St. Louis Rapid and Blitz: Aronian clinches, barely

by ChessBase
8/14/2019 – Levon Aronian won the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz tournament despite losing his last round game against former leader Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. The French grandmaster ended up sharing second place with Yu Yangyi and Ding Liren — the Chinese duo had a strong showing at the blitz, as they got the best scores in the last two days of action (11½ out of 18, the same score obtained by Sergey Karjakin). World champion Magnus Carlsen finished in sixth place but still leads the overall GCT standings. Express report. | Photo: Austin Fuller / Grand Chess Tour
Fritz 16 is looking forward to playing with you, and you're certain to have a great deal of fun with him too. Tense games and even well-fought victories await you with "Easy play" and "Assisted analysis" modes.

Aronian outlasts Vachier-Lagrave

Back in 2017, at the semi-finals of the World Cup in Tbilisi, Levon Aronian eliminated Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in a thrilling Armageddon finale, thus stopping the Frenchman from reaching the Candidates Tournament. In Saint Louis, the Armenian also surpassed his colleague (and friend) in the final day of Blitz. Aronian caught up with the then-leader in round twelve and took advantage of Vachier-Lagrave's three straight losses in rounds 14-16 to take the lead. 

The eventual winner of the event reached the final round a point ahead of Yu Yangyi and 1½ points ahead of Vachier-Lagrave and Ding Liren. 'MVL' in fact defeated Aronian, but Yu Yangyi only drew tail-ender Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, which meant the Armenian finished in first place half a point ahead of Vachier-Lagrave and the two Chinese players (Ding Liren also won in round eighteen).

Sergey Karjakin finished in fifth place, after scoring 11½/18 in the Blitz.

Games and commentary

The blitz tournament is a double round-robin with players receiving 5 minutes per player per game, with a time delay of 3 seconds per move.

 
Loading...
New ...
Open...
Share...
Layout...
Flip Board
Settings
MoveNResultEloPlayers
Replay and check the LiveBook here
  • Start an analysis engine:
  • Try maximizing the board:
  • Use the four cursor keys to replay the game. Make moves to analyse yourself.
  • Press Ctrl-B to rotate the board.
  • Drag the split bars between window panes.
  • Download&Clip PGN/GIF/FEN/QR Codes. Share the game.
  • Games viewed here will automatically be stored in your cloud clipboard (if you are logged in). Use the cloud clipboard also in ChessBase.
  • Create an account to access the games cloud.
Connecting to server, please wait...
Load selected games
Clear
Click here to login with your free ChessBase Account and type chat below.

Live commentary by GM Yasser Seirawan, GM Maurice Ashley and WGM Jennifer Shahade
from 18:00 UTC (20:00 CEST, 14:00 EDT)

Results of Rounds 9-18

Click or tap any result to open the game via Live.ChessBase.com.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Final standings

Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz 2019

Click or tap to expand

Final rapid standings

The rapid tournament scoring system is 2 points for a win and 1 point for a draw.

Loading Table...

All rapid games

 
Loading...
New ...
Open...
Share...
Layout...
Flip Board
Settings
MoveNResultEloPlayers
Replay and check the LiveBook here
  • Start an analysis engine:
  • Try maximizing the board:
  • Use the four cursor keys to replay the game. Make moves to analyse yourself.
  • Press Ctrl-B to rotate the board.
  • Drag the split bars between window panes.
  • Download&Clip PGN/GIF/FEN/QR Codes. Share the game.
  • Games viewed here will automatically be stored in your cloud clipboard (if you are logged in). Use the cloud clipboard also in ChessBase.
  • Create an account to access the games cloud.

Final blitz standings

Loading Table...

All blitz games

 
Loading...
New ...
Open...
Share...
Layout...
Flip Board
Settings
MoveNResultEloPlayers
Replay and check the LiveBook here
  • Start an analysis engine:
  • Try maximizing the board:
  • Use the four cursor keys to replay the game. Make moves to analyse yourself.
  • Press Ctrl-B to rotate the board.
  • Drag the split bars between window panes.
  • Download&Clip PGN/GIF/FEN/QR Codes. Share the game.
  • Games viewed here will automatically be stored in your cloud clipboard (if you are logged in). Use the cloud clipboard also in ChessBase.
  • Create an account to access the games cloud.

Schedule

All times in UTC.

Rapid

Time (CDT)

August 10

August 11

August 12

1:00 PM

Round 1

Round 4

Round 7

2:30 PM

Round 2

Round 5

Round 8

4:00 PM

Round 3

Round 6

Round 9

Blitz

Time (CDT)

August 13

Time (CDT)

August 14

1:00 PM

Round 1

1:00 PM

Round 10

1:30 PM

Round 2

1:30 PM

Round 11

2:00 PM

Round 3

2:00 PM

Round 12

2:30 PM

Round 4

2:30 PM

Round 13

3:00 PM

Round 5

3:00 PM

Round 14

3:30 PM

Round 6

3:30 PM

Round 15

4:00 PM

Round 7

4:00 PM

Round 16

4:30 PM

Round 8

4:30 PM

Round 17

5:00 PM

Round 9

5:00 PM

Round 18

 

 

5:30 PM

Playoffs

Links

Reports about chess: tournaments, championships, portraits, interviews, World Championships, product launches and more.

Discuss

Rules for reader comments

 
 

Not registered yet? Register

We use cookies and comparable technologies to provide certain functions, to improve the user experience and to offer interest-oriented content. Depending on their intended use, analysis cookies and marketing cookies may be used in addition to technically required cookies. Here you can make detailed settings or revoke your consent (if necessary partially) with effect for the future. Further information can be found in our data protection declaration.