Vachier-Lagrave wins Biel 2014

Vachier-Lagrave drew Wojtaszek, guaranteeing himself first place.

In all 3 tournaments, the highest rated player won; since the forecasts are based on the rating system, it is not surprising that the forecasts did well.

Biel Round 9

Giri added some excitement to the tournament by defeating Vachier-Lagrave. The French GM is still in first place, but now his lead has been cut to half a point. Tomorrow he faces Wojtaszek. A draw in that game will secure first place for Vachier-Lagrave, though he may have to share his prize with Yifan if she beats Harikrishna. Overall, it is still very likely that Vachier-Lagrave will be the clear winner in this tournament, but things are no longer as certain as they appeared a few days ago.

Biel Round 8

Three more draws, so Vachier-Lagrave continues to coast to 1st place.

Biel International Chess Festival - Round 7

Vachier-Lagrave won again. Now that he is 1.5 points above his nearest competitors and is also the player with the highest rating, it is almost certain that he will win the tournament.

Wesley So wins ACP Classic

As expected, Brunello - So was a quick draw. This was a rest day in Biel, so there are no new forecasts today.

Caruana wins the Sparkassen Chess Meeting

Caruana scored a nice victory against Michael Adams's Berlin Defense. This clinched clear first place for him, as no one can surpass his amazing 5.0/6. The other remarkable result from Dortmund is Kramnik's 2.5/6; he lost the first round to Meier and then made 5 draws. Something isn't right with the great Russian grandmaster.

In the ACP Classic, the adjourned games were played out. Wesley So is nearly certain to take clear first; there is a tiny chance (less than 0.5%) that Sutovsky will catch up and tie with him. For this to occur, So would have to lose to bottom seed Brunello, who is nearly 200 rating points below him, and Sutovsky would have to score an upset against Almasi. The most likely outcome is that a draw will be offered sometime early in Brunello - So. So will want to guarantee himself first, and Brunello will be probably be happy with 2.5/6, which is quite a respectable score for a 2500 player in such a strong tournament.

All 3 games from Biel were drawn, so Vachier-Lagrave maintained his full point lead.

3 Chess Tournaments - Friday update

Vachier-Lagrave reduced the suspense in Biel by defeating Giri. He leads by a full point, and now there is little doubt over who the winner will be in each of the 3 tournaments.

The ACP Classic featured another adjournment and another victory by Wesley So. He is nearly certain to win.

In Dortmund, Caruana leads by a point and has nearly clinched 1st place. But if Leko beats him there will be much more uncertainty.

Biel Round 4 and ACP Classic Round 5

No games from Dortmund today. In Biel, Giri continued his comeback by beating Motylev. The other games were drawn.

Wesley So continues to dominate the forecast for the ACP Classic. He got a rest day while Nepomniachtchi drew Sutovsky. Then came two adjournments! Jobava will almost surely beat Almasi, which the forecast doesn't account for. His chances of winning the tournament should be adjusted upward. In the other adjourned game, Vocaturo has a clear advantage against Brunello. Thus, his chances should be higher than 0.005%, but it would still be shocking if he tied for first.

3 Chess Tournaments

In Biel, Vachier-Lagrave leapfrogged his rivals by beating Yifan. The leaders lost their games, so now he is in clear first. His chances improved greatly in the forecast.

In the other tournaments, clear favorites have emerged. Caruana won again, so now he leads Dortmund by a full point. He has scored a very impressive 3.5/4 against strong opposition.

In the ACP Classic, Wesley So continues to lead. In the adjourned game, a draw was agreed.

Sparkassen Chess Meeting Round 3 and Biel Round 2

All the games in Dortmund were drawn, so there was not much change in the forecast.

The players in the ACP Classic got a rest day, so we turn our attention to Biel. Harikrishna won after Giri blundered in a difficult position. Vachier-Lagrave never got anything going against Motylev and the other game was also a draw. The pre-tournament favorites aren't doing very well so far: Giri is on 0/2 and Vachier-Lagrave has obtained nothing from the opening in both of his games. But it is still very early in the tournament, so much could change in the remaining rounds.

ACP Classic Round 3 and Biel International Chess Festival Round 1

No games from Dortmund, since this is a rest day for the players. In the ACP Classic, So defeated Vocaturo and claimed sole first in the standings. Nepomniachtchi lost to Jobava and Brunello won against Sutovsky. Both of these events boosted So's chances.

In Biel, Wojtaszek beat Motylev and Yifan upset Giri.

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.

ACP Classic and Sparkassen Chess Meeting - Round 1

The ACP Classic began with 3 draws and no adjournments. Nepomniachtchi became the slight favorite in the forecast. Since So drew a weaker player than he did, Nepo now has an easier schedule in the round robin.

Meanwhile in Dortmund... Last time it was tempting to write something like, "as usual, the tournament
features a few local players who have no chance of winning but give the host country someone to root for," with Meier and Baramidze in mind. Then Meier defeated Kramnik with the black pieces. The model remains skeptical of Meier's chances, but he is certainly worthy of participating in this event. Caruana's chances soared as a result of this game and his victory over Baramidze.

The standings:

Meanwhile in the University of Oregon Economics computer lab... Slow progress on refining the model's draw rate assumption. Simple models did not suffice, so more variables were added. This eventually lead to a technical issue called multicollinearity. An easy example illustrates the problem. Suppose that the true model is

Y = 2 X + random error

but we try to estimate "a" and "b" in

Y = aX + bX + random error

Since the truth is that Y = 2X, it must be the case that a + b = 2. But there is no unique solution for this equation; a = 2 and b = 0 works, but so does a = 1, b = 1, as does a = -14, b = 16, etc. For our project, I know for a fact that I'm not committing this exact error. But with many variables that are nearly identical, the computer can't tell the difference between perfect multicollinearity and almost perfect multicollinearity. As a result, it starts automatically dropping variables that are important, leaving me with estimates that may be flawed. Today I will start testing a possible solution to the problem. Ideally a new model will be ready in time for the Biel tournament that begins on Monday, but that seems unlikely.

ACP Classic and Sparkassen Chess Meeting

For several weeks, there were no major tournaments to follow, but now there will be an abundance of top level chess. The ACP Classic and Sparkassen Chess Meeting start on Saturday, and in case that isn't enough, Biel 2014 begins on July 14.

The word "classic" is taken quite seriously in the ACP tournament. It revives the practice of adjournments(!) and the long time control of 40 moves in 2.5 hours. Your "old" blogger (23 is old for a chess player - look at all those kids in the local tournaments) has never seen a single adjournment and never played at a rate slower than 40 in 2 hours with a 5 second delay (except for correspondence games). Since these conditions are so unusual in modern chess, there may be an extra element of uncertainty that can't be captured in the forecast model. With that caveat in mind, here are the predictions:

The Sparkassen Chess Meeting features stars such as Caruana and Kramnik. It's a fairly standard 8 player round robin.