Sinquefield Cup Thread

Isn't this one of the strongest tournaments ever?

Honestly, there's not a single person who I could replace here without hesistating, so the field is stacked.

Carlsen should win the tournament, so I pick him.

Who do you have winning and also lets talk about the games here for those who like to chat and stuff.

The Saint Louis Chess Club will be having, BY FAR, the best broadcast team for the coverage of this tournament, so I suggest watching on youtube, on the St Louis Chess Club's live stream.

Looking for a quick summary? Then Chessbomb's website arena is a nice one. Also, PowerplayChess has a short recap of the games usually.

Looking for annotated games by a high rated player? IM Chessexplained's YouTube channel will do it.

I'd love to know what went through Carlsen's mind the minute he saw the pairings for each round.

i also love kingscrusher's channel. He usually covers all big games and tournaments. 

Topalov and Nakamura are now not only #2 and #3 on the live ratings, but it is also career rating peaks for both.

Wow, Anand, Carlsen, Caruana lost. Incredible.

Anyone catch Hikaru's interview? He basically went in on Anand saying he's old so just play slow and he'll get tired.....

I usually like his arrogrant vibe but that was beyond out of line.....

Nice thread. Thanks for the links. I choose Carlsen, Caruana and Nakamura for win, place and show. But really, any guess will have almost equal chances in this field.

He already qualified for the candidate's

Qualification path	Player	FIDE rating (July 2015)[4]
Loser of the World Chess Championship 2014 match[5]	Viswanathan Anand	2816
The top two finishers in the Chess World Cup 2015[5]	TBD
	TBD
The top two finishers in the FIDE Grand Prix 2014–15[5]	Fabiano Caruana	2797
	Hikaru Nakamura	2814
The next two highest rated players who played in the Chess World Cup 2015 or the FIDE Grand Prix 2014–15 (average FIDE rating on the 12 monthly lists from January to December 2015)[6]	TBD
	TBD
Organizing committee's wild card (FIDE rating in July 2015 at least 2725)[5]	TBD

"He already qualified for the candidate's"

And the rating spots seem to be secured by Topalov and Giri by now.

Completely agree with you Damonevic. Hikaru has a habit of disrespecting other players and trash talking about some or the other player every time he speaks.

Given the way he speaks about other players, perhaps he thinks that he is the strongest and the greatest player in the world (which obviously is a misconception), and he is not even remotely close to achieving what Vishy, Vladimir, Magnus have achieved in their careers. He is a strong player, but by no standards the greatest and the strongest player in the World.

The guy seriously needs to learn a thing or two about humility and respecting other players who are far more accomplished, successful and better behaved than him. I can say for sure that all these players like Hikaru who make fun of Vishy's and Vladimir's age will not be able to perform at the level that these guys have been performing when they reach that age.

Hikaru needs to achieve a lot more before he can even come close to be spoken of and held in the same esteem as Vishy, Vladimir and Magnus in the history of Chess.

I like Nakamura this tournament, but I'd feel justified picking any one of 6 of the 10 players to win.

Carlsens win today gets him within a half point of Topolov. Can he still recover after that devastaing first round loss?

Hmm, in general I didn't really get that vibe. Naka just seems to be giving his honest opinion on what is a good strategy against Anand. There is no guarantee an older player will make mistakes but it's reasonable to think that, everything else being equal, it's more strain on an older player. It's not like he or anyone is blaming Anand for being old, everyone gets old eventually. In any case there may be something to what Naka was saying. What Naka tried to do is basically what happened in round 1. Maybe it was a coincidence, but more likely something about Naka's strategy helped him. Beating Anand period is no small feat.

I consider it time well spent though personally. I've watched all three rounds, maybe skipping a few minutes every now and then, but that would be it. It's been quite a tournament so far. Magnus and Topalov played some strange and interesting ideas in their game, but I think Topalov was the deserved winner. Good to see Magnus win that dramatic game in round 2, and now he seems to be in good shape. Caruana played interesting chess in round 1, probably heavily influenced by computer prep. He played a strategy that is probably fine if you play weird engine like moves, but once you mess up on a move or two you just wonder, why did you open up your king and give white a free attack.

Yeah me too! I think Maurice said something like this is alien era chess, and some of this really is :) Topalov's ...g5 was insanely creative for sure, my intuitions told me it was simply a bad move, although I knew Topalov had some crazy justification I wouldn't understand :)

The first round really disappointing for Carlsen's fans - the move g5 couldn't be a good one, but Na3 from white later was beyound the engine's suggestion and after that Magnus probably overestimated his position. Concerning g5 and alien chess just remember Bent Larsen... But for sure chess has changed so much, it's much easier to judge when we have that engines and of course the preparations!

Sinquefield Cup 2017

• 45 games of classical chess
• First place
• Winner's score
• Tie-break: yes/no?
• Deadline for predictions: Aug 2, 2017 at 13:00 LOC (UTC-5)

https://goo.gl/forms/6RJrsThyUDnEB8Cv1

Hopefully someone exciting such as Aronian can be the wild card.

Providing Kramnik qualifies by rating :)