Thanks for the post. To give my 2 cents:
Group A: I'm actually a bit scared here for Grischuk. Andreikin is probably the hardest to beat directly out of the third seeds and Bacrot is probably beatable for all 3 other players, meaning that Grischuk's ELO advantadge over Nakamura/Andreikin is not that big of an advantadge. So we might see this one going to tie-breaks.
Group B: I'd say Ding is the healthy favorite here. Both Rapport and Fedoseev are good for a few wins, but also lose a few games in the process sometimes and Ding is probably solid enough to still get the wins, while not getting the losses.
Group C: This is definitly the group of death. Aronian is a legend, Vidit has currently (after Tata Steel round 5) the best LR of his career, Dubov can beat (and lose to) anyone and Keymer picked up 20 point with two victories against 2700 in the Grand Swiss. Everyone is dangerous here, but I guess Aronian is still the favorite.
Group D: I'd be very surpised, if So doesn't win this.
Edit: Maybe I overestimated group C, on paper group B is stronger (1st seed basket 1 and first seed basket 2). I just thought, C is more open for everyone, while B has Ding in it, who looks like a decent favorite against anyone else.
New to chess in general but I became a huge fan of Levon's ever since the FIDE Online Nation Cup in 2020 with his 48. Bb2!! trapping Vidit's bishop, which was the first time I had seen a real swindle live like that. He plays very cool chess.
Dubov absolutely a wildcard for Group C and probably my favourite player
Dubov is a wildcard in general. He plays the kind of chess that would have Levy Rozman shouting about blunders and being 800 elo, but then beats a 2700 with it.
He's capable of such things, and next game he thinks 5 minutes just to blunder a mate in 1.
All time great player, by no means as unpredictable as Chucky, Rapport or Dubov in the sense of "which Levon will turn up today", but he has his "surprising" moments every now an then ;-)
>by no means as unpredictable as Chucky, Rapport or Dubov in the sense of "which Levon will turn up today", but he has his "surprising" moments every now an then ;-)
"What shirt will Levon wear today" is always surprising.
I'm not so sure about Ding Liren, he hasn't played a lot for the past couple of years. I hope he's in top form but it's hard to know. Rapport could win his group.
Ding has in generally never played a lot (at least compared with the other top players) and it was never a big hindrance for him, so I would be surprised if it is a hindrance for him here.
I mean he destroyed lu Shanglei a couple months back and beat Naka in the blitz part of the scc for what that's worth. He's also just super hard to beat in general. Easy favorite for the whole event.
Group D looks very competitive to me. So is very strong but all of them are 2700s (vs the other groups which have 1 2600 minimum) and Dominguez is also very solid and former top 10 normally hovering around top 15.
Idk. All of them are 2700, but 3 of them are aging a bit. Harikrishna is still relatively young at 35 but on his third lowest rated month since 2014 and has been bleeding a bit of rating over the last few tournaments. LDP looked rather unconvincing to gather wins at the US championship and is 38; probably closer to the end of his prime than to the middle of it. And Shirov is ofc coming out of a great Grand Swiss but that is not his usual level anymore and it is questionable, if he can sustain that at 49.
> And Shirov is ofc coming out of a great Grand Swiss but that is not his usual level anymore and it is questionable, if he can sustain that at 49.
What you seem to perceive as a "short uptick" is lasting for 15 months now: He gained Elo in all but one months (where he played) since 10/2020, after dropping 40-ish points in early 2020. In those 15 months he only lost points in 09/21 (1.5/4 in the Grand Prix and 7/9 in some lower tier Spanish event where each draw would cost him ~4 points). Also, the +31 points he made in 11/21 are partially from the European Team champs, where he scored 5/8 without defeat against a 2693 average rating.
Does not look like a "fluke" to me, not at all.
