London chess tournament

The London Chess Classic begins in a few days. The World Champion will be playing along with much of the top 10. Here is the forecast based on 20,000 simulations:

Methodology

Those of you who came here from my economics website might be more interested in this post: real GDP per capita by state. With data from GEOfred, I take GDP per capita by state and correct it for differences in prices across states.

St. Louis Rapid & Blitz - Forecast update

The rust finally showed. Kasparov did well in his demolition of Nigel Short (8.5-1.5) a few years ago and in the blitz tournament following the 2016 US Championship (+1 against Nakamura, Caruana, and So). But in St. Louis he was far from his old self. His rapid performance rating was just 2695. An earlier forecast was based on his much stronger performances in earlier exhibitions. The latest forecast below is for the blitz portion of the tournament. The estimate for Kasparov's rating is taken directly from his performance rating in the rapid portion.

E4stat visits the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz

Before you ask: I saw Garry Kasparov, but I didn't get his picture.

My visit to St. Louis was strategically timed. I thought that it would be better to arrive during the rapid section; in the blitz section, the players would be moving too quickly for me to get good pictures. I also thought that it would be better to come on Tuesday instead of Monday; many fans would gladly take a 3-day weekend to see Garry.

My strategy didn't work so well. I've never seen the St. Louis Chess Club this packed. There was a long line to get into the tournament hall in Round 4:

I think the player in the far right of the picture is Sabina Foisor. The tournament hall was actually so crowded that they stopped letting us in. I didn't get up there until Round 5.

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David Navara just before his game with Anand in Round 5. He has been struggling and will face Garry Kasparov in Round 7. Garry cannot be pleased with his -1 score so far and will be hungry for a win.

Navara secured a very comfortable position, but then he let his king get into trouble in the endgame. He was forced to sacrifice the exchange. Anand then converted his advantage.

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Dominguez has an even score after 6 rounds. Here he prepared to face Caruana in Round 5.

 

Caruana, playing White, had the following position on move 37. He should be fighting for a draw, but this is rapid chess. Somehow Caruana won! I suppose this balances out Caruana's tragic loss to Liem in Round 1.

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GM Liem won a complicated game against Aronian in Round 5.

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Between rounds, I spotted Caruana chatting with GM Ramirez outside the Kingside Diner



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The Chess.com team was also present. Peter Doggers is on the left and Mike Klein is on the right.

St. Louis Rapid & Blitz

Normally I don't forecast rapid and blitz tournaments. My database has far fewer games at these time controls, so there is much uncertainty about the draw rate. Also, the rapid and blitz ratings are based on a far smaller number of games; this also leads to doubts about their reliability.

That being said, since GARRY is coming out of retirement, the event is too exciting to not make a forecast. In addition to the caveats above, remember that Kasparov's rating is more than 10 years out of date. Here is the forecast for the rapid section. I assumed a 40% draw rate, since that was the result in earlier blitz and rapid events in the 2016 Grand Chess Tour.

And the blitz:

The rapid portion is a round robin; the blitz is a double round robin.

There is a lot of uncertainty and speculation about how Kasparov will perform. Using the rating he had a decade ago is definitely questionable, so I thought of a more reliable way. Last year, Kasparov played in a blitz tournament with Caruana, So, and Nakamura after the US Chess Championship. He definitely did not embarrass himself: he scored 9.5/18 and briefly lead the tournament. And back in 2015, he demolished Nigel Short by 8.5-1.5. Though Short was well past his prime, he is still in the world's top 100.

A better estimate of Kasparov's blitz rating would be to take his performance rating from the 2016 tournament, which was 2778. The new forecast for the blitz portion is below.

There is hardly any data that I could use to update Kasparov's rapid rating. He beat Short by 1.5-0.5 in the rapid part of their 2015 match. But that's just 2 games. I would want a larger sample before making any new predictions. And if you think his 2812 rating is an overestimate in the rapids, remember that he actually did even better in the rapid match with Short, performing around 2900.

In any case, Garry definitely has a chance of winning the tournament.

E4stat visits Round 7 of the Sinquefield Cup

I arrived early, so the visit began with a trip to the Kingside Diner and the World Chess Hall of Fame gift shop. Those of you who have little pawns can buy this shirt for them. I wonder if Sergey Karjakin got this shirt for his newborn son?

