The Next Big Thing: The Julius Baer Generation Cup
The Meltwater Tour resumes, with a field including both Carlsen and Niemann
The Grand Chess Tour has finished for now, but there’s still the Meltwater Tour to enjoy. The next event on their calendar starts tomorrow, the Julius Baer Generation Cup. As is customary with Meltwater Tour events, there are two stages: a 16-player round robin followed by knockout matches. Here’s the breakdown, from the Information tab on this page:
The Julius Baer Generation Cup is the 7th of 9 events on the $1.6 million 2022 Meltwater Champions Chess Tour and takes place on chess24 from September 18-25. The 16-player field will be cut in half by the 4-day round-robin Prelims. The total prize fund is $150,000, with $750 for a win and $250 for a draw in the Prelims. The quarterfinals and semi-finals are 1-day, 4-game matches, while the final will feature two such matches over two days. The players have 15 minutes for all their moves, plus a 10-second increment starting from move 1. In the Prelims there are 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw. If a tiebreak is required the players will play two 5+3 games and then, if needed, a single Armageddon game, where White has 5 minutes to Black's 4, but a draw counts as a win for Black. No draw offers are allowed before move 40.
The schedule in the prelims has the players contesting four games a day the first three days, and then three games on the fourth day. If you’re curious - and of course you are - the Hans Niemann vs. Magnus Carlsen game in the prelims will be in round 6, scheduled for Monday at 1 p.m. ET. First things first: here are the pairings for round 1, which starts tomorrow at noon ET.
Ivan Saric - Anish Giri
Vassily Ivanchuk - Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa
Jan-Krzysztof Duda - Levon Aronian
Boris Gelfand - Hans Niemann
Christopher Yoo - David Navara
Radoslaw Wojtaszek - Le Quang Liem
Vincent Keymer - Baskaran Adhiban
Arjun Erigaisi - Magnus Carlsen
An excellent field. Some of the players are outsiders and likely to gain more experience than anything else (“experience” here defined as what you get when you don’t get what you want), but it’s a nice blend of veterans and youngsters. Interestingly, very few of the players are in their peak years - most are either approaching or receding that peak. Fortunately, all, excepting perhaps the very young Christopher Yoo, are close enough to that peak to at least have a decent shot of qualifying for the knockout stage.
Predictions? Will Carlsen bounce back from the weirdness of his withdrawal from the Sinquefield Cup and play like himself, or will someone outdo him - maybe Praggnanandhaa, who came within a whisker of beating him in the last Tour event?
As always, not criticism or correction (well, maybe a minor semantic one) but curiosity and elaboration:
"Interestingly, very few of the players are in their peak years - most are either approaching or receding that peak."
You are right but how unusual is this for such a "mixed field" concept? I would count five players in their peak years, six receding ones and five juniors - where "on the rise" may be more accurate (or flexible-vague) than "approaching ... that peak". Approaching could be interpreted as "already close, they may gain 20-30 additional rating points but not more than that" - I don't think this is your intended meaning.
At their peak: Carlsen, Giri, Duda (unless he, youngest non-junior, is still considered "approaching"), Le Quang Liem, Saric (he had 2700+ intermittently but 2668 is about his average rating over many years).
Still improving: obviously the juniors Erigaisi, Keymer, Niemann (some would put a question mark, I don't), Pragg, Yoo.
Receding: Aronian (maybe harsh but he's 70 points below his peak rating and the oldest one but for Ivanchuk and Gelfand), Wojtaszek, Navara, Gelfand, Ivanchuk.
How could they get more players "in their peak years"? Obviously by inviting more current world-top players, but sub-2700 players are (exception Saric) invited because they were much better in the past or are expected to become much better in the (near) future.
Players rated 2650-2700 "in their peak years" might be the likes of Swiercz, Nyzhnyk (former prodigies - "rising stars that quit rising"), Guseinov, Kovalenko, Salem, Oparin, Predke - only Oparin might "make sense"?
Further players rated 2650-2700 and well above 2700 earlier: Inarkiev, Kryvoruchko, Kasimdzhanov, Matlakov, Korobov, Najer, Jakovenko - only Kasimdzhanov may have the "status" of those who were invited?
[I include Russians - Oparin recently changed federations and is now representing the USA. Not clear whether lack of Russians in this field is "by design".]