The Daily Update: Hammer Time at the ETC, Plus the World Junior Championship
There were a lot of draws on the top boards, including a perfect(ly dull) four for four in the Russia-Azerbaijan match. As a result, Azerbaijan remains in clear first with 11 team points out 12, with Russia, Armenia and Georgia a point back with 9 apiece.
On the individual level, something many people would have predicted has come to pass: a young Norwegian player has the best performance rating of the event. (It’s 2873.) The only “problem” is that it’s not Magnus Carlsen, who decided at a very late moment to take a pass on the event, but Jon Ludwig Hammer, who sports a rating of “just” 2585! It’s a very impressive feat so far, and puts him ahead of Fabiano Caruana’s 2848 TPR (send him back!).
In the not-sporting-such-a-great-TPR category, we note that Veselin Topalov’s performance is just 2710 so far, and it could have been worse. Of course 2710 is great for anyone reading this blog, but it’s over 100 points below Topalov’s actual rating, and according to the Live Top Rating page his hold over first place is fading to ashes. He is just 3.9 points ahead of Carlsen, and – all else being equal the rest of the way – he is one loss away from slipping into second. If Aronian can make up a few more points, we could have next year’s world championship become a battle between the world’s #2 and #4 players (and conceivably lower than that with the Tal Memorial and Wijk aan Zee coming up).
More stats and tournament info can be found here, while I cover an entertaining game from the Spain-Armenia match here.
Meanwhile, over in the World Junior Championship, Sergei Zhigalko is now in clear first with 6 points out of 7, half a point ahead of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Eduardo Iturrizaga and Falko Bindrich. There’s a long, long way to go, however – it’s a 13-round tournament. As for the Americans, Alex Lenderman has 5 points and Ray Robson has 4.5.
Related posts:
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