FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2019 - Isle of Man

[Roger de Coverly]

The FIDE Grand Prix events in 2016-17 which were eighteen players swisses may have had a higher rating average but clearly they had a lot less players.

Perhaps a return to the Campomanes era approach of having a medium sized but very strong Interzonal Swiss such as Manila or Biel is the way to go and scrap the Grand Prix. That might depend on the contracts between FIDE and Agon. If the Candidates is a tournament, it doesn't have to be restricted to 8 players.

[Mick Norris]

You could probably knock together a system which started with the World Cup in the summer to give 2 (or more) qualifiers, then had an Interzonal like IoM in October providing a few more (but with no participation of the world champion or anyone already qualified for the Candidates), scrap the average rating unless you really thought you needed it, then have a single round robin Candidates at say Wijk Aan Zee in January with maybe a dozen players, then a WC match in the summer

Ideally, you'd get funding for a series of Candidates matches like the old days instead of a Candidates tournament

[Chris Rice]

Great photo via a Peter Doggers tweet of the space and view that the players on Boards 1 and 2 will have.
Good news that Keith Arkell has got a Wild Card which takes the field to 154 (118 FIDE Qualifiers + 36 Wild Cards)

[Chris Rice]

R1 pairings are up and its difficult to know where to start regarding interesting matches with such an incredible field and its going to be a nightmare to choose what to watch. Start time is Thursday 3pm. Six of the top 10 players in the world are choosing not to play (Ding, Giri, Nepo, MVL, Mamedyarov, Dominguez) and Carlsen & Caruana are of course not playing for the Candidates, which means that effectively the top seeds for Candidates qualification are Wesley So and Vishy Anand. Here are the England GM matches:

Jobava Baadur (2617) v Howell David (2694)
Jones Gawain (2688) v Abdusattorov Nodirbek (2608)
Yilmaz Mustafa (2595) v Mcshane Luke J (2682)
Arkell Keith (2447) v Oparin Grigoriy (2654)

[Richard Bates]

Why isn't Caruana playing in the Candidates?

[Chris Rice]

Why isn't Caruana playing in the Candidates?

Sorry, I meant he is not playing for the Candidates already having qualified as the finalist last time, now corrected.

[Mick Norris]

English pairings

All 8 play a GM, as does Keith Allen (Irish registered IoM resident)

[Paul Cooksey]

I suppose likely round 3 before we start to see contenders playing each other, so nice to have some local interest too.

The revised wildcard rules mean that there is unlikely to be anyone really unexpected qualifying through that route. But my guess is we will see quite a few players outside the top 10 in contention for the qualifying place right to the end of this tournament.

[Kevin Thurlow]

Yes, good luck everybody!

Board 29 should be interesting.

[Mick Norris]

I suppose likely round 3 before we start to see contenders playing each other, so nice to have some local interest too.

The revised wildcard rules mean that there is unlikely to be anyone really unexpected qualifying through that route. But my guess is we will see quite a few players outside the top 10 in contention for the qualifying place right to the end of this tournament.

I just hope it isn't decided by there being 2 contenders in the last round, 1 has to play Magnus, whereas the other doesn't

[Roger de Coverly]

Here are the England GM matches:

Nigel not playing, possibly not invited. Slightly more of a surprise that Adams decided to sit it out.

[Ian Thompson]

Nigel not playing, possibly not invited.

I think you'll find he was on the reserve list (to be found somewhere on the FIDE website, that I haven't been able to find, according to the tournament regulations), so it was his choice not to play.

[Mick Norris]

Ian is right that Nigel was on the reserve list

[Angus French]

As well as the official commentary, Jon Speelman is broadcasting: https://twitch.tv/jonspeelman

[JustinHorton]

Soumya (IND, WGM, 2365) is giving Piorun (POL, GM, 2643) a run for his money.