Statistics for the 5th Zurich Chess Challenge

5th Zurich Chess Challenge 2016 – statistics

From 12 to 15 February 2016 world chess elite players will be in Zurich, for the fifth edition of the Zurich Chess Challenge at the Hotel Savoy Baur en Ville. It is organized by the oldest chess club in the world, the Schachgesellschaft Zürich, and sponsored by Oleg Skvortsov, owner of the International Gemological Laboratories in Moscow, who is experimenting with a new classical time control: 40 minutes per game with a 10 second increment for each move.

With just one day left before the start of the 2016 Zurich Chess Challenge we bring you some wonderful statistics, provided by the organisers.

Classical statistics crosstable

First of all we will look at how the players perform against each other in classical time controls. The horizontal rows show the results of each player with the white pieces while the columns present the corresponding headups with black.

Calculating all individual results together, it's a little surprising to see the Armenian Levon Aronian clearly ahead of his rivals. Four percentage points are quite a gap at that level. On second to fourth place the performance of Nakamura, Kramnik and Anand is almost equal, while Giri and especially Shirov are well below 50%. However, as usual these statistics have to be treated with a little caution: Giri's negative score mainly arises from his disastrous results against Kramnik and Aronian, while Anand can undoubtedly be called Shirov's personal nemesis, as his overall performance is clearly in the Indian's favour (+13 =27 –2).

Classical ranking according to percentages

Considering the time control that is applied in Zurich this year, the results for Rapid Chess are also highly interesting. Not surprisingly, the overall performance sees Anand clearly in front, followed by Aronian and Nakamura. Kramnik is a little below the 50% line, while Giri and Shirov can be found at the bottom of the table again. However, the results are a little distorted, as "old hands" as Anand and Kramnik have more than 100 recorded rapid games in the databases, while Giri has only played 18 "official" encounters so far.

Rapid statistics crosstable

Rapid ranking according to percentages

Blitz is and has always been an important part of the Zurich Chess Challenge. The overall winner is determined by the rapid games, where a win is awarded two points and a draw one, and the blitz games, where win and draw count one, and half a point respectively.

Not surprisingly, Blitz rather favours the indisputed ICC bullet champion Hikaru Nakamura, who is clearly ahead of his rivals by scoring a whopping 60.4% out of 48 games. Giri is now in second place, still clearly above the 50% line, followed by Kramnik with 51.3%. One who is probably not expected to be at the bottom of the table is Viswanathan Anand with only 38.6%, which is mainly due to his very bad score against Nakamura and Giri (+2 =3 –7).

Blitz statistics crosstable

Blitz ranking according to percentages

And finally the inevitable: An overall ranking table with all points of all three time controls brutally put together. According to these calculations, the American Hikaru Nakamura is a slight favorite to win the tournament - and indeed that's what he already did last year. But already a short glance at the bottom of the table makes it clear that it's not that simple – the Latvian Wizard Alexei Shirov will definitely not enter the stage of the Savoy Baur en Ville just to be the sacrificial lamb. We wouldn't be surprised if things turn out quite differently in the end ... and we're looking forward to an exciting weekend of world class chess!

Overall ranking according to percentages

Poll: win a valuable prize

Predict who will emerge as victor of this year's Zurich Challenge. You can vote – only once! – until 12:00 noon European time on Saturday February 13, three hours before the start of the first round.

2016zurichwinner You need to have a ChessBase Account to participate and win an interesting prize – a copy of Fritz 15 signed by all the participants of the 2016 Zurich Chess Challenge. The prize will be awarded to a voter chosen at random from those who have selected the correct winner.

Links Official tournament site + all ChessBase reports All games in PGN The games will be broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.