Carlsen, Caruana and Aronian Share Victory at Sinquefield Cup

GCT stage finishes in Saint Louis.

In the ninth round of the 2018 Sinquefield Cup in Saint Louis, Levon Aronian defeated Alexander Grischuk in a sharp game with an exchange sacrifice, Magnus Carlsen outplayed Hikaru Nakamura in a rook endgame (the encounter lasted for 97 moves), while the games  So - Caruana, Anand - Mamedyarov, and Karjakin - Vachier-Lagrave were drawn. 



Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, and Levon Aronian shared the first place with 5.5 points out of 9. According to the Regulations, a tie-break determines the winner among top two, and the third left out (series points and money prize are shared equally though). However, all the additional criteria happened to be equal. After negotiations between the players, organizers and Chief Arbiter, it was decided not to hold additional matches and share the title.

Final standings:

1-3. Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Levon Aronian - 5.5
4. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov - 5 
5-7. Alexander Grischuk, Viswanathan Anand, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave - 4.5
8. Wesley So - 4
9-10. Hikaru Nakamura, Sergey Karjakin - 3

Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So are to play a play-off to determine the final spot to the final GCT tournament in London (December 2018). Hikaru Nakamura, Levon Aronian, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave have already qualified.  



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