The 8-player round robin London classic kicks off tomorrow. The top participants are Magnus Carlsen and Vladimir Kramnik, but also on hand is US Champion Hikaru Nakamura, Chinese top player Ni Hua, and four of the leading English grandmasters, Nigel Short, Michael Adams, Luke McShane, and David Howell.
Barring a complete meltdown, Kramnik and Carlsen are pretty much assured of remaning in the top 2 rating wildcard spots for the Candidates match next year, so the main question is if Carlsen can become the official #1 rated player in January 2010. Right now he leads Topalov by less than a point (2805.7-2805.1). According to my calculations, if he scores 4.5/7 he'll lose 1.1 rating points, falling to 2804.6. Since these both round to 2805, he might still get the #1 rating because the first tie-breaker is # of games played, but I'm not sure about that. If he scores 5.0/7 then he'll gain 3.9 points and have the #1 spot outright.
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