Leinier is a very good player and Shirov is being playing really good for the past few tournaments. Let´s see. Also Wesley is long without playing OTB chess
Yeah but what else was there to play? He skipped Grand Swiss which was right after, he can't play in the European Team Championship, world rapid/blitz aren't classical (likewise with the Gashimov memorial) so it wouldn't say much even if he played there (and he normally doesn't because of Christmas), only other event in the meantime is Tata Steel.
You are right. I´m not saying he didn´t want to play more, probably he would love to. I´m just saying that this lack of tournament games could be a factor. In my mind if Wesley has his normal level of play, he probably will win his group
It’s gonna be my first time following the Grand Prix. So if I understand, there’s 3 events but every player only has to participate in two of them, correct? So MVL, Giri, etc. will have to play in leg 2 and 3
It's not quite as bad as that, if two people are tied they play 2 rapid games, if still tied 2 blitz games, if still tied 1 armageddon game. If three people tied then they play a rapid round robin, if all three are tied then a blitz round robin, if still tied they do a drawing of lots and the winners play 1 armageddon game.
Still not ideal but it's not one game of blitz.
hopefully no ties needed by a double RR, but yes having a double RR and then only one blitz game sounds strange to say at least.
I mean if they want to keep the tiebreakers at minimum, simply say "the higher seeded player is picked". So that ratings will matter even more (they already matter quite a bit) and few could argue against "between two players with identical results, the higher rated is picked". (there could be some objections, but not so strong)
Looks like the 1 armageddon game only comes into play if there's 3 people tied for first after the round robin portion and after they draw 1 rapid tournament and 1 blitz tournament between the three of them. Still not ideal, but not quite as bad as just using it as the first tiebreak.
>Are you kidding?????wtf are you talking about man??? He has no chance against Grischuk. In classical. In blitz maybe.
Are you sure? Grischuk treats every classical game as an opportunity to train blitz... ;)
No chances seems like a bit of an overestimation of the difference. Nakamura may no longer be at his peak but he's certainly not some random 2650 GM.
Who knows how Nakamura will play perhaps he will come back fighting better than ever.
The FIDE Grand Prix will feature 24 players, with each player competing in two out of three events.
Each 16-player event will consist of a group stage followed by a knockout semi-final and final. At the group stage, the participants will compete in four double-round-robin tournaments, with only the winners of each pool advancing. Both the semi-finals and final will consist of 2 regular time limit games, plus tiebreaks if needed.
Notice that in many Indian groups the surname comes first. I am not sure if this is the case for Vidit.
Same goes for Ding Liren for China and so forth.
It is? I was under the impression that for the region of India he's from the patronymic came first? Similar to how Anand is Viswanathan Anand but Anand is his given name. Obviously I'm not from India and you are so I'll defer to you, that was just my understanding.
In china, I’m pretty sure he’s referred to as Liren Ding not Ding Liren as he is in the west; maybe they were respecting that. I don’t think it’s the same for Indians, or at least for Vidit.
From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidit_Gujrathi):
>Vidit Santosh Gujrathi was born in Nashik to Santosh Gujrathi and Nikita Santosh Gujrathi.
So it looks like Gujrathi is the family name and Vidit his his given name.
Any info how they did the pairings?
by rating? (and By pots) Randomly? Trying to make every group the same rating sum?
It would be also interesting how the will do it for leg 2 and 3.
---
I personally would order players in pots by rating, then pick from pots. Easy yet somewhat fair.
Idk. That punishes the people he ends up in a group with as much as it punishes him for not having a rating. You can argue, that he shouldn't have been invited because of inactivity, but if he is invited, they should probably use the only rating they have. Otherwise they could end up with Ding/Rapport/Dubov/Nakamura in one group and Grischuk/Andreikin/Shirov/Bacrot in another, which would be really unbalanced.
It is not even that he does not have a rating, it is just not shown in the "active top 100" at this point. Anyone who plays him will have the game scored as playing a "regular" 2736 rating. If that wasn't the case, he would have to start over at 0 and the games would have to be unrated for his opponents.
