โ™Ÿ๏ธ Wesley So wins final leg of FIDE grand prix series, Hikaru and Richard qualify for Candidates๏ƒ

The final match of the FIDE Grand Prix 2022 series organised by World Chess was finished on April 4th. In the final match tiebreaker GM Wesley So of USA defeated his countrymen GM Hikaru Nakamura by a score of one and half : half and won the third leg of the Grand Prix in Berlin. The tournament winner and the runner-up looked happy at the closing ceremony as both of them were successful in the major tournament and world championship cycle. Despite the loss in the final match, Hikaru Nakamura qualified for the FIDE Candidates Tournament 2022 and became the overall winner of FIDE Grand Prix Series 2022. Richard Rapport, who is the second in the overall standings and also qualified for the Candidates, while Wesley So was third in overall Series.

After the match ended, Wesley So said: โ€œI am only 28, and Iโ€™m hoping that next year or in a couple of years, I will get a chance to play in the Candidates. The last time I played, I was very inexperienced and finished second to last, so I think if you qualify, you have to be ready to fight for first place.โ€

Hikaru Nakamura: โ€œThe odds [of winning the whole series] were probably 10-15% before everything began. I was quite fortunate in the first leg as I got players who hadnโ€™t played as much; they werenโ€™t sharp.โ€

In the first tiebreaker game, Hikaru played the Bishop opening with white, which was a shocker to Wesley So as he didnโ€™t expect to see this on the board today. However, Wesley played confidently with Black and got a decisive positional advantage by move 15. Hikaru showed his excellent defensive skills and tenaciousness, and after a couple of mistakes by Wesley, he managed to create a very dangerous attack on the kingside. It was Wesleyโ€™s turn to find the only moves to defend his position and stay in the game. After several evaluation swings and Evaluation bar dancing in this complicated game, the opponents split a point in a drawish rook ending.

In the second game, the Berlin Defense in Ruy Lopez was played. White managed to get a pleasant edge, but the position seemed quite balanced until a certain point. Wesley exchanged the queens at the cost of doubling his pawns on the d-file but with creative play made some initiative in the center. On the 32nd move, Hikaru made a terrible blunder and after a simple refutation found himself in a hopeless position. Wesley emerged a piece up and then slowly with good technique converted his advantage to win the game and the match.

FIDE Grand Prix Series 2022 final standings:

Player Berlin Belgrade Belgrade Total
Hikaru Nakamura 13 10 23
Richard Rapport 7 13 20
Wesley So 4 13 17
Levon Aronian 10 2 12
Dmitry Andreikin 10 10
Amin Tabatabaei 3 7 10
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 3 7 10
Leinier Dominguez 7 2 9
Sam Shankland 4 4 8
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 7 1 8
Anish Giri 7 0 7
Vidit Gujrathi 3 4 7
Nikita Vitiugov 3 3 6
Alexandr Predke 3 1 4
Grigoriy Oparin 0 4 4
Andrey Esipenko 4 0 4
Vincent Keymer 0 4 4
Radosล‚aw Wojtaszek 4 4
Vladimir Fedoseev 2 1 3
Yu Yangyi 0 3 3
Daniil Dubov 3 0 3
Alexander Grischuk 2 0 2
Pentala Harikrishna 2 0 2
Etienne Bacrot 0 2 2
Alexei Shirov 0 1 1

About the Author๏ƒ

Jashwaneel Patil is a student pursuing Bachelor of Engineering and a young mind who likes to explore and research in different areas. His vision lies in making Earth to make a better place to live with taking small steps towards sustainability and making best use of technology available to make easier life for mankind.