Caruana wins the play-off

Having Rapid or Blitz games to split the leaders is a logical way to get an 'outright' winner and it also serves to generate some exciting spectator-friendly chess.
Surely you'd agree that it's better decide a football match on penalties rather than counting back and working out who had the most corners, isn't it?

Caruana beat Vachier-Lagrave at blitz (2-1) and then overcame Nguyen with Black (at 10 minutes chess) in the London system for the title.

Play-offs:

Semi-Final

White piecesResultBlack piecesType of chess
Fabiano Caruana1-0Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Blitz)
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave1-0Fabiano Caruana (Blitz)
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave0-1Fabiano Caruana (Armageddon)

Final

White piecesResultBlack piecesType of chess
Fabiano Caruana0.5-0.5Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son 10'
Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son0-1Fabiano Caruana10'

Just as a reminder, the final table in the round robin was as below.

SeedNameCountryRatingPoints
1st-3rdMaxime Vachier-LagraveFRA27235.5
1st-3rdFabiano CaruanaITA26975.5
1st-3rdNguyen Ngoc Truong SonVIE26175.5
4thDmitry AndreikinRUS26505
5th-7thEvgeny TomashevskyRUS27084.5
5th-7thWesley SoPHI26744.5
5th-7thMaxim RodshteinISR26094.5
8thAnish GiriNED26724
9thDavid HowellENG26163.5
10thParimarjan NegiIND26152.5

The main feature was the tight nature of the tournament, the leaders 'only' obtaining 'plus two'. However it's worth noting that it was yet another good result by a Vietnamese player. Le Quang Liem and Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son are both having a remarkable year.

For more information see the Official site

Wins with Black at blitz gave him the title @ official site

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