FIDE World CUP KO pairings

[andyburnett]

Can anyone explain the rationale behind the pairings for this tournament? Is there a reason why top v bottom in a 128 player field should be used? It always seems incredibly unfair to me (but I may be missing some inherent logic?!)

1 Aronian, Levon g ARM 2813 Markov, Mikhail KGZ 2304
2 G., Akash m IND 2340 Caruana, Fabiano g ITA 2796
3 Kramnik, Vladimir g RUS 2784 Bwalya, Gillan f ZAM 2341
4 Bjelobrk, Igor m AUS 2341 Grischuk, Alex. g RUS 2785
5 Karjakin, Sergey g RUS 2772 Ali, Sebbar m MAR 2371

........

60 Lupulescu, Const. g ROU 2634 Sasikiran, Krishnan g IND 2660
61 Zvjaginsev, Vadim g RUS 2659 Swiercz, Dariusz g POL 2654
62 Kobalia, Mikhail g RUS 2651 Khismatullin, Denis g RUS 2653
63 Yu, Yangyi g CHN 2662 Beliavsky, Alex. g SLO 2651
64 Istratescu, A. g FRA 2646 Lysyj, Igor g RUS 2648

[Andy Howie]

Pretty standard for a seeded KO tournament. You normally get 1v128 2 v 127 etc etc

[Alan Jelfs]

That's roughly how snooker, darts and tennis do their seeded draws, isn't it?

[andyburnett]

OK, so it's standard practice - but is it fair? Or is it fairest?? Or...?

[Alan Jelfs]

OK, so it's standard practice - but is it fair? Or is it fairest?? Or...?

Well, it's fairer for the 65th seed to be playing the 64th seed to see who is actually the better than having the 65th seed playing the number one.

[Graham Kerr]

OK, so it's standard practice - but is it fair? Or is it fairest?? Or...?

I think the idea behind it is to give that little bit more reward for reaching the top by getting theoretically easier games en route to the final.
I agree that it seems a little odd for chess competitions, whether it's fair or not probably depends on where in the draw you land...

I dunno the reasons for it in this tourney, perhaps they're trying to somehow spice things up and gain interest from the non-chess fraternity?