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After lingering in the gift shop, I went to the playing hall. None of the players had arrived yet, so I had time to take pictures of the banners. GARRY is coming to the Rapid & Blitz. Yes, that Garry.

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They had a display for the US Chess Championship

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Alas, the reigning US Champion and 2016 Sinquefield Cup winner had a horrible tournament. Here Wesley So prepares to face Fabiano Caruana. The game was a thoroughly unexciting draw.

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Fabiano Caruana was surrounded by fans after his interview. GM Alejandro Ramirez is second from the left.

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Nakamura lost a complicated game to Aronian. Team USA did not do well in this tournament.

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Levon Aronian, winner of the 2015 Sinquefield Cup, came close to winning the tournament again. After beating Nakamura, he was tied for first after Round 7. Here he waits for Nakamura to find a move.

Nakamura played 17.c4; now Aronian gets back to work.

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MVL won the tournament. In this round, he played the white side of the Berlin endgame. But don't accuse him of being boring - it was a tense game. He rattled off about 30 moves of preparation while Karjakin was taking long thinks. But the "Minister of Defense" was up to the task and held a draw. Karjakin later tweeted, "I have checked my notes. I knew everything till 38...Ne4. But had to spend about 2 hours to remember :D!"

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Calm while under fire: Sergey Karjakin. 

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Vishy Anand had a good tournament. In this round, he played the white side of a sharp Sicilian Najdorf. 

Ian Nepomniachtchi played Black against Vishy. The game was heading toward a draw, but then Nepo tried an unwise simplifying trick.

Nepo played 31...b4 32.cxb4 Rcc2, and at first glance, it appears that the two rooks on the 7th rank should be able to force a draw. But Anand replied with 33.b3! and his queenside pawns quickly overpowered Black's defenses.  With this victory, Vishy was tied for first, but in the end, he had to settle for a tie for second with Carlsen.

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The World Champion was back in form, scoring +2 and tying for second. Peter Svidler played the Scotch against him. Eventually Carlsen was up a pawn in a rook ending, but Svidler held a draw.

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I love the commentary by Yasser Seirawan, Jennifer Shahade, and Maurice Ashley, but in the Round 9 broadcast, they botched a tactic. Here they were considering what would have happened if Karjakin had played 33...Rde8. Can you find the refutation? White to play.

Sinquefield Cup

I will be out of town when the Sinquefield Cup starts, so I'm posting the forecast early. I will return in time to catch the last few rounds; pictures will be posted. I'm especially excited about the rapid and blitz tournaments that are coming up - GARRY KASPAROV is coming out of retirement to play there.

Methodology


E4stat has a new logo: a bivariate normal distribution under a chessboard.

Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting

Kramnik is the top seed; he has won the tournament a number of times in the past.

Methodology

Danzhou Grandmaster tournament forecast

This tournament began a few days ago. The top seed is Ding Liren, who is currently in the world's top ten. Here is the forecast before the tournament started:

The tournament began rather peacefully (90% draws in the first 2 rounds), so the forecast doesn't change very much after Round 2.

Methodology

Real GDP per capita by state

(To the chess players following my blog: this is my only post that isn't about chess. I will get back to forecasting top tournaments shortly)

In the US, we have 50 economic laboratories (or states, as normal people call them) in which to conduct policy experiments. But until recently, it was difficult to assess the results. This is because prices vary enormously across the country. In my personal experience, $1000 in Kirksville, Missouri will buy a lot more than $1000 in Seattle, Washington. As a result, incomes are not directly comparable across states and regions. If average income in State X is $50,000 while it's $40,000 in State Y, we shouldn't assume that State X is richer. If everything in State X is twice as expensive, then its residents actually have less buying power.

So the price level in a state matters, and if we don't account for it, then our results might be misleading. Fortunately, GeoFRED now has price data from all 50 states. The Regional Price Parity Index is scaled so that it equals 100 for the average across all the states. I combined this with data on state GDP and population. The result is GDP per capita data that is adjusted for the state's price level. Here are a two maps with the results for 2015.

And here is the table with the numbers. The richest state is...Washington D.C., which isn't a state. The state with the highest real GDP per capita is North Dakota. Missouri is around the middle of the pack. There is a huge amount of variation across states. North Dakota's real GDP per capita is nearly double that of Mississippi. Adjusting for state price levels can make a large difference. For example, in nominal dollars, Hawaii appears to be doing well, but once the high cost of living is factored in, it is actually one of the poorer states.

