London Chess Classic Starts Friday
These are the first round pairings for the final leg of the 2017 Grand Chess Tour:
- Ian Nepomniachtchi (2732) - Levon Aronian (2801)
- Magnus Carlsen (2837) - Fabiano Caruana (2799)
- Michael Adams (2721) - Sergey Karjakin (2760)
- Hikaru Nakamura (2780) - Viswanathan Anand (2782)
- Wesley So (2788) - Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2796)
In the overall standings Carlsen is in first, Vachier-Lagrave is in second and Aronian is in a relatively distant third. Aronian's chances of coming in first overall are very slim, but if Vachier-Lagrave comes in clear first he's guaranteed of a rapid playoff against Carlsen if the latter comes in clear second, while anything less would give him overall victory. Obviously, if Carlsen wins the tournament or even ties for first, he's guaranteed of victory for the 2017 Tour.
The play will start Friday at 3 p.m. CET (= 9 a.m. ET), but before that - on Thursday - there's a bit of a dog-and-pony show with the "Pro-Biz" consultation event starting at 12:30 p.m. CET (=6:30 a.m. ET). It's a 20'+5" tandem event with teams composed of GMs (all super-GMs, except for David Norwood) and amateurs - some, or maybe all of whom, are quite strong.
Finally, the British Knockout Championship will be held concurrently with the London Chess Classic; like the LCC it will run from December 1-9.
Tournament website here. Predictions? I'll choose a mild dark horse and say Aronian.