ACP Classic, Sparkassen Chess Meeting, and Biel

Round 2 of the ACP Classic featured a key game between the two rating favorites, Wesley So and Ian Nepomniachtchi. So prevailed, while Jobava succumbed to Sutovsky. We also saw our first adjournment in Vocaturo - Almasi; White was up an Exchange for a pawn, but Black's pieces were active. In my less than expert opinion, the most likely outcome is a draw. Judge for yourself; it is White's turn in the position below.

The model treats the game as being unplayed, so the true draw rate for it is likely higher than what the forecast assumes.

In Dortmund, Caruana defeated Ponomariov and now has a perfect 2/2. He has excellent chances of winning of the tournament.

The Biel International Chess Festival starts tomorrow. It has many side events, but the main attraction is the 6-player double round robin. The favorite is Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (a.k.a. "The Frenchman with two last names" according to a New in Chess article), whose rating has climbed to an impressive 2766.

In the draw rate model, we have successfully solved the apparent multicollinearity issue. Last I checked, the computer was taking a long time to estimate a model with 31 variables - almost surely too many, but you never know if a variable is important or not until you try adding it into a model.