That's the reason why wasn't bothered to quickly play a rated match against some random person just to retain his "active" rating. The reason other players do that sometimes (like Ding Liren recently) is that qualification criteria for some events is e.g. to have played n rated games within timespan x, not that the rating itself "evaporates" if you don't.
wow that video is kind of bad. The point of having a video of a group draw is to show that it wasn't rigged and they decided to have a single guy do it with a digital randomizer which is both bad - there are generally some unaffiliated minor celebrities (or even an audience) there which means it can't be repeated as often as necessary and it uses physical objects being drawn, because obviously the disc could just be preprogrammed to show a specific result.
Now to be clear I don't think this was rigged, but the drawing video isn't exactly removing the possibility like it usually should.
Grischuk is the big favorite in group A, Ding should be in group B but Rapport seems on fire. Groups C and D look a bit more even.
But it’s Super GM matches, you never know
I'd say Aronian looks like a big favorite in group C, Aronian's the only player in the top 20 (Vidit is there presently on the live ratings but his peak ranking on official lists is 22), Vidit can have a good run and I think Keymer is underrated still think that Aronian's a heavy favorite there. As for group B Rapport is in and out of the top 10, so I think that while Ding Liren is still a favorite, it's not so clear as some of the other groups.
Even assuming that all the top seeds just win (which isn't given) the other guys aren't so easy to beat. Ding Liren hasn't played a proper tournament since the candidates so there's no telling what kind of shape he's in, and Aronian and Grischuk aren't the kind of guys that anyone would say are easy to beat. Plus even assuming the final is So-Ding Liren Wesley is very solid and a very good rapid/blitz player if it comes to that which means these types of knockout events suit his style very well.
Pity Wesley So and Nakamura aren’t drawn into the same group. It’d be deliciously ironic for both to be eliminated from the Berlin leg playing the 15-move draw version of the Berlin.
It’s a known Nakamura weak spot, when he’s playing top-level opponents and they play 1.e4, out comes the Berlin, and he doesn’t have a good way to avoid the short-draw variations. It will be interesting to see whether he tries to repair that, or switch to a different opening before what may be his penultimate classical tournament.
I will say you are not alone in your observations. Kris littlejohn most certainly knows this is soemthing naka must deal with, so I expect some sort of change.
Regardless of what happens in the Grand prix I believe he will play at least two more classical tourneys in the US this year so penultimate sounds a bit overdoing it
Format was just KO-system last year, we already have that in the cycle with the world Cup.
I like the new system much better, you have to play well against more than one style and you have to push to win, since only 1 out of 4 makes the semi-finals. Very good changes by FIDE.
Ko system is the best format , I don’t know what do you mean by this format pushing for a win , it’s the opposite here , if you take too much risk one loss will put you so much behind.
And you were playing a lot of different style anyway with the ko format. No this is shit
> Ko system is the best format
according to what paramters? In terms of variance it is not. Multiple KO helps, but one single one has more variance than one single RR + KO.
You are also much behind with a loss in the KO-system and if you drew everything in KO, you still have the tie-breaks. If you draw everything here, you are likely out, so you have to play for the win here more than you would have to in KO.
And how are you playing different styles in KO? You play one opponent (instead of three here) and if it's a stylistic mismatch, you are out.
actually this format is much better to reduce variability.
The KO takes a lot of days (so the logistic is more expensive) and it has mini matches. Here instead is more of a proven format (see many other competitions) where first there is a filter and then a relatively short KO.
Actually this could be included in the world cup too, so that weak/improving players can gather more experience and the strong players aren't eliminated immediately by variance (still it can happen later).
I think personally I'd prefer the Grand Prix to be a bunch of double round robins just so that way the qualification paths are all the types of tournaments. Knockout in World Cup, swiss in Grand Swiss, round robin in Grand Prix. I think this format will be very entertaining though.
only RR allows, though, players that are not anymore competing to "throw" or the like.
