Wang Hao Wins FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss, Qualifies For Candidates

Wang Hao defeated David Howell today and edged out Fabiano Caruana on tiebreak to win the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss in Isle of Man and qualify for the 2020 Candidates' Tournament. The Candidates' Tournament will determine the next challenger for Magnus Carlsen and the world chess championship.

Caruana drew his game with Hikaru Nakamura, while Levon Aronian and Carlsen  also split the point. With that, Carlsen is now unbeaten for 101 games and improved on Ding Liren's streak by one game.

Six players, including world number-one Carlsen and world number-two Caruana, were in contention for tournament victory. Six players (not the two Cs) had a chance to qualify for the Candidates' Tournament. In the end, one man got both prizes.

Like the day before, Wang ended up winning a game that he was happy to draw. The 30 year-old GM from Harbin, Heilongjiang, China profited from a blunder by Howell and got the full point. Having the best tiebreak of everyone in the tournament guaranteed him a place in the next Candidates' Tournament, in March 2020 in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

It will be the first time in history that a candidates' tournament has two representatives from China. The other player is Ding Liren, who qualified via last month's FIDE World Cup.

After his last game, Wang revealed that he was close to withdrawing from this tournament, as he was very tired from playing the World Cup—especially his match with Leinier Dominguez that had a long tiebreak.

"Now I need to go back home, sit down and think how to continue," Wang said about his candidates participation. "I don’t have a team working with me. I am hoping to create a small team—three to four people—who will be able to help me. I am, however, not sure if I’ll be able to do so."

The leader before the round, Caruana, drew his game with Nakamura. Wang thus caught him and won the tournament, although the top two prizes ($70,000 and $60,000) were shared because the players finished on the same number of points (eight).

The first results at the top boards were the draws on boards one and two. These ended relatively quickly, and right after each other. 

The first to finish were Nakamura and Caruana, who drew a game that started as a Petroff. With 5.d3 and 6.d4 it transposed into an Exchange French, where Nakamura played the offbeat move 7.h3!?.

Caruana initially was fine out of the opening (using a remarkable knight maneuver from b8 to c6, b4, a6, c7, e6, f4 and then g6) but then he needed to be a bit careful, which he was.

Although he couldn't win this must-win game, Nakamura was still satisfied: "Probably in this tournament I played good chess from start to finish. I felt like I saw a lot in most of the games here and it's been a while," he said.

Caruana was also satisfied with his plus-five: "Overall it was very good. I couldn't really hope for more," Caruana said.

While Nakamura and Caruana were being interviewed, board two, Aronian-Carlsen, also finished in a draw. Aronian was clearly disappointed, as he needed to win this game keep chances to qualify for the candidates.

"I remembered vaguely, because I had to check many lines today," said Aronian, who played the 4.f3 Nimzo-Indian. After he missed that Black could take on d5 with the knight, he was basically playing for a draw.

"This year I've been playing terribly so at last scoring a decent amount of points is already a relief," said Aronian.

Carlsen had reason to smile, as with this game he improved on Ding's 100-game unbeaten streak. Although against weaker opposition, the longest unbeaten streak lasted 110 games and was achieved by the Russian-Dutch GM Sergei Tiviakov.

Carlsen: "I feel like 100 is kind of a magic number; I never thought I'd get there. I had some luck for sure, also in this tournament. Now that I haven't played so well recently that's a big reason to be happy."

The game between Wang and Howell was expected to end in a draw as well. From a Fianchetto Grunfeld, the position looked quite drawish when Howell blundered terribly. Suddenly the tournament was decided.

Wang said he was "very happy but also very surprised" as once again his game plan had been that a draw was a good result today. Sometimes you get more than you wish for.

Wang Hao appeared on the live broadcast.

Kirill Alekseenko, who was next in line behind Wang on first tiebreak, eventually drew his game with Nikita Vitiugov. Reaching 7.5/11 was a fine performance by both players.

David Anton finished on the same score, as he defeated Robert Hovhannisyan in one of the most interesting games of the round:

Two players finished their tournament with 11 draws: Viktor Erdos of Hungary and Jorden van Foreest of the Netherlands.

As always in open tournaments, the last round saw many relatively quick draws. Some players were probably just tired from playing, or had to leave early to start traveling to the European Team Championship in Batumi, Georgia, which starts on October 23.

Another major event coming up is the Fischer Random World Championship in Norway, between October 27 and November 2, with Carlsen, Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Wesley So.

FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss | Final Standings (Top 20)

The top women's prizes were shared by top seed Harika Dronavalli of India and Dinara Saduakassova of Kazakhstan. Both scored 5.5/11. The latter also earned a grandmaster norm in this event.

Dinara Saduakassova appeared on the live broadcast.

FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss | Women, Final Standings

Find the top games of round 11 for replay here:

Previous reports:

• FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss Starts Thursday
• FIDE Chess.com Isle Of Man: Round 1 Pairings
• FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss: Najer Upsets Anand In Round 1
• FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss: 5 Players Lead After Round 2
• FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss: Caruana, Wang Hao Still Perfect
• FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss: 4 Players Lead; Carlsen Escapes
• FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss: 7 Players Lead As Caruana Escapes
• Caruana, Wang Hao Lead FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss At Half
• FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss: Aronian Joins Caruana In Lead
• FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss: Controversy Over 2 Similar Games
• Nakamura Joins Leaders At FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss
• FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss: Caruana Sole Leader; Candidates' Spot Up For Grabs