Unsurprisingly, Magnus Carlsen took clear first place. Meanwhile, Caruana lost his final game and finished with 7/13. Overall he will lose a couple of rating points. Soon after he won the Sinquefield Cup, his rating shot up to 2844, but has been gradually declining during the last few events. It seems like his Sinquefield Cup performance was a one time event rather than a signal of a new trend, but perhaps he will regain his form in the future.
Aronian continues to struggle. He lost to Liren and finished with a disappointing 5.5/13. Less than two years ago he was rated a staggering 2830, but now he is down to 2777 in the live ratings.
Radjabov is another player that I've been watching. His rating climbed all the way to 2793 before falling to 2713, but in the last few events he had been gradually coming back. He entered the event rated 2734 and was on track to pick up a few more points, but a last round loss to Jobava dashed those hopes. Jobava had a truly awful tournament; even with this win, he finished with 3.0/13 and stands to lose more than 30 Elo. I studied his games from this event, since I was wondering, "how does a strong player recover when he is doing badly?" In my own games, I tend to get much more cautious if I am on a losing streak, but Jobava stayed true to his style. He continued to play his very creative brand of chess, creating complications and unusual positions. However, ultimately it was quite unsuccessful even if we dismiss the first few games.
On a more positive note, Giri and So had excellent events, and seem likely to remain in the top 10 for some time.
The next super-tournament on the calendar: the GRENKE Chess Classic, February 2-9. The lineup includes Carlsen, Anand, and Caruana. It is possible that the forecast model will be able to take colors into account (i.e., whether a player has the white pieces or the black pieces), but no guarantees at the moment.
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