FIDE Grand Prix in Palma de Mallorca, Round 9 Live!

After the final round, now we know who will be the Candidates from this Grand Prix Series: Mamedyarov and Grischuk - Radjabov is third (substitute if one of the first two does not play at the Candidates).

What a horrible tournament. Draw rate must be approaching ninety %.

Well I was wrong about Radjabov being out of it! You've got to admire him for 2 straight wins. With 1 round to go the formula for Radjabov and MVL is simple: A draw means (at best) equal 2nd with 9 other players and both miss the Candidates. So both have to win. As far as I can see, a win for Radjabov qualifies him under any circumstances, while MVL needs to win and then finish equal 1st (i.e. Aronian does not win against Naka) or outright 2nd (i.e. Aronian wins but no one else on +1 wins). Equal 2-3 and he loses the GP to Grischuk on tie breaks, as @Adminio12 pointed out.

@ Peter B: Plus 2, i.e. one more win, is likely to be insufficient. Let’s assume, one win and 2 draws in the last three rounds. He will then finish with 5,5/9 and there ’s very little doubt that will boil down to shared 2nd place. If so, three is a crowd and MVL is out: only 113,3 points to gain, not enough. With only one other contender in 2nd place he will have 125 points, just enough to tie with Grischuk. But then, tie break rule 1 is another tie (trust me, I’ve checked), and tie break rule 2 is in favour of Grischuk (total number of one’s black games in one’s three tournaments, and Grischuk will have one more).
Therefore, he actually needs two wins (plus 3) and one draw, totalling 6/9. In that case he’ll probably have shared 1st or 2nd place with no more contenders than is good for him, and should it come to a tiebreak, then he would win anyway because now, with respect to rule 1, he’ll have ½ point more than Grischuk.
Tricky business, but only winning is good enough …

After 6 rounds Radjabov seems out of it, so it comes down to Grischuk vs MVL. MVL is exactly 125 GP points behind. MVL could very conceivably finish equal 2 and 3, which would give him 125 points and an exact tie with AG. It would then go to other tie break methods and be very, very close. Judging by other GP tournaments, MVL needs at least plus 2, i.e. 1 win from his last 3 games, while plus 3 would make qualification almost certain.

Levon in great form again and Ding too. Hard task for MVL and good news for Grischuk. We will see, too early to call.

Mvl must win in 5th and 6 th rounds to ensure his place in 2018 candinates.

Ding Liren is already qualified for the Candidates through the World Cup

Why does the introduction mention only MVL and Radjabov? Ding Liren has more points than MVL and only one point less than Radjabov, according to your table above. And he is also playing in this tournament.