Toronto Candidates - Wrapup

Having done as much as I wanted to do for the two recent candidate events -- the main event and the women's event -- it's time to wrap everything up. The equivalent post for the previous cycle, Madrid Candidates - Wrapup (August 2022), had 11 posts on this blog plus one on my main blog. This current effort has 14 posts plus one on the main blog.

• 2023-09-20: Forthcoming Events
• 2024-01-17: The Race for the 2024 Candidates Events
• 2024-03-06: Toronto Candidates - Kickoff • Crosstable showing the historical record of all previous games between the eight players.
• 2024-03-13: Toronto Candidates - Women • Ditto, but crosstable for women.
• 2024-03-20: Toronto Candidates - Visas
• 2024-03-27: Toronto Candidates - Sponsors
• 2024-04-03: Toronto Candidates - Last Resources
• 2024-04-10: Toronto Candidates - First Week
• 2024-04-17: Toronto Candidates - Second Week
• 2024-04-24: Toronto Candidates - Third Week
• 2024-05-15: A Soft-spoken Challenger • Video: 'Interview with FIDE Candidates winner Gukesh'.
• 2024-05-22: Toronto Candidates - Round by Round • Links to other reports.
• 2024-05-29: Toronto Candidates - Games with Most Views
• 2024-06-05: Toronto Candidates - Women

And from my main blog:-

• 2024-04-25: Candidate Yahoos • 'Of the 99 chess stories returned by Google News for the month of April, 27 were about the just concluded Candidates tournament'.

And that's a wrapup...

Toronto Candidates - Women

Due to severe time constraints, it's been a while since I posted Toronto Candidates - Third Week (April 2024). There I wrote,

I'll have a wrapup report on the entire event and a separate report on the Women’s Candidates as soon as I get a chance.

Let's have the Women’s Candidates first. Here is the crosstable as created by TWIC.

FIDE Women's Candidates Tournament 2024
(theweekinchess.com; TWIC)

The corresponding report started,

Tan Zhongyi is the clear winner of the Women's Candidates 2024 • Tan Zhongyi will challenge Ju Wenjun for the World Chess Championship in 2025. The 32 year old player was not the favourite for the event but her confident play dominated with only a round 8 loss to her closest challenger Lei Tingjie as a blemish in the event.

For a crosstable on the previous Women's Championship match, see 2023 Ju Wenjun - Lei Tingjie Title Match; Shanghai / Chongqing (China), VII, 2023. Both players were mentioned in the TWIC report quoted above.

Toronto Candidates - Games with Most Views

In the previous post, Toronto Candidates - Round by Round (May 2024), I developed a table of links to other resources that documented the progress of the event. For the last column in the table, I wrote,

The column titled 'FIDE Video' links to Youtube's FIDE chess Live Streams.

While I was creating that table, I noticed that FIDE chess Live Streams, also had videos for each of the 112 games played in the event: 2 events each with 8 players and 2 round robin stages per event. Since each video included the number of views for that video, this let me calculate the relative popularity of the players.

Views are in thousands, e.g. the first row means 1.388.000 views. Apologies for the four-letter codes used in the table. With databases, it is often easier to work with codes than with full names.

For the main Candidates event (the top half of the table), the codes correspond to Nakamura, Nepomniachtchi, Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, Caruana, Vidit Santosh Gujrathi, Firouzja, and Abasov.

For the women's event (the bottom half of the table), they correspond to Salimova, A.Muzychuk, Goryachkina, Lagno, Vaishali Rameshbabu, Lei Tingjie, Tan Zhongyi, and Humpy Koneru.

I can't explain the relative popularity of Nurgyul Salimova among women players. Most observers of world chess would predict the relative popularity of Hikaru Nakamura, due to his streaming presence. The most viewed game was 'Round 14: Nakamura vs Gukesh'. After that GM Nakamura played in another seven of the top-10 most viewed videos.

Toronto Candidates - Round by Round

In the previous post, A Soft-spoken Challenger (May 2024), I wrote,

Because of an intervening half-month vacation, the wrapup report and separate report [on the women's event] will have to wait. In the meantime, here's a video from Youtube's FIDE chess channel.

I used this post to catch up on the event by creating a table of important links. The column titled 'Chess.com' links to news report for each round. The column titled 'FIDE Video' links to Youtube's FIDE chess Live Streams.

Rd.	Chess.com	FIDE Video [Views]
01	Candidates Opens With Abundance of Fighting Spirit	[212K]
02	Vidit Ends Nakamura's 47-Game Unbeaten Streak On All-Decisive Day	[100K]
03	Brother/Sister Comeback: Praggnanandhaa Defeats Vidit, Vaishali Finds Her Groove	[97K]
04	Nepomniachtchi Defeats Vidit, Takes Sole Lead; Tan Survives Major Scare	[82K]
05	Gukesh Joins Lead, Nepomniachtchi Survives Praggnanandhaa's Killer Preparation	[86K]
06	Tan Plays Attacking Gem In All-Decisive Day In Women's; Vidit, Praggnanandhaa Recover	[44K]
07	Firouzja Knocks Gukesh Out Of Lead, Nepomniachtchi Heads Tournament Again	[55K]
08	Nakamura Leapfrogs Caruana, Gukesh Re-enters Shared Lead With Nepomniachtchi	[55K]
09	Vidit Beats Nakamura Again, Tan Jumps Back Into Sole Lead Of Women's	[49K]
10	Nakamura, Caruana Bounce Back; Lei Joins Lead In Women's	[53K]
11	Nepomniachtchi, Tan Regain Sole Lead, Nakamura Beats Praggnanandhaa	[53K]
12	Nakamura Scores Hat Trick, Joins 3-Way Lead With Nepomniachtchi, Gukesh	[38K]
13	Gukesh Leads Candidates Before Last Round, Tan Needs Only A Draw In Women's	[49K]
14	Gukesh Youngest Ever Candidates Winner, Tan Takes Women's By 1.5 Points	[110K]

A Soft-spoken Challenger

The previous post on this blog, Toronto Candidates - Third Week (April 2024), ended saying,

I'll have a wrapup report on the entire event and a separate report on the Women’s Candidates as soon as I get a chance. Congratulations to GM Gukesh on a historic victory that very few knowledgeable observers had expected.

