The brackets weren't "manipulated". The loser of the last match against Anand is the automatic top seed. After that, seeding was done by rating, based on the January 2010 ratings. Pairings were done the standard way for any 8 player elimination tournament, and yes, that means that the top seed (Topalov) gets the easiest early pairings. The whole thing seems very transparent and fair, if the pairing methods were published before the players involved were even known. (Anyone know if that's true?)

Matemax wrote on 02/08/11 at 06:43:07:



Obviously not, its high risk and low reward. So I would be looking for the reverse if I was going to be  money. Low risk and high reward.

Gelfand is a seasoned veteran. Mamedyarov is a joke of a loud mouth.

Radjabov is a really interesting player to follow. He's had Black more often than just about anyone else in the top 25 in recent years yet he has maintained his high ratings. I don't see him beating Kramnik in a match, but it will still be interesting. 

The Aronian-Grischuk match should also be interesting. Aronian has a nice plus score against Grischuk, and his style is well-suited to match play. But Grischuk can be dangerous.

I think the match most likely to produce a first-round upset is Gelfand-Mamedyarov.
My off-the-cuff odds are:

Topalov-Kamsky 65-35
Gelfand-Mamedyarov 51-49 

Mamedyarov scores well against Gelfand. I don't know why trw doesn't respect Mamedyarov.

Kramnik-Radjabov 70-30
Aronian-Grischuk 55-45

Semis (Based on the info provided)

Topalov-Gelfand(?) 60-40 

I'd love to see an upset here, but Gelfand doesn't do very well against Toppy. The only thing going for Gelfand is that they haven't played much recently. 

Kramnik-Aronian 52-48 This will be the best match of the entire candidates. I still prefer Kramnik, but this will be tough.

Kramnik-Topalov 55-45 (If Aronian makes it, the odds will still be against Topalov.)

The brackets are posted on the Wikipedia page, and they explain how the seeding was done. Apparently, Topalov was automatically first seed for making it to the final match last year, and it's by January 2010 ratings after that. So Kamsky is 8th seed. Pairing are 1 vs 8, 2 vs 7, etc: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_2012

They site chessbase.com as their source, which confirms the brackets: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7000

First bracket

Topalov (BUL) - Kamsky (USA)
Gelfand (ISR) - Mamedyarov (AZE)

Second Bracket

Kramnik (RUS) - Radjabov (AZE)
Aronian (ARM) - Grischuk (RUS)

Should be exciting. I have to cheer for my countryman, but I don't really expect Kamsky to beat Topalov.

Quote:


Yes, I know marriage does do that to a player but calling it "a phase of depression"? 

How did Topalov-Kamsky happen again? Who decides on this pairings? Somebody close to Topalov I bet.

don't forget topalov, he had a phase of depression after losing to anand, and now he might make a comeback.