World Cup top 4s

Pre-registering my take early so I see how it ages: I'm extremely bearish on Abdusattorov and predict he won't come even close to qualifying. He's a 2800-level fighter and practical player but his chess in 2024 has been abjectly mediocre and unimpressive and he's been surviving on bad positions and swindles.

I've bet no on a bunch of people because the total % was much more than 800%, you can check with [...document.querySelectorAll('.whitespace-nowrap.font-bold.text-lg')].map(e => e.textContent).map(e => Number(e.replace('%',''))).reduce((a,b) => a+b, 0)

@Lorenzo ditto. There is a strange plateau when it should be more of a regular curve. I bet those on the plateau

@dlin007 The qualification paths really don't favor Hikaru-he doesn't play enough to qualify by circuit and probably rating, so will need to rank near the top of the grand swiss or world cup.

@Nightsquared But that is 5 spots in Candidates. Abd he has decent chance to qualify by rating, since possibly Caruana and Arjun will be already qualified.

@Weezing They're high variability compared to rating (or circuit if Hikaru played more)-harder for a top player to be top 3 of a 7-round single elimination tournament or a 100-person Swiss than to be in the top 2-3 of rated players not qualified for candidates/championship (i.e. how it used to be).

@Nightsquared it is higher variability, but still he is in better position than almost all of the other players. To play enough to have a good chnace in the circuit will be difficult for anyone.

@Nightsquared Hikaru will almost certainly be top 5 in the grand swiss IMO, and despite his claims to the contrary, will be motivated to qualify for the candidates