The elite tournament at Zurich, which finished last week, has adopted a system for determining the ultimate trophy winner which seems to me virtually impenetrable. Zurich consisted of three separate events, a blitz, a rapidplay and a classical tournament, all of them involving the elite group of Nakamura, Anand, Kramnik, Aronian, Karjakin and Caruana. For the general public, victory in the classical tournament would be the chief honour. But Zurich’s complex system ignores the blitz results, includes the classical section, adds on points scored in the rapidplay, and ends with an armageddon game in the event that two leaders have tied for first place.
As it was, Aronian won the blitz and Anand won the classical, while Kramnik triumphed in the rapidplay.
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