2014 Gashimov Memorial Round 10

Carlsen beat Caruana, winning clear 1st place. Meanwhile, Radjabov finished on a solid 5.0/10 with a 2793 performance - exactly equal to his peak rating before its big decline. We will certainly be watching to see if his rating makes a full recovery.

2014 Gashimov Memorial Round 9

Caruana greatly boosted his chances by defeating Mamedyarov today. He is tied with Carlsen at 5.5/9 while the rest are at least a full point behind. Thus, the Carlsen-Caruana game will be decisive.

Carlsen wins clear 1st: 43%
Carlsen wins or ties for 1st: 84%
Caruana wins clear 1st: 16%
Caruana wins or ties for first: 57%
Everyone else: 0% chance of winning 1st place

Carlsen will have the advantage of the white pieces, which these estimates do not account for. But there is also a strong incentive for both players to avoid risks, so the estimated draw rate may be too low.

2014 Gashimov Memorial Round 8

Nakamura recovers by triumphing over Mamedyarov, while Caruana prevailed over Radjabov. The standings after 8 rounds:

Unfortunately, when I "improved" the forecasting computer program, it started giving me results that could not possibly be correct (i.e., Karjakin has a better chance of winning the tournament than Carlsen). I haven't been able to identify the bug yet, but luckily we can still do the calculations by hand.

The critical game will be the Round 10 battle between Carlsen and Caruana. If Carlsen wins, then he is guaranteed at least a tie for 1st regardless of what happens in his game with Radjabov. Based on games between 2700 players with a similar rating gap, this event happens 43% of the time. Case 2: Carlsen loses to Caruana (16% chance). But Carlsen can still secure 1st place if he beats Radjabov (55% chance) while Caruana draws or loses to Mamedyarov (72%). Even if Carlsen draws Radjabov, he can still win the tournament if Caruana loses (22%) and no one on 4/8 wins twice. Case 3: Caruana and Carlsen draw. Then Carlsen is assured 1st place if he doesn't lose to Radjabov (89.5%), but even a loss doesn't always cost him the tournament. After adding up the probabilities, we see that Carlsen has about an 85% chance of tying for 1st. This seems like a reasonable figure: yesterday Carlsen was around 90%, but now his main pursuer is Caruana, who is much higher rated than Radjabov. Thus, Carlsen's chances should have declined slightly from 90%, and they did.

Most of Caruana's chances rely on him defeating Carlsen, but there are ways for him to win if he draws Carlsen and prevails against Mamedyarov. Caruana has about a 20% chance of tying for 1st.

Radjabov, Karjakin, and Nakamura face far steeper odds. There is about a 95% chance that the winner of the tournament will need to score at least 6/10. They need to win both of their last games and hope that the leaders stumble. Their chances are less than 10%.

2014 Gashimov Memorial Round 7

Carlsen scores again, and now it is very likely that he will win the tournament. Radjabov drew today and still has some chances of taking 1st place. The model also thinks that Caruana has a shot due to his high rating. The latest forecasts, based on 40,000 simulations:

Standings after 7 rounds:

2014 Gashimov Memorial Round 6

Carlsen's chances surged today after his victory over Mamedyarov. At the beginning of the tournament, I mentioned that Radjabov would be an interesting player to watch. His rating reached peaked at 2793 before falling dramatically to 2713. With 6 rounds completed, it looks like Radjabov's great comeback is well under way: he is tied for 1st and has yet to lose a game.

Standings after 6 rounds:

Gashimov Memorial Round 5

Bottom seed Radjabov upsets Carlsen in a hard-fought game. Then Mamedyarov beat Caruana, throwing the forecasts into confusion. Right now it looks like anything could happen.

Current standings:

2014 Gashimov Memorial Round 4

Caruana defeated Carlsen in a fine game, shaking up the forecasts considerably. Carlsen remains the favorite due to his stratospheric rating, but victory is far from inevitable. The latest winning probabilities: