regard it as a very positive development.

Apologies for being unduly pessimistic David. I'm actually looking forward to playing in the London Classic this year, so hoping this Grand Chess Tour thingy works out.

[NickFaulks]

Chris is right, though. The key to the Grand Chess Tour is getting invited, where not being on Kasparov's personal blacklist seems to be crucial.

[David Sedgwick]

Chris is right, though. The key to the Grand Chess Tour is getting invited, where not being on Kasparov's personal blacklist seems to be crucial.

The stated intention was to invite the top nine players, with each event having one wildcard.

The top nine players on the 1st January 2015 FIDE Rating LIst were duly invited.

[Mick Norris]

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