Background
For the first time, the World Rapid and Blitz will be held in North America this year, as the chess year will close out on Wall Street in New York. The players will compete in a 13-round Swiss, with a time control of 3 minutes + 2 second increment, starting from move one. The eight highest-scoring players after 13 rounds will move on to a single-elimination bracket, the winner of which will be declared the champion. Almost 200 players are set to participate in the event, including strong players like Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana, Gukesh Dommaraju, and others.
Resolution Criteria
This market will resolve based on the official winner of the open section of the 2024 World Blitz Chess Championship, based on reporting by FIDE. If the tournament is canceled or postponed to 2025, the market will resolve as N/A.
Considerations
Magnus Carlsen has won this event six times, including each of the past two years. Other previous winners who are participating this year include Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2021), Alexander Grischuk (2015, 2012), and Lê Quang Liêm (2013).
The format has been changed to include a single-elimination bracket after the Swiss portion, regardless of results; In previous editions, a single-elimination bracket was only used if there was a tie for first.
This event has significantly fewer rounds in the Swiss portion than last year's event, which had 21 rounds; this may increase variability.
The blitz format often produces more unpredictable results than classical chess, as even top players can make significant mistakes under time pressure
The tournament typically attracts a large field of strong players, making it more challenging to predict than match-play championships
Notes and Links
Tiebreaker rules and other info can be found here: https://handbook.fide.com/files/handbook/wrbc_regulations_2024_open.pdf
The list of players expected to attend can be found here: https://chess-results.com/tnr1074692.aspx?lan=1&art=0&flag=30
All players listed as an option at this market's creation are expected to play, but an option won't be "removed" or N/A'd if the associated player drops out.
Update 2024-31-12 (PST): - Resolution in case of shared title: If the title is shared, the market will resolve as a 50/50 split between Magnus Carlsen and Ian. (AI summary of creator comment)
Update 2024-31-12 (PST): - Resolution in case of shared title: The market will resolve as a 50/50 split between Magnus Carlsen and Ian. (AI summary of creator comment)
1,000🏅 Top traders
| # | Name | Total profit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ṁ200,050 | |
| 2 | Ṁ11,711 | |
| 3 | Ṁ11,323 | |
| 4 | Ṁ3,968 | |
| 5 | Ṁ969 |
If y'all didn't notice polymarket had another "blunder" like they did with the Venezuelan president market, and many others. They're going to rule their winner to "other". The way the contracts are set up the source code only allows for 1 contract to resolve yes. It's funny to watch. Especially when the rules for the other market state it refers to "anyone else" and a Magnus + Nepo combo does not align with that singular terminology.
I think this should resolve 50-50. Really it should resolve 100-100 bc they're both champion, not half a champion but I guess it's not possible.
@traders Magnus and Ian are sharing first place, as confirmed by the FIDE twitter:
I am planning on resolving this to 50/50 between Magnus and Ian, and will do so later tonight unless there are major objections.
Ouch, this was the only possibility where I could have lost mana! I had arbitraged with https://manifold.markets/gamedev/will-magnus-carlsen-repeat-in-2024-s6dOIp0Eh8
@Calibrate I'm so sorry. I bought 1000 NO shares at 99% in my own market and was hoping to get rich too
@gamedev No problem -- it was the right resolution, in my opinion! I would have lost even more had I not predicted you would resolve it that way
@Calibrate Yeah and in a million years I wouldn't have considered to bet on this outcome either. Cheers
@Weezing I think it is their fault. Poorly written rules. Fans and players prefer Armageddon but FIDE refuses to use them for tournament tiebreaks. What can they do? Ian and Magnus could just play berlins perpetually and embarrass the organizers
@gamedev I prefer normal games to armageddons. If they just played pre-agreed draws, they would mainly embarass themselves.
@Weezing Fair enough. Nobody enjoys prearranged draws but they are unfortunately a part of top level play. Even in blitz 🫠
@gamedev They are part of the game and it's fine to do it once in a while (if you qualify both for example), but if they just did it blatantly like this, they would look incredibly stupid.
@gamedev Maybe you need to use an extreme option at some point, but an hour in is far too soon. The head arbiter should've said something like "you guys keep playing while I figure out if we can logistically pull off continuing this another day in the worst case". Frankly I don't rate the idea that they would or should just make easy draws in protest. It's blitz. They can absolutely win games, they're guaranteed to. It's not a Magnus-Fabi Classical match.