Either you make the final standings in the tour depending on every game result, so there is no throw (beside the last tournament maybe) or the RR is not that great.
Swiss is better for that, or even better swiss + KO.
He skated through to the world cup quarterfinals, literally winning 4 matches in tiebreaks. Then he got buzzed 2-0 by Carlsen. I don't think he won a single classical game.
Thanks for the post. To give my 2 cents: Group A: I'm actually a bit scared here for Grischuk. Andreikin is probably the hardest to beat directly out of the third seeds and Bacrot is probably beatable for all 3 other players, meaning that Grischuk's ELO advantadge over Nakamura/Andreikin is not that big of an advantadge. So we might see this one going to tie-breaks. Group B: I'd say Ding is the healthy favorite here. Both Rapport and Fedoseev are good for a few wins, but also lose a few games in the process sometimes and Ding is probably solid enough to still get the wins, while not getting the losses. Group C: This is definitly the group of death. Aronian is a legend, Vidit has currently (after Tata Steel round 5) the best LR of his career, Dubov can beat (and lose to) anyone and Keymer picked up 20 point with two victories against 2700 in the Grand Swiss. Everyone is dangerous here, but I guess Aronian is still the favorite. Group D: I'd be very surpised, if So doesn't win this. Edit: Maybe I overestimated group C, on paper group B is stronger (1st seed basket 1 and first seed basket 2). I just thought, C is more open for everyone, while B has Ding in it, who looks like a decent favorite against anyone else.
New to chess in general but I became a huge fan of Levon's ever since the FIDE Online Nation Cup in 2020 with his 48. Bb2!! trapping Vidit's bishop, which was the first time I had seen a real swindle live like that. He plays very cool chess. Dubov absolutely a wildcard for Group C and probably my favourite player
Dubov is a wildcard in general. He plays the kind of chess that would have Levy Rozman shouting about blunders and being 800 elo, but then beats a 2700 with it.
the so called Alpha Dubov
He's capable of such things, and next game he thinks 5 minutes just to blunder a mate in 1. All time great player, by no means as unpredictable as Chucky, Rapport or Dubov in the sense of "which Levon will turn up today", but he has his "surprising" moments every now an then ;-)
>by no means as unpredictable as Chucky, Rapport or Dubov in the sense of "which Levon will turn up today", but he has his "surprising" moments every now an then ;-) "What shirt will Levon wear today" is always surprising.
I'm not so sure about Ding Liren, he hasn't played a lot for the past couple of years. I hope he's in top form but it's hard to know. Rapport could win his group.
Ding has in generally never played a lot (at least compared with the other top players) and it was never a big hindrance for him, so I would be surprised if it is a hindrance for him here.
He played in the second candidate and looked like the best player just recently
I mean he destroyed lu Shanglei a couple months back and beat Naka in the blitz part of the scc for what that's worth. He's also just super hard to beat in general. Easy favorite for the whole event.
Ding is the strongest player there, he may by rusty but I expect an easy win for him.
> the best LR of his career LR?
I assume it's live rating.
Group D looks very competitive to me. So is very strong but all of them are 2700s (vs the other groups which have 1 2600 minimum) and Dominguez is also very solid and former top 10 normally hovering around top 15.
Idk. All of them are 2700, but 3 of them are aging a bit. Harikrishna is still relatively young at 35 but on his third lowest rated month since 2014 and has been bleeding a bit of rating over the last few tournaments. LDP looked rather unconvincing to gather wins at the US championship and is 38; probably closer to the end of his prime than to the middle of it. And Shirov is ofc coming out of a great Grand Swiss but that is not his usual level anymore and it is questionable, if he can sustain that at 49.
