alekseenko for wildcard?

[Henri Hughes]

recently ive seen a lot of two sided opinions on wether it should be Alekseenko. Any reason for not picking MVL? players spend two years working their way into the strongest tournament there is and the organizers decide to throw someone who just recently crossed 2700. has a blitz rating in the 2500s? I hope theres still a chance this could change. what do the rest of you think?

[Alex Ferreira]

Hi Henry,


I was nearly done writing a looong thesis paper on 2020 Candidates when some crap site error shut me down and I lost most of it and am not going to re-write it.
But from where I left off and couple bits...

Russia has a chess pedigree. List of accomplishments not needed.
Norway has Magnus. Since, they created Norway Chess.
Azerbaijan has/had a golden generation with Radjabov, Mamedyarov, Gashimov. Won some medals and team events. Now they have Shamkir / Gashimov Memorial.
India, apart from Anand, now have a group of 2700s. Starting to do international tournaments in India. Plus 2013 Chennai. Olympiad medals.
USA has 3 Candidate Contenders, 5 2700s and more on the way. Now they do Sinquefield annually. University Chess Scholarships. Olympiad medals. 2016 New York.
But now you start looking at countries like England, Germany and Netherlands. Excellent chess traditions. Strong annual continuous events like Wijk ann Zee, Dortmund, London Classic, etc... eventually a Giri comes along, and many 2600s roam around in these 3 countries, making them very decent chess nations.
Then you take a look at France. Decent chess tradition. Excellent chess history. They can produce a MVL. 5-10 years ago they won a medal at some Olympiad. Apart from MVL, they've had 3-4 players scratch and pass 2700 over the past decade. France needs to put itself on the chess map, with something more than a one-off elite event.
Finally, you have countries like Ukraine. All the chess talent in the world, across many generations. Zero support for chess in Ukraine. This is a country that based on chess talent, players, coaches, etc... has every reason to produce players for the Candidates.
MVL is playing for a country that simply lacks that tiny little bit more, so it's that bit more difficult for him, in my opinion. Just don't move to Ukraine.

Russia has the Wild Card. Wild Card process is at its best. Selection process from a group of 2nd / 3rd best players who almost made it but not quite.
MVL was consistently 3rd best this year. The current system is not designed to slot in 3rd best players automatically. Why should it?
There are only 7 candidate spots available (not including loser of last match). It's not easy.

Russia is organizing, pouring efforts, money, human resources, etc etc etc into the Yekaterinburg 2020 Candidates. A hugely important event to any chess professional or chess fan. A completely meaningless event to the non-chess-community. The non-chess-community will be aware of where the actual world championship match is, maybe.
Having MVL miss the candidates for two consecutive cycles is, in my opinion, a travesty. With that said... the system in place is excellent, and he's had his chances. I would have liked to see him there, because I think he has a decent shot of actually winning such an event. Better shot of winning the event than Alekseenko or Wang Hao. But we will see.

Alekseenko is the new kid on the 2700 block, with an excellent World Cup and excellent Grand Swiss. He might be a distant would-have-been memory in 2021. Or this could accelerate a huge breakthrough for him and see him join top 20 or top 10 in the next couple years. Who knows. Russia should be promoting its youth, not responding to the chess world clamoring to allow MVL in.


Alex Ferreira

[Henri Hughes]

I see what your saying Alex.
but the candidates is not about supporting youth chess, its not about supporting the younger smaller federations its about having the best of the best and alekseenko probably will finish dead last

[Alex Ferreira]

Hi Henry,


The Candidates is supposed to have the best players, I don't disagree. However, I also do feel like players need to prove themselves and slightly less favourites should have a shot at being able to play. For example, if we just pick the top 7 players by rating, we might be excluding Anand, So, Aronian and other 2740-2770 players automatically.
I don't know if I fully agree that Alekseenko will finish last. Finishing 3rd in the Grand Swiss and getting knocked out by Ding Liren on tie-breaks only at the World Cup, might not be a couple of fluke events. I guess history will tell. If Alekseenko finishes dead last in the Candidates, that will be expected, everyone shrugs their shoulders, no big deal. I would dare say that if he finishes in the top half of the candidates, which does seem like a long-shot for anyone, then he will have established himself in the elite, and this wild card selection just accelerated that.

The point is... the current selection process in place is as good as it's ever been I think, though I dont think it's quite perfect yet. Players outside of the top 10, even top 20, should be given a chance, as slim as it may be, to try to qualify. Rabjabov was not expected to win the World Cup. He did, and his rating almost put him in the top 10 in the process. So now it looks "normal".
Alekseenko performed too as I mentioned above. Wang Hao was also not a favourite to win the Grand Swiss, and here we have it. These guys proved it through sweat. MVL is not inferior to these guys in any way. And maybe we should do away with Wild Cards in the future. But the current system in my opinion is pretty damn good. Any player even being considered for wild card had to have prove something.

For example for me... someone like Anish Giri, as great a player as he may be, proved absolutely nothing in 2019. He rode his high rating, played a lot less than some of the other guys, and just tried to lose as few points as possible. Did well in Wijk aan Zee in January 2019, and then got knocked out in Round 3 at the World Cup, couldnt make it past Round 1 in any of the 3 Grand Prix knockouts he played in, and bailed out of the Grand Swiss, which he was registered to play in, but wanted to hold onto his rating after Ding Liren qualified via World Cup and made Giri the new rating favourite.

It sucks for MVL, and I really would have liked to see him there. I like his chess, how he plays sharp and aggressive, and stays true to his lines which is not so common at the very top level. But I think his letter requesting a match with Alekseenko is pathetic. MVL isn't being robbed of something that was his by right or anything. He had the same opportunities as Nepo, Radjabov, Ding Liren, Wang Hao, Alekseenko, Grischuk. He couldn't fully assert himself significantly enough over any of them, in the various paths of qualification, to automatically slot himself in.
Russia is hosting the event, they opened their cards from the beginning, I don't see a problem with it.
Maybe France needs to step up and start promoting his own players by organizing something (anything) for top players in their country.


Alex F.

[Victor Plotkin]

I don't know what means "dead last" exactly, but I believe Alekseenko has significantly less than 50% chances to finish last. Maybe 35-40%, no more.