The London Classic is over with the final scores being as follows: Wesley So 6/9; Fabiano Caruana 5½; Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik and Hikaru Nakamura 5; Anish Giri 4½; Lev Aronian, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Michael Adams 4; Veselin Topalov 2.
This result means that Wesley So not only wins the London leg of the Grand Tour, but also takes first prize in the overall contest. The Grand Tour organisers have now announced the full lineup for 2017, with the nine permanent competitors being as follows: Wesley So, Fabiano Caruana, Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Vladimir Kramnik, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Sergei Karjakin, Viswanathan Anand and Ian Nepomniachtchi.
I imagine a huge sigh of relief from sponsors and organisers alike must have gone up when it became apparent that Anish Giri, fine player though he is, had not made the final cut for various statistical reasons. Giri drew all his games in last year’s world championship qualifier, and in London he once again drew every game.
Raymond Keene
Gone Giri
issue 14 January 2017
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