I believe these are the matchups for the round of 16 based on my memory. Please feel free to make corrections if I am mistaken. The 3 biggest stories so far in my opinion is the advancement of So, Caruana, and Laznicka.
What is your prediction for the upcoming round?
Gelfand – Vachier-Lagrave
Grischuk – Jakovenko
Laznicka – Mamedyarov
Vitiugov – Karjakin
Gashimov – Caruana
Ponomarov – Bacrot
Svidler – Shirov
So – Malakhov
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
The players who are mentioned first will reach the next round except for Svidler, he will be beaten by Shirov!
Gerrit Bruggeman
My prediction:
Gelfand
Grischuk
Mamedyarov
Gashimov
Ponomarov
Shirov
So
Svidler was very lucky! Has was getting crushed after losing the first game but sometimes is very hard to win a winning position. At least Svidler showed determination to make things as difficult as possible. I think in some positions there were simple moves that would give confortable advantage for white and the german did not chose them (he was in a very aggressive mood!), making the game very complicated. At the end he couldnt find a way out. The end of the game was a disaster for white.
very interesting pairing, i would say young tigers will go out here, all other as lion predicted
I’m happy Curauna is doing well. I like when the wildcard picks does well. May have been too early for Ray.
Naiditsch was very short on time when the fourth rapid game against Svidler became complicated. He had several drawing continuations, but maybe wanted to win (when a draw would have been enough to qualify). In any case: ticktickticktick ….. .
In fairness to Svidler, he then dominated the blitz games.
BTW, only one player (Mamedyarov) reached round 4 without any tiebreaks. Maybe this – conserving energy and nerves – becomes a factor in the coming rounds?
Gelfand
Grischuk
Mamedyarov
Gashimov
Ponomarov
Shirov
So
lagrave
grischuk
mamedyarov
karjakin
caruana
bacrot
shirov
malakhov