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Wesley So draws with French foe to virtually clinch Grand Chess Tour title

Sports

Wesley So draws with French foe to virtually clinch Grand Chess Tour title

By Kristel Satumbaga-Villar

Photo from Grand Chess Tour Facebook page

Grandmaster Wesley So drew with France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the eighth and penultimate round of the Sinquefield Cup to virtually clinch the overall Grand Chess Tour (GCT) title Wednesday (Thursday in Manila).

So battled Vachier-Lagrave in a Ruy Lopez duel and ended up with a 50-move standoff to keep him in a three-way tie for No. 2 with fellow Americans Fabiano Caruana and Leinier Dominguez Perez with 5 points on two wins and six draws.

Regardless of the final round result on his game with Dominguez Perez Thursday, So already claimed the overall Tour crown and the $100,000 cash bonus.

It will be the second GCT crown for So after ruling the annual tournament’s second edition five years ago to tie Magnus Carlsen, the reigning world classical king who won it in 2015 and 2017, with the most GCT titles with two.

So accumulated points by finishing third in the Superbet Chess Classic in Bucharest Romania in June, first in the Paris Rapid & Blitz in France the same month and third in the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz over a week ago.

Meanwhile, Vachier-Lagrave remained at the helm of the Sinquefield tourney with 5.5 points going to his final-round match against Azerbaijan’s Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.

Hungarian Richard Rapport is running fifth with 4 points, followed by Mamedyarov and Americans Jeffrey Xiong and Sam Shankland with 3.5 points.

Russia’s Peter Svidler is at ninth with 3 points while United States’s Dariusz Swiercz is last with 2 points.

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Wesley So sinquefield cup Grand Chess Tour

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