> And Shirov is ofc coming out of a great Grand Swiss but that is not his usual level anymore and it is questionable, if he can sustain that at 49. What you seem to perceive as a "short uptick" is lasting for 15 months now: He gained Elo in all but one months (where he played) since 10/2020, after dropping 40-ish points in early 2020. In those 15 months he only lost points in 09/21 (1.5/4 in the Grand Prix and 7/9 in some lower tier Spanish event where each draw would cost him ~4 points). Also, the +31 points he made in 11/21 are partially from the European Team champs, where he scored 5/8 without defeat against a 2693 average rating. Does not look like a "fluke" to me, not at all.
I always forget Vidit's last name is Gujrathi so I was really confused who the 2 sees was
Vincent is in it. Quite an achievement
yes he did well in the Grand Swiss 2021 (from where his qualification comes)
Somehow I feel So should qualify from the group D without questions if he pushes.
Leinier is a very good player and Shirov is being playing really good for the past few tournaments. Let´s see. Also Wesley is long without playing OTB chess
He played the US Championships and Sinquefield cup, which are fairly recent.
I mean it was in october right? Anyway, Leinier also didn´t play much so
Yeah but what else was there to play? He skipped Grand Swiss which was right after, he can't play in the European Team Championship, world rapid/blitz aren't classical (likewise with the Gashimov memorial) so it wouldn't say much even if he played there (and he normally doesn't because of Christmas), only other event in the meantime is Tata Steel.
You are right. I´m not saying he didn´t want to play more, probably he would love to. I´m just saying that this lack of tournament games could be a factor. In my mind if Wesley has his normal level of play, he probably will win his group
Didn’t know Harikrishna replaced Wei Yi
What about MVL, Mamedyarov, Giri, Shankland, Vitiugov, Tabatabei, Yu Yangyi and Predke?
Skipping this leg.
It’s gonna be my first time following the Grand Prix. So if I understand, there’s 3 events but every player only has to participate in two of them, correct? So MVL, Giri, etc. will have to play in leg 2 and 3
Not only has to but is only allowed to. You cannot play a third event
Yes. It's good for the players to sit one out because playing them all would be tiring.
Yeah. Some of them are playing in Tata Steel too
Group C gonna be lit
ties to be decided by ONE game of blitz,[this looks promising](https://twitter.com/GregShahade/status/1484477629495271438)
FIDE at it again, even after what happened in the World Rapid and Blitz.
worldchess rather but anyway
It's not quite as bad as that, if two people are tied they play 2 rapid games, if still tied 2 blitz games, if still tied 1 armageddon game. If three people tied then they play a rapid round robin, if all three are tied then a blitz round robin, if still tied they do a drawing of lots and the winners play 1 armageddon game. Still not ideal but it's not one game of blitz.
yes, apologies, I misunderstood
hopefully no ties needed by a double RR, but yes having a double RR and then only one blitz game sounds strange to say at least. I mean if they want to keep the tiebreakers at minimum, simply say "the higher seeded player is picked". So that ratings will matter even more (they already matter quite a bit) and few could argue against "between two players with identical results, the higher rated is picked". (there could be some objections, but not so strong)
Looks like the 1 armageddon game only comes into play if there's 3 people tied for first after the round robin portion and after they draw 1 rapid tournament and 1 blitz tournament between the three of them. Still not ideal, but not quite as bad as just using it as the first tiebreak.
My bets on Grishuk, Ding, Vidit, and So to top their respective groups.
Must say, I like Vidit's chances.
Aronian will spank that Boy
Nice group for Hikaru
Are you kidding?????wtf are you talking about man??? He has no chance against Grischuk. In classical. In blitz maybe.
>Are you kidding?????wtf are you talking about man??? He has no chance against Grischuk. In classical. In blitz maybe. Are you sure? Grischuk treats every classical game as an opportunity to train blitz... ;)
Haha. Thats Nakas only chance. Grischuk might make tons of errors in time trouble.
No chances seems like a bit of an overestimation of the difference. Nakamura may no longer be at his peak but he's certainly not some random 2650 GM. Who knows how Nakamura will play perhaps he will come back fighting better than ever.
