Originally posted by AjuinAnand is great, but I'm not really sure he could perform at his highest when under heavy preparation for his WC match. I think the main competition will once again be between Kramnik and Carlsen, for them such high level tournaments are practice for the Candidates Tournament they will participate, and they both feel they have something to prove at the moment. For Kramnik, that is getting above that 2800 and show "he still has it", and for Carlsen that is simply protecting his number one spot.
Anand will win.
I looked at the list of participants and noticed Adriaan De Groot is playing 😲
Maybe they will all prove me wrong.
magnus will win of course, but who's gonna be last? short or smeets? kramnik will probably make a comeback. I'll say 1. carlsen, 2. anand, 3. kramnik. predictable, yeah, but what can you do. these three have to fail for anyone else to fit in.
naka might surprise, although he's yet to show solid performance against top level in classical. can't really believe he could win, but finishing in the top5 would be a leap forward for him. he has the skills, but doesn't seem to have the nerves.
1 - Jan Smeets
2 - Sergey Tiviakov
3 - Loek van Wely
Don't say I didn't warn you in advance
The last places are a lot more difficult to predict, with all these giants sitting down behind the board; maybe Caruana, haven't seen much good chess from him, although he won last year's Corus B-group, right?
Originally posted by heinzkatI think caruana has a much bigger chance to surprise than smeets. tiviakov is one of my black horses as well, but I don't really think he can make it past 4th or 5th place.
1 - Jan Smeets
2 - Sergey Tiviakov
3 - Loek van Wely
Don't say I didn't warn you in advance
The last places are a lot more difficult to predict, with all these giants sitting down behind the board; maybe Caruana, haven't seen much good chess from him, although he won last year's Corus B-group, right?
in a perfect world nakamura would take 4th and tiviakov the 5th place. 🙂
I have no faith for van wely, although he might well score a point against kramnik et al. and shuffle the deck a bit.
My guess is a big bunch at the top with the usual suspects, MC, VK & VA, but I also expect Nakamura to be close - certainly above Tviakov, Smeets, Caruana, and even Ivanchuk. Excepting his loss yesterday to Aronian, he's been terrorizing the WTC.
Karjakin is the wild card He'll probably bust a few unexpected heads. Van Wely has to be the whipping boy. Short is improving, but the competition at the top is too much.
Should be great!