14 December 2015
Magnus Carlsen Wins London Classic and Grand Chess Tour
Both victories were secured on the tie-break with exhausted Vachier-Lagrave.
In the final round of London Chess Classic Magnus Carlsen in a dramatic game defeated Alexander Grischuk and caught up with the tournament leaders, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Anish Giri.
The format of breaking the three-way tie was quite unusual – better tie-break score kind of qualified Carlsen to the final, while Giri and Vachier-Lagrave had to play a semifinal match. The players exchanged blows in rapid games, and Vachier-Lagrave prevailed in an Armageddon game, thus qualifying to the final.
The match between Carlsen and Vachier-Lagrave ended in Carlsen's favor with 1.5-0.5 score.
London Chess Classic final standings:
Carlsen, Vachier-Lagrave, Giri – 5.5
Aronian – 5
Grischuk, Caruana, Adams – 4.5
Nakamura – 4
Anand – 3.5
Topalov – 2.5
Victory in London also brought Carlsen a victory in the Grand Chess Tour. Anish Giri finished second, Levon Aronian was third. These three players were invited to the Grand Chess Tour 2016. Other spots were filled by six top rated players of 2015 – Veselin Topalov, Vishy Anand, Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana, Vladimir Kramnik and Wesley So.
