Hypothetical calculations - only hypothetical?

According to the calculations of Jeff Sonas, with Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik absent from the upcoming FIDE 2001-2 World Championships in Moscow, Viswanathan Anand is the clear statistical favorite to win the tournament. His winning chances are more than twice those of any other single player. However, with so many rounds of two-game matches, there is a real chance of Anand being eliminated early on. In fact, my calculations only give him a 23% chance to win the tournament, despite a 40-point rating gap between him and any other participant. It’s more likely that the tournament will be won by a player seeded #13 or worse (24% chance) than that the top-seeded Anand will win. There are nine different players with better than one chance in forty to win the tournament. Here are their chances: #1 Anand, Viswanathan: 23% chance to win #8 Topalov, Veselin: 10% chance #2 Adams, Michael: 8% chance #5 Leko, Peter: 7% chance #7 Gelfand, Boris: 6% chance #4 Ivanchuk, Vassily: odds are 17 to 1 against #9 Shirov, Alexei: odds are 18 to 1 against #3 Morozevich, Alexander: odds are 24 to 1 against #6 Bareev, Evgeny: odds are 36 to 1 against It is interesting to see what are the chances (hypothetical) of former World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov: #16 Karpov, Anatoly E: Odds are 64 to 1 against; CM seed: 10; FIDE Oct. Seed: 14 or of our chess player - Sarunas Sulskis: #79 Sulskis, Sarunas: Odds are 25,000 to 1 against; CM seed: 87; FIDE Oct. Seed: 81 As we can see, not much chances are given to Sarunas...But, chess is a game and it would be unwise to say that calculations, even the most sophisticated ones, can predict the future. We will look back at these predictions after the end of the World Chess Championship and then we will see how much truth was in them... Good luck to all the participants, especially to Lithuanian ones. We are all anxiously waiting for the championships to begin.