Because of an intervening half-month vacation, the wrapup report and separate report will have to wait. In the meantime, here's a video from Youtube's FIDE chess channel.

"From the start, I was here to win": Interview with FIDE Candidates winner Gukesh (25:21) • '[Published on] Apr 27, 2024'

The description said,

Watch Gukesh’s insightful interview with Anna Burtasova after his victory at the FIDE Candidates 2024.

The helpful mention, 'Follow along using the transcript', promises a gold mine of suitable quotes. After that, the comments are full of compliments for both GM Gukesh and the interviewer. The forthcoming title match with World Champion Ding Liren promises to be a roaring battle between two soft-spoken champions.

Toronto Candidates - Third Week

Last week's post, Toronto Candidates - Second Week (April 2024), identifying typical patterns that have held in recent Candidates tournaments, predicted that GMs Gukesh and Nepomniachtchi were the two most likely players to win the event. Many observers were expecting Nepo to repeat his overwhelming success of the two most recent Candidates events, where he won both outright by a comfortable margin. Caissa, the goddess of chess, had another outcome in mind.

Going into the final round, Gukesh held a half-point lead over three of the pre-tournament favorites, Nepo included. Here's how Chessbase.com summarized the standings after the penultimate round (see below for a link to the full report).

Chessbase.com rd.13 report • Gukesh D, at 17, is a win away from becoming the next World Chess Championship challenger. The Indian prodigy beat Alireza Firouzja on Saturday to go into the final round of the Candidates Tournament as the sole leader. Three experienced contenders, who are also the top seeds in Toronto, stand a half point behind: Ian Nepomniachtchi, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana.

That summary didn't mention that all four of the leading players were due to play each other in the final round. In the crosstable, for each of the four players I've circled the first result against the only remaining opponent.

Top: Candidates R13: Gukesh beats Firoujza, enters final round as sole leader (chessbase.com; Carlos Alberto Colodro)
Bottom: Gukesh becomes World Championship challenger at 17! (ditto)

The report preceding the bottom crosstable started,

Chessbase.com rd.14 report • Gukesh D, an incredibly level-headed 17-year-old from Chennai, became the World Chess Championship challenger by winning the very strong 2024 Candidates Tournament in Toronto. Gukesh entered the final round as the sole leader, and safely held a draw with black against direct contender Hikaru Nakamura. Either Fabiano Caruana or Ian Nepomniachtchi could have caught the youngster with a win, but their direct encounter saw Caruana failing to make the most of a number of winning chances before agreeing to a 109-move draw in what turned out to be a titanic struggle.

For an interview with the winner by Chessbase.com, see The dream becomes a reality: Gukesh’s victory in a historic event (chessbase.com; Shahid Ahmed). It started,

Records were shattered and history was made at the 2024 FIDE Candidates. Two events -- Open [sic] and Women’s -- took place simultaneously for the first time at the same hall. We saw the first brother-sister duo, R Praggnanandhaa and R Vaishali, participating. In the end, D Gukesh broke a number of records: he was the youngest ever to win the Candidates Tournament and thus become the youngest ever challenger to the World Championship. Gukesh was interviewed by Sagar Shah ['ChessBase India’s co-founder and CEO'].

I'll have a wrapup report on the entire event and a separate report on the Women’s Candidates as soon as I get a chance. Congratulations to GM Gukesh on a historic victory that very few knowledgeable observers had expected.

Toronto Candidates - Second Week

Yesterday was a rest day after round ten of the 2024 Candidates tournament. A week ago, in Toronto Candidates - First Week (April 2024), I wrote,

Here is [a] chart, showing the [fifth] round in the 2022 tournament with the leader circled in red. Also shown is the overall standing after round five in the 2024 tournament as presented by a top chess news source. [...] Also circled in red in the top chart is the 2022 leader after ten rounds plus the winner at the end. After all three rounds, the leader was GM Nepomniachtchi.

Let's extract the 2022 portion of that chart and combine it with the standing after round ten in the 2024 tournament presented by the same chess news source. That gives the following chart.

Top: 2022 Candidates Tournament (m-w.com; 'Cumulative Score')
Bottom: Candidates R10: Nakamura and Caruana grab crucial wins (chessbase.com; Carlos Alberto Colodro)

Just like in the 'First Week' post, we see GMs Gukesh and Nepomniachtchi tied for first and second places, a half point ahead of third place. One big difference is that GM Caruana was alone in third after five rounds, but now shares that place with GMs Praggnanandhaa and Nakamura. That leaves five players (out of eight) with a chance of winning the event.

Only first place has real value -- the challenger's seat in the forthcoming World Championship match against Ding Liren, the reigning World Champion. Runners-up get money, but no glory.