MVL co-leader at Candidates

Just a reminder they wanted to keep MVL out of the tournament to let some unknown player nammed Alekseenko play in the most important chess tournament.

So how's that decision looking now?

Looks like no-name can't even win a game. Ridiculous.

And remember they did the same thing back in 2018, giving the spot to Kramnik

....  who couldn't even finish at 50% then retired a few months later.

Oh, but I'm sure it was logical to pick Kramnik right? Wait...

... that's right. His rating was lower than MVL's and he'd played almost no games all year.

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If it were some no name BS tournament then I wouldn't care, but the candidates is a little too important to conspire to keep one of the top players from playing.

Anyway, it's half way over and it's fun to see MVL doing well.

Too bad he wasn't born in Russia, else he'd already have played a few, but at least he's getting to play now.

letting in kramnik was fine, imo (he did really well, and was leading at the start of the tourney last year) 

although I completely agree with what u said about alekseenko. GO MVL!!

Yeah, big K won a few games early then was on -3 or -4 for the last half of the tournament.

At least he was a former world champ so they could pretend it wasn't a BS decision. There's no excuse for Alekseenko, who I'm sure is a nice person and a reasonably strong GM. It's just no one would ever mistake him for contender for the world champ title.

The point of the wildcard spot is to attract sponsors, which is not the same thing as making sure the best player gets it who didn't qualify the normal way. If France hosted this event, MVL would get the wildcard spot without a doubt. I don't know why they chosen Alekseenko though, Sergey Karjakin would be a more exciting choice, he won this tournament a few years ago.

Well there were already two russian players who had qualified so a third russian was unnecessary. If Nepo and Sasha had not qualified then their decision would have been justifiable, but adding a third russian who stood no chance to win the event especially when there was another candidate who was far more worthy is just stupid and bad for the sport in my opinion.

Yeah, and everyone knows there's no better way to attract sponsors than invite a guy no one's ever heard of over a perennial top 10 player.

Makes total sense.

OR. 

JUST MAYBE

It's a big ol' Russian circle jerk.

Just a reminder that the Russians spent millions building up a chess player base and a chess culture at a time when the US, China and Europe weren't spending anything on the game.

Maybe the Russians payed good money for their circle jerk?

Well, I could say a few things about that, but in any case my main point is it's IMPORTANT to invite the best players to the candidates because it helps decide the world champ.

If the best players don't play then there's no point... and the guy they tried to leave out twice is now leading. This is a little bit more important than money or circle jerking Russians.

MVL is Not the co-leader of the tournament. 

He is the sole Leader at the 1/2 mark.

Well if two players are tied for first at the end of the tournament, then the one with the better head to head score is declared the winner of the tournament, so since MVL beat Nepo he would be the winner(assuming things stay as they are)

Tie-break only has an effect at the END of the tournament. Right now, the two players are tied for first (ie: co-leaders).

Looks like the tournament has been put on hold indefinitely, so he'll be co-leading for quite a long time