In Round Three of the FIDE World Championships, Alexander Khalifman took a big step forward in his attempt at a successful defense of his title

In Round Three of the FIDE World Championships, Alexander Khalifman took a big step forward in his attempt at a successful defense of his title, with a grueling tiebreak win over #5 seed Peter Leko. According to statistical model, there is now slightly more than a 50% chance that either Khalifman or Viswanathan Anand will win the tournament, so their likely matchup in Round Five will be pivotal. Of course, they still have to get through their Round Four games, but they are facing the two lowest-seeded players remaining, so it seems 95% likely that Anand and Khalifman will face each other this weekend. With sixteen players left, here are the tournament-winning chances for each participant: #21 Alexander Khalifman (26% chance) #1 Viswanathan Anand (25% chance) #4 Alexei Shirov (21% chance) #7 Veselin Topalov (9% chance) #2 Alexander Morozevich (5% chance) #12 Boris Gelfand (Odds are 23 to 1 against) #26 Vladislav Tkachiev (Odds are 40 to 1 against) #11 Peter Svidler (Odds are 46 to 1 against) #8 Evgeny Bareev (Odds are 56 to 1 against) #38 Jaan Ehlvest (Odds are 62 to 1 against) #3 Michael Adams (Odds are 83 to 1 against) #15 Alexei Dreev (Odds are 171 to 1 against) #32 Boris Gulko (Odds are 176 to 1 against) #46 Alexander Grischuk (Odds are 3,040 to 1 against) #66 Rafael Leitao (Odds are 127,000 to 1 against) #78 Bartlomiej Macieja (Odds are 411,000 to 1 against) Other than Khalifman, who was already one of the statistical frontrunners, the player who moved up furthest on the list of favorites was Vladislav Tkachiev, who eliminated Rustam Kasimdzhanov in the rapid tiebreak, tripling his own chances to win the tournament. Nevertheless, Alexei Shirov is still the favorite to reach the finals in their half of the bracket, most likely facing Khalifman, Anand, or Topalov. The biggest upset of the round, of course, was Khalifman defeating Leko. Despite Leko being the #5 seed, my statistical model had actually given Khalifman a 71% chance to win the match. His skill at rapid chess, his strength with White, and his extreme conservatism with the black pieces, along with Leko’s very conservative style, all pointed to a likelihood of a long stretch of draws (with an incredibly high 66% chance of reaching a tiebreak), followed eventually by a Khalifman win with the white pieces in a rapid game, and that’s exactly what we saw. You can go back to my Round 3 predictions and follow the link to the in-depth individual predictions, if you want to read more about the details of the Leko-Khalifman prediction.