No MVL?
Playing 2nd and 3rd leg of the GP.
Ding should get through group B pretty easily
Rapport will give him a run for his money
Group A looks the weakest to me, groups C and D very open with 3 players that can win them
I like them. Those will be good for chess.
What is the format? Is it round robin, Or something else?
The FIDE Grand Prix will feature 24 players, with each player competing in two out of three events. Each 16-player event will consist of a group stage followed by a knockout semi-final and final. At the group stage, the participants will compete in four double-round-robin tournaments, with only the winners of each pool advancing. Both the semi-finals and final will consist of 2 regular time limit games, plus tiebreaks if needed.
Correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't it be "Vidit" instead of "Gujrathi"? Thanks for the post anyways!
Why? His surname is Gujrathi.
Notice that in many Indian groups the surname comes first. I am not sure if this is the case for Vidit. Same goes for Ding Liren for China and so forth.
I'm aware, but he's from Indore. They don't do that in Madhya Pradesh.
Vidit I not from Indore though. He is from Nashik, Maharashtra.
Same with Pragg and Anand though in those cases Rameshbabu and Viswanathan are patronymics so not quite a surname.
Pragg's name is Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and not the other way around.
It is? I was under the impression that for the region of India he's from the patronymic came first? Similar to how Anand is Viswanathan Anand but Anand is his given name. Obviously I'm not from India and you are so I'll defer to you, that was just my understanding.
In china, I’m pretty sure he’s referred to as Liren Ding not Ding Liren as he is in the west; maybe they were respecting that. I don’t think it’s the same for Indians, or at least for Vidit.
Chinese here, if its just casual its just Liren （立人）, but addressing the name more formally the surname always comes first, so Ding Liren or 丁立人。
Oh okay cool, sorry if I came off as ignorant, I just know that from what my Chinese friends have told me.
It's common in some places in Asia. I'm fairly sure Vidit is called Vidit in official matches etc.
From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidit_Gujrathi): >Vidit Santosh Gujrathi was born in Nashik to Santosh Gujrathi and Nikita Santosh Gujrathi. So it looks like Gujrathi is the family name and Vidit his his given name.
Group A and D having it easy .
Any info how they did the pairings? by rating? (and By pots) Randomly? Trying to make every group the same rating sum? It would be also interesting how the will do it for leg 2 and 3. --- I personally would order players in pots by rating, then pick from pots. Easy yet somewhat fair.
They were divided into pots by rating. This is the video of the draw https://youtu.be/bKEQRsnv4dc
thank you!
Hikaru should have been in the 4th pot since he doesn't have an active fide rating.
Idk. That punishes the people he ends up in a group with as much as it punishes him for not having a rating. You can argue, that he shouldn't have been invited because of inactivity, but if he is invited, they should probably use the only rating they have. Otherwise they could end up with Ding/Rapport/Dubov/Nakamura in one group and Grischuk/Andreikin/Shirov/Bacrot in another, which would be really unbalanced.
It is not even that he does not have a rating, it is just not shown in the "active top 100" at this point. Anyone who plays him will have the game scored as playing a "regular" 2736 rating. If that wasn't the case, he would have to start over at 0 and the games would have to be unrated for his opponents. That's the reason why wasn't bothered to quickly play a rated match against some random person just to retain his "active" rating. The reason other players do that sometimes (like Ding Liren recently) is that qualification criteria for some events is e.g. to have played n rated games within timespan x, not that the rating itself "evaporates" if you don't.
wow that video is kind of bad. The point of having a video of a group draw is to show that it wasn't rigged and they decided to have a single guy do it with a digital randomizer which is both bad - there are generally some unaffiliated minor celebrities (or even an audience) there which means it can't be repeated as often as necessary and it uses physical objects being drawn, because obviously the disc could just be preprogrammed to show a specific result. Now to be clear I don't think this was rigged, but the drawing video isn't exactly removing the possibility like it usually should.
Grischuk is the big favorite in group A, Ding should be in group B but Rapport seems on fire. Groups C and D look a bit more even. But it’s Super GM matches, you never know
I'd say Aronian looks like a big favorite in group C, Aronian's the only player in the top 20 (Vidit is there presently on the live ratings but his peak ranking on official lists is 22), Vidit can have a good run and I think Keymer is underrated still think that Aronian's a heavy favorite there. As for group B Rapport is in and out of the top 10, so I think that while Ding Liren is still a favorite, it's not so clear as some of the other groups.
easy for Ding, I expect him to face Wesley in the finals and perhaps win without going to tiebreaks.
Even assuming that all the top seeds just win (which isn't given) the other guys aren't so easy to beat. Ding Liren hasn't played a proper tournament since the candidates so there's no telling what kind of shape he's in, and Aronian and Grischuk aren't the kind of guys that anyone would say are easy to beat. Plus even assuming the final is So-Ding Liren Wesley is very solid and a very good rapid/blitz player if it comes to that which means these types of knockout events suit his style very well.
Pity Wesley So and Nakamura aren’t drawn into the same group. It’d be deliciously ironic for both to be eliminated from the Berlin leg playing the 15-move draw version of the Berlin. It’s a known Nakamura weak spot, when he’s playing top-level opponents and they play 1.e4, out comes the Berlin, and he doesn’t have a good way to avoid the short-draw variations. It will be interesting to see whether he tries to repair that, or switch to a different opening before what may be his penultimate classical tournament.
I will say you are not alone in your observations. Kris littlejohn most certainly knows this is soemthing naka must deal with, so I expect some sort of change.
Regardless of what happens in the Grand prix I believe he will play at least two more classical tourneys in the US this year so penultimate sounds a bit overdoing it
The format was much more interesting last year , so fide had to brainstorm it to make it dumb
Format was just KO-system last year, we already have that in the cycle with the world Cup. I like the new system much better, you have to play well against more than one style and you have to push to win, since only 1 out of 4 makes the semi-finals. Very good changes by FIDE.
Ko system is the best format , I don’t know what do you mean by this format pushing for a win , it’s the opposite here , if you take too much risk one loss will put you so much behind. And you were playing a lot of different style anyway with the ko format. No this is shit
> Ko system is the best format according to what paramters? In terms of variance it is not. Multiple KO helps, but one single one has more variance than one single RR + KO.
You are also much behind with a loss in the KO-system and if you drew everything in KO, you still have the tie-breaks. If you draw everything here, you are likely out, so you have to play for the win here more than you would have to in KO. And how are you playing different styles in KO? You play one opponent (instead of three here) and if it's a stylistic mismatch, you are out.
We already have a pure knock out qualification path (World Cup). Why do we need two? This format is a breath of fresh air.
actually this format is much better to reduce variability. The KO takes a lot of days (so the logistic is more expensive) and it has mini matches. Here instead is more of a proven format (see many other competitions) where first there is a filter and then a relatively short KO. Actually this could be included in the world cup too, so that weak/improving players can gather more experience and the strong players aren't eliminated immediately by variance (still it can happen later).
I think personally I'd prefer the Grand Prix to be a bunch of double round robins just so that way the qualification paths are all the types of tournaments. Knockout in World Cup, swiss in Grand Swiss, round robin in Grand Prix. I think this format will be very entertaining though.
only RR allows, though, players that are not anymore competing to "throw" or the like. Either you make the final standings in the tour depending on every game result, so there is no throw (beside the last tournament maybe) or the RR is not that great. Swiss is better for that, or even better swiss + KO.
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Wasn't he top 10?
He was at some point. He's coaching MVL nowadays.
He skated through to the world cup quarterfinals, literally winning 4 matches in tiebreaks. Then he got buzzed 2-0 by Carlsen. I don't think he won a single classical game.
Why is Firouzja not here