Live Games: Can Pragg become the World Junior Champion?
25th of November - the final day of the exciting World Junior Championship 2017. The tournament has reached its pinnacle of excitement as just about anyone can become the World Junior Champion. Little Praggu's hope of become the youngest grandmaster in the world are not over yet as he has good chances to become the Champion if he beats his opponent Rasmus Svane today. On the other hand Aryan Tari will have a tough task against Jorden van Foreest. Aravindh Chithambaram and Kirill Alekseenko are still in with a chance as they face Xu Xiangyu and Manuel Petrosyan respectively. Live commentary by IM Sagar Shah every hour from 14.30 hours IST.
Live Commentary at 17.30 hours IST
IM Sagar Shah explains the final run of the games between Svane - Pragg and Xiangyu- Aravindh
Comprehensive explanation Part I - Svane vs Pragg
Live commentary by IM Sagar Shah at 14.30 hours IST:
IM Sagar Shah will bring you live update every one hour of the games.
Praggnanandhaa can still become the World Junior Champion:
Here are the different possibilities explained in the form of a video:
Let's have a quick look at the pairing for the day:
Round 11 on 2017/11/25 at 10:00
| Bo. | No. | Name | Rtg | Pts. | Result | Pts. | Name | Rtg | No. | ||||
| 1 | 1 | GM | Van Foreest Jorden | 2616 | 7½ | 8 | GM | Tari Aryan | 2581 | 5 | |||
| 2 | 21 | IM | Xu Xiangyu | 2543 | 7½ | 7½ | GM | Aravindh Chithambaram Vr. | 2572 | 7 | |||
| 3 | 11 | GM | Alekseenko Kirill | 2563 | 7½ | 7½ | GM | Petrosyan Manuel | 2554 | 16 | |||
| 4 | 3 | GM | Svane Rasmus | 2587 | 7 | 7½ | IM | Praggnanandhaa R | 2509 | 26 | |||
| 5 | 6 | GM | Karthikeyan Murali | 2578 | 7 | 7 | IM | Zanan Evgeny | 2471 | 37 |
And now let's have a look at the standings:
Rank after Round 10
| Rk. | SNo | Name | FED | Rtg | Pts. | TB1 | TB2 | TB3 | TB4 | TB5 | Rp | w | we | w-we | K | rtg+/- | ||
| 1 | 5 | GM | Tari Aryan | NOR | 2581 | 8,0 | 0,0 | 59,0 | 64,5 | 4 | 6,0 | 2736 | 8 | 6,13 | 1,87 | 10 | 18,7 | |
| 2 | 11 | GM | Alekseenko Kirill | RUS | 2563 | 7,5 | 0,0 | 61,0 | 66,0 | 5 | 7,0 | 2682 | 7,5 | 6,00 | 1,50 | 10 | 15,0 | |
| 3 | 26 | IM | Praggnanandhaa R | IND | 2509 | 7,5 | 0,0 | 61,0 | 65,5 | 5 | 5,0 | 2699 | 7,5 | 5,02 | 2,48 | 10 | 24,8 | |
| 4 | 21 | IM | Xu Xiangyu | CHN | 2543 | 7,5 | 0,0 | 58,0 | 62,0 | 5 | 5,0 | 2646 | 7,5 | 6,19 | 1,31 | 10 | 13,1 | |
| 5 | 1 | GM | Van Foreest Jorden | NED | 2616 | 7,5 | 0,0 | 57,5 | 63,0 | 5 | 7,0 | 2637 | 7,5 | 7,23 | 0,27 | 10 | 2,7 | |
| 6 | 7 | GM | Aravindh Chithambaram Vr. | IND | 2572 | 7,5 | 0,0 | 55,0 | 58,5 | 4 | 6,0 | 2616 | 7,5 | 6,87 | 0,63 | 10 | 6,3 | |
| 7 | 16 | GM | Petrosyan Manuel | ARM | 2554 | 7,5 | 0,0 | 53,5 | 58,5 | 5 | 6,0 | 2641 | 7,5 | 6,42 | 1,08 | 10 | 10,8 | |
| 8 | 30 | IM | Lomasov Semen | RUS | 2490 | 7,0 | 0,0 | 61,0 | 65,5 | 5 | 4,0 | 2653 | 7 | 4,77 | 2,23 | 10 | 22,3 | |
| 9 | 56 | FM | Liu Yan | CHN | 2422 | 7,0 | 0,0 | 59,5 | 62,5 | 5 | 5,0 | 2651 | 7 | 3,84 | 3,16 | 10 | 31,6 | |
| 10 | 32 | FM | Sorokin Aleksey | RUS | 2483 | 7,0 | 0,0 | 59,0 | 64,0 | 5 | 6,0 | 2651 | 7 | 4,71 | 2,29 | 10 | 22,9 |
Let's assume a scenario where Jorden van Foreest beats Aryan Tari on the top board. It is quite probable! Jorden after all is the top seed and has the white pieces. Alekseenko, however, has excellent chances to win because he is white against Manuel Petrosyan. But let's imagine he draws his game. Now if Aravindh wins his game against Xu Xiangyu (why not!) and Pragg beats Rasmus Svane. Then we will have three players on 8.5/11 - Praggnanandhaa, Jorden van Foreest and Aravindh Chithambaram.
Tie-breaks: If two are more players are tied, the following tiebreaks will be used a) Results of direct encounters between the tied players ( applies only if all tied players have played each other), b) Buccholz Cut 1, c) Buccholz, d) The greater number of games played with black, e) The Greater number of wins.
As in the above scenario all three players haven't played with each other so we go to the second tiebreak buch holz cut one where Pragg is clearly superior as compared to Aravindh and Jorden. And thus he becomes the World Junior Champion.
In all of these calculations it is extremely important that Pragg wins his game. If Pragg does that and Aryan draws his game and Alekseenko wins it there are still good chances for Pragg to become the champion as Buchholz cut one is a very dynamic tiebreak system and depends on the completion of the final game in the tournament.
Live game begins at 14.30 IST
Replay completed games: