The Chess Mind

Getting caught up here...

In my pre-tiebreak report for round 5, I noted that six of the eight matches had already finished. In the top half, Ponomariov, Bacrot and Aronian had advanced, leaving only Grischuk and Gelfand in need of a tiebreaker. Likewise, Carlsen, Kamsky and Malakhov won their matches in regular time, leaving only van Wely and Vallejo Pons in need of extra games.

The results: after two draws in the rapid games, Grischuk won both blitz games, staying alive in the race for first and putting my prognostication record at a healthy 10-2. Meanwhile, Vallejo Pons won 1.5-.5 in the rapid games and thus stayed alive in the hunt for a Candidates' spot.

The pairings for round 6 were therefore as follows:

1st-4th

Ponomariov-Grischuk
Aronian-Bacrot

5th-8th

Bareev-Rublevsky
Gelfand-Gurevich

9th-12th

Carlsen-Malakhov
Vallejo Pons-Kamsky

13th-16th

van Wely-Lautier
Sakaev-Dreev

As things stand with FIDE at the moment, the top 10 players will be seeded into the Candidates' matches. The battle for 13th-16th is thus moot, apart from whatever financial incentives the players have, and likewise, aside from bragging rights, for the 1st-4th and 5th-8th matches. The really desperate, bloodthirsty chess should come in the 9th-12th brackets, as the winners of this round's matches are IN and the losers OUT.

Here are the round results so far, leading into the tiebreaker coming up in a few hours:

Ponomariov-Grischuk 1-1
Aronian defeated Bacrot 1.5-.5

Bareev-Rublevsky 1-1
Gelfand defeated Gurevich 2-0

Carlsen-Malakhov 1-1
Vallejo Pons-Kamsky 1-1

van Wely-Lautier 1-1
Dreev defeated Sakaev 1.5-.5

[Note: All the games of the 1-1 matches were drawn.]

My expectation is for an exciting but sloppy tiebreak round: I think the players' fatigue (the event is well into its third week) will facilitate plenty of blunders.