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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Leonard Barden

Chess: Wesley So wins in Berlin but laments failure to qualify for Candidates

3810 Mark Heidenfeld v Philipp Tunka, Bunratty 2015. Black to move and draw. Black has three plausible choices (other moves lose trivially) but only one of them works for sure.
3810 Mark Heidenfeld v Philipp Tunka, Bunratty 2015. Black to move and draw. Black has three plausible choices (other moves lose trivially) but only one of them works for sure. Photograph: Guardian

Wesley So won the low-key final leg of the Fide Grand Prix in Berlin on Monday, but the US world No 7 missed out on what mattered to him most, qualification for June’s world title Candidates in Madrid.

So and Hikaru Nakamura, who was already sure of overall Grand Prix victory and a Candidates place, made little effort in their two classical games. The second ended after just a few minutes play with what has become the standard tacitly agreed fast drawing sequence for top grandmaster chess, a Ruy Lopez Berlin Defence leading to threefold repetition.

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