F. 1 place – Player nominated by the OrganizerJustinHorton wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2019 8:36 amSo in other words, they can't just nominate Some Guy Who Lives Round Here, right? (Or maybe the effect is to say look, if you sponsor the Candidates you can definitely include the wildcard you want to, they're on the list.)
I didn't know about the third-place match either. I will say I find the final of this event a bit after-the-Lord-Mayor's-Show: the real business has been done already, in the qualification for spots in the Candidates.
The Organizer of the 2020 FIDE Candidates Tournament has the right to nominate a player who meets at least one of the following criteria (provided that he participates in at least two events listed below in b., c. and d.):
a. The player from the top-10 players by average FIDE rating as per Clause E;
b. The player placed third in the 2019 FIDE World Cup (if the third player is qualified - then the player placed fourth, but not any further);
c. The best non-qualifying player from the 2019 FIDE Grand Swiss;
d. The best non-qualifying player from the 2019 FIDE Grand Prix Series.
from Martin Bennedik
As MVL and Yu have both played the GP and the WC, they qualify if they are in the top-10 by average ratings; even if the top 10 includes Carlsen & Caruana and others who have qualified, then MVL will be in the top 10, but Yu may not be; hence Yu appears to have more of an incentive to win than MVL
However, MVL needs to try and improve his average rating to overtake Giri for the rating spot in the Candidates, so he needs to win in the classical (although even a very unlikely 3-0 might not be enough)
In practice, I can't see the Russians giving the wildcard to either MVL or Yu, so probably irrelevant
Russians in the top 10 are currently Nepo (6) and Grischuk (9), with Artemiev in 13th