Rank    Real GDP PC  State

1          154,421.3373   District of Columbia

2          80060.5584     North Dakota

3          72652.66931   Delaware

4          69851.81862   Wyoming

5          68527.06189   Alaska

6          67302.29894   Massachusetts

7          66127.30755   Nebraska

8          65776.80559   Connecticut

9          63491.70446   New York

10        62362.12019   Iowa

11        62209.54228   South Dakota

12        61205.92307   Minnesota

13        60680.76384   Texas

14        60324.22161   Illinois

15        59490.66586   Washington

16        58668.9758     Ohio

17        57786.80952   Kansas

18        56566.837       Pennsylvania

19        56347.08586   California

20        56281.47129   Louisiana

21        56165.73898   Virginia

22        56162.43017   Wisconsin

23        55740.34301   Maryland

24        55720.95019   Colorado

25        55696.53155   New Jersey

26        55581.05966   Indiana

27        54604.03253   North Carolina

28        54233.0421     Oregon

29        53946.792       Missouri

30        53522.22254   Oklahoma

31        53412.85035   Rhode Island

32        53408.90286   Tennessee

33        53177.80317   New Hampshire

34        53101.21558   Georgia

35        51397.26629   Utah

36        50750.32633   Michigan

37        49917.14963   Nevada

38        48950.75208   Kentucky

39        47633.61484   Vermont

40        47604.77343   Hawaii

41        47473.56822   New Mexico

42        47465.52086   Alabama

43        46856.86443   Montana

44        45662.75954   South Carolina

45        45598.63808   Arkansas

46        44836.66775   West Virginia

47        44438.22669   Arizona

48        44004.59498   Maine

49        43877.81112   Florida

50        42403.47641   Idaho

51        41085.36712   Mississippi

Sources: 

Regional Price Parities: All Items by State (Index) from GeoFRED

Resident Population by State (Thousands of Persons) from GeoFRED

Total Gross Domestic Product by State (Millions of Dollars) from GeoFRED

The maps were created using Google's Fusion Tables

Altibox Norway Chess

The Norway Chess Tournament has begun. Will Wesley So continue to dominate elite tournaments? Will Carlsen reassert his status as World Champion? Or will some other top player prevail? Here's my forecast.

Methodology

A Game from the 2017 Chicago Open

I had a fantastic tournament, scoring 4-0 in the U2100 section. My favorite game is the one below. My opponent was a rapidly rising star. He's just 14 and his USCF rating is already around 2100. His chessboard said, "2015 National Elementary Championship." For comparison, your blogger competed in the same tournament back in 2002 - and was thrilled to break the 1300 barrier. Getting a 1300 rating in 6th grade used to be a big achievement. But this new generation is leaving me in the dust... I won a nice game, perhaps the last one I'll ever win against him before he soars on to IM or GM.

[Event "2017 Chicago Open"] [Site "Chicago"] [Date "2017.05.29"] [Round "7"] [White "Wilson, Matthew"] [Black "Storn, Justin"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "C11"] [WhiteElo "2014"] [BlackElo "2096"] [Annotator "Wilson,Matthew"] [PlyCount "57"] 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. f4 c5 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. Be3 cxd4 8. Nxd4 Bc5 9. Qd2 O-O 10. O-O-O Bxd4 11. Bxd4 Qa5 12. h4 Rb8 13. g4 b5 14. Kb1 b4 15. Ne2 Ba6 16. Nc1 {I preferred this over 16.Ng3 since now the knight can cover a2 after ...Bxf1, ...Nxd4, ...Rb8-b6-a6.} Bxf1 17. Rhxf1 Rfc8 {Here I started looking at 18.f5, sacrificing a pawn. But Black can play 18...Nxd4 19.Qxd4 Rc4!} 18. Nb3 { Now ...Nxd4 ideas will be useless, since they only help me activate my knight.} Qb5 {I thought he had to play 18...Qc7} 19. f5 $1 {Time to switch into "Tal mode"! I only calculated a little, since the sac feels so right. He sank into a long think.} exf5 20. gxf5 Ndxe5 21. f6 Ng6 22. h5 { The attack almost plays itself...} Nxd4 {Black tries to return the material with interest. But the attack rages on. If instead 22...Nf8, then 23.Rg1 Ne6 24.Rxg7+! Nxg7 25.Qg5 Kf8. I didn't spot the mate in 13 that Stockfish found, but it was clear that the black monarch would not survive.} 23. Nxd4 Qb6 24. hxg6 hxg6 25. Qh2 $1 {Intending 26.Rh1. Black's king cannot escape, e.g., 25... gxf6 26.Rh1 Kf8 27.Rde1!} Qc7 26. Qh4 Qe5 27. Rh1 Qh5 28. Qg3 $1 { Trapping the queen} Rc3 29. Qxb8+ 1-0

