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1999 WORLD TANTRIX - ROUND 3 PREVIEW
Round 3 has made a very slow start, possibly because many of the players are still 'recovering' from close matches towards the end of Round 2, but there are some fascinating 6-game matches in prospect over the next week or so.
Will there be as many 'shocks' as in Round 2? Well, if the first and only game to have been played so far is anything to go by, there certainly could be. Most of us thought that the only unseeded player left in the draw might finally be meeting his match, up against no. 1 seed mikem, but Mighty has won the first game in the match. Something tells me mikem fights even harder when he is down though ...
Second seed Bdot has an excellent won 3 lost 0 record against ddyer, including the biggest win ever recorded in a tournament game. Their pre-WTC Elo ratings suggest an 82-38 win to Bdot, which means about 5-1 in games. Possible, but ddyer can be deadly on the right day so it could be much closer than that.
Seed 3 AlexK has one of the two most intriguing matches in this round, against defending champion and 10th seed steven2. Their only previous tournament game was in the Masters and AlexK won. The pre-WTC Elo ratings predict 65-55 or 3.5-2.5 to AlexK - "very close" in other words!
No predictions for seed 4 Zazza v kingkong, because lucky kingkong (or unlucky kingkong depending on how you look at it) hasn't had/been able to play a single tournament game to get to this stage.
The match of the round could well be 5th seed and Pan-American Champion Crispy v 9th seed and European Champion Pepe. In this case the pre-WTC Elo ratings predict 76-44 or 4.5-1.5 to Crispy. However, this does not tell the whole story. Pepe has improved with every tournament and Crispy's very high and unofficial rating results from possibly freakish results for both ddyer and Crispy himself in the one tournament he has played in. Even the single game lost against Aussie will have already pulled the rating down to suggest a much closer match.
The other matches all involve seeds outside the top 11. 12th seed Ridcully plays 18th seed Justin. The Pacific Championship match between them resulted in a big win for Ridcully and pre-WTC Elo ratings predict a 77-43 or 4.5-1.5 win to Ridcully, but Justin's rating is already due to rise because of his win in Round 2 and he seems to be improving fast - in fact, Elo ratings predicted Justin would lose 35-65 in round 2, and look what happened there!
13th seed Runes will play Pekko, another fairly unknown quantity. Finally, in the only match not to involve one of the top 16 seeds, lolo, having already knocked out one of his biggest rivals, will be the favourite to win against offpiste, but given the way New Zealanders have been dumping the fancied Europeans out of the tournament so far, it may not be wise to bet on it!
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