Alexander Grischuk won the Hamburg Grand Prix, greatly increasing his chances of qualifying for the Candidates Tournament. If he doesn’t emerge as the automatic qualifier from the Grand Prix, he will be the favorite to receive a wild card selection from the Russian Organizers. Here are the current standings of the FIDE Grand Prix, with only Jerusalem's left to play at the beginning of December:

Grischuk will not play in Israel, whereas his direct opponents for the final win in the FIDE PG - Mamedyarov and Vachier-Lagrave, will be in Jerusalem.  This means that in theory, Sasha may be thrown out of the first two places, which assure the participation in the Candidates' 2020. Of course, it would take a stellar performance by both his direct rivals, given the super-strong field in Jerusalem:   

FIDE GP in Jerusalem, Israel: lineup  Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 2777 Anish Giri 2776 Ian Nepomniachtchi 2773 Levon Aronian 2772 Shahriyar Mamedyarov 2772 Teimour Radjabov 2767 Wesley So 2760 Sergey Karjakin 2754 Yangyi Yu 2753 Veselin Topalov 2736 Radoslav Wojtaszek 2728 Yi Wei 2724 David Navara 2703 Dmitry Jakovenko 2691

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grischuk moved into the final match by defeating Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, dealing a blow to the Frenchman’s qualification hopes in the process. Games annotated by GM Joel Benjamin

J.K. Duda found himself on the brink of elimination in his semifinal after losing to Daniil Dubov in the first playoff game. He was able to turn the tables in the next game - with Black - and ultimately advance. In the final Duda experienced things from the other side. He won the first playoff game, and the third game overall, but saw Grischuk turn the tables on him. In the next two games, Duda got poor positions from the opening.