Chess Go Spinny

 With Nakamura winning group A, and thus ensuring himself 20 points, and nobody with more than 4 points qualifying from groups B-D, the knockout stage of the third Grand Prix was a bit of an anticlimax, as Nakamura and Rapport had already ensured their places in the Candidates. Still, there was some exciting chess played to finish off the event. Semi-final Both standardplay games in the Nakamura-Mamedyarov semi were draws. Meanwhile, So's win in the first game against Tabatabaei was cancelled out by the latter's win in the second. Thus both games ended up going to rapidplay playoffs.   Both these playoffs ended up finishing 2-0, to Nakamura and So respectively, and thus these two players met in the final. Final So could not make anything of a slight edge in the first game in the final; in the second, Nakamura went straight for one of the standard early repetitions in the Berlin, and thus caused this match to also go to rapidplay playoffs.   The first of these playoff game...

 With groups B and C ending with a tie for the lead, there were playoffs to determine who went through from those groups. The Group C playoff was quite a straightforward affair: So won the first game with black against Shankland, and then held (although not totally convincingly) with white to reach the semi-final against Tabatabaei. The Group B playoff, however, was where all the action was. Mamedyarov won the first game, but Keymer took back in the second to take it to the next stage of playoffs, at a faster time control. Mamedyarov won both those playoff games to get to a semi-final against Nakamura.