When we left off after round 4, Levon Aronian had taken the early lead in the WR Masters; his score of 3 points left him half a point ahead of Dommaraju Gukesh and Wesley So, and a point clear of the next group. (That group included Ian Nepomniachtchi and Anish Giri, so it was a very tough tournament.) It got even better for Aronian in round 5, when there were only two decisive games. One was his win over Giri, and the other was Vincent Keymer’s win over Nodirbek Abdusattorov. As both Giri and Abdusattorov were in the group with two points, the field was looking smaller and smaller in Aronian’s rearview mirror.
Round 6 could have been the end of the event, practically speaking, as Aronian had several opportunities to defeat So. Had he done so, he would have led Gukesh by a point and a half and Nepo by two points. Instead, he led Gukesh by just a single point, and when he lost - with White - to Nepomniachtchi in round 7 his lead was gone thanks to Gukesh’s win against Andrey Esipenko.
None of the leaders won in round 8, so entering the last round Aronian and Gukesh remained tied for first, with Nepo half a point behind. With Aronian and Gukesh paired in the last round the event could have had a dramatic finish. Instead, they were satisfied to repeat a well-known drawing variation, and when Nepo ground out a long victory over Keymer the spectators were in store for a different sort of dramatic finale.
The format for the playoff was a double round robin 10’+2” tiebreaker, and after a bumpy finale Aronian regained his form. In the first cycle, he was the deserved winner over first Gukesh and then Nepomniachtchi, and when Gukesh also beat Nepomniachtchi the Gukesh-Aronian game at the start of the second cycle was crucial. If Gukesh won, they’d be tied, and if Nepo in turn defeated both rivals they’d need another tiebreak cycle, this time at a 5’+2” time control. Gukesh obtained a large, possibly winning advantage in a complicated ending, but let it slip away and then even lost what had been a drawn ending. And that was it: Aronian was guaranteed clear first, so the last two games weren’t played.
Congratulations to all three players. For Aronian, it was his first super-GM tournament victory in quite some time; for Gukesh, it was an incredible result - and don’t forget, he’s only 16! Finally, it was a good performance for Nepomniachtchi as well, in what was presumably intended as a little warm-up for his coming World Championship match against Ding Liren, starting just over a month from now.
All the games from round 5 on, with notes to all of the wins and a couple of the draws, are here.