2017 Gashimov Memorial - Round 1

I see that Round 1 was already played by the time I posted my forecast. Here are the updated numbers. Shockingly, Wesley So lost. Before this round, he had a streak of 60+ consecutive classical games without a single defeat.

Methodology

2017 Gashimov Memorial

The tournament is a 10-player round robin, featuring 2 members of the 2800 club: So and Kramnik.

Methodology

E4stat visits the 2017 US Chess Championship

First of all, congratulations to GM Wesley So for becoming the 2017 US Chess Champion. Be sure to check out So - Onischuk and Xiong - So; they were excellent games.

All of the photos here are from the final round. At the beginning of the day, So was tied for first with Akobian and Onischuk. The pairings:

Naroditsky - So
Nakamura - Akobian
Kamsky - Onischuk

Naroditsky opened with 1.e4. Perhaps So thought that neither Akobian or Onischuk would win their games. He played the infamous Berlin Defense. Naroditsky replied with a thoroughly unambitious variation. They shook hands while I was still eating lunch at the Kingside Diner. I was reminded of a Tal quote: "to play for a draw, at any rate with White, is to some degree a crime against chess." (The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal). This game was a disappointment, but at least So left us with some beautiful games in the other rounds. And Naroditsky's decision is also understandable. If you could get an easy draw against the world's number 2 player and pick up a couple of rating points, you would jump on that opportunity!

Var Akobian has been a top player in the US for many years, but he has never won the US Chess Championship. I had the honor of playing him in a 2010 blitz tournament. He beat me 2-0 and made it look easy; you can count me among Var's admirers. Alas, in the final round he was "re-accommodated" by Nakamura (to borrow a phrase from United Airline's CEO).

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Var sees that the end is near; he resigned soon.

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Alexander Onischuk had an excellent tournament. A few rounds ago, he defeated Nakamura. In the final game, he held a draw against Kamsky in a quiet Ruy Lopez. Onischuk tied for first place with So, but lost the playoff.

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Kamsky had an uneven performance. He won a few great positional games (Xiong - Kamsky, Kamsky - Naroditsky). On the other hand, he also blundered horribly against Akobian and Caruana.

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Onischuk in the main hall after the game. The player behind him in the light purple shirt is Naroditsky.

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Shabalov played a lot of fighting chess. His game with Shankland was very interesting. Unfortunately, it didn't get much attention since it was unimportant for the final standings.

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When the games ended, Maurice Ashley came upstairs. Here he is talking to Dr. Daaim Shabazz, who runs the popular Chess Drum blog. IM Greg Shahade is on the other side.

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It's time for the chess journalists to file their reports! On the left, we have Mike Klein of chess.com. Dr. Shabazz to next to him. Does anyone recognize the third person at the table?

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IM Greg Shahade, GM Alejandro Ramirez, and WGM Tatev Abrahamyan. GM Ramirez was one of the commentators in the Spanish broadcast.

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When the round ended, the fun continued! Greg Shahade and Carissa Yip, undeterred by the absence of a chessboard, played a few games of blitz. Greg won them all.

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Yasser Seirawan recruited Maggie Feng for his bughouse team. "We need some victims!" he said. They challenged Jennifer Yu and Carissa Yip. Usually bughouse is a strength of the scholastic players, but Yasser proved that he is very good! He and Maggie swept their games.

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Rex Sinquefield looks on, watching bughouse for the first time.

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The next set of "victims" fared no better than Jennifer and Carissa.

In the last round of a chess tournament, there is definitely a chance of a few short draws. But stick around - when the games are over, the players are more relaxed and there is still a lot of fun!