The tournament turned out to be a mild disappointment. Perhaps, the schedule is to blame. The European participants appeared to be fatigued after a stretch of important events: the Olympiad, followed by the Euro Club Cup, and then the Isle of Man. A long trip to China also didn't help.
In the end, Vachier-Lagrave, Giri and Vitiugov only managed to win one game each, while Wojtaszek, after his phenomenal IoM performance, crashed and burned with -3.
The end of the (Longgang) road | Photo: qipai.org.cn
The main dish was the end of Ding Liren's 100 game unbeaten streak, which came at the hands of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Certainly, the game of the tournament from Round 7:
Being a warrior he is, Ding came back in the next round by beating his compatriot Yu Yangyi.
While being a nice technical display by the winner, this game also shows the lack of resilience from the second player. It seemed to be a pattern, as the tournament went along and the players were getting tired. A few examples to follow. As you can see, Radoslaw Wojtaszek took the brunt of it.
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After Round 10 the GMs partook in a "friendship match" with local chess enthusiasts | Photo: qipai.org.cn
How cruel life can be, when on the heels of the glory of sharing top honours with his wife, Alina Kashlinskaya, at the Isle of Man, Radoslaw went on to have arguably the worst tournament of his career. On top of that, Alina got eliminated from the Women's World Championship in the first round. The good thing is Rado and Alina are young and in love. A couple of weeks in a nice place together, and they'll be as good as new.
Congrats to Anish, Maxime and Liren for sharing first place. Now we can all go back to watching the big show in London.
