Wesley So, the US world No 6, won the prestigious Sinquefield Cup at St Louis for the second year in succession last week, despite a run of nine mostly colourless draws.
The Filipino-born So adopted his approach so as to maximise his chances of another large payday by qualifying for the Grand Chess Tour finals, which take place this week.
He said: “I’m not proud of the early draws, but it’s part of a bigger strategy, and it worked.” The draws allowed him to conserve energy and gave him time to prepare for the next games.
So won $87,500 for finishing first after a play-off with India’s Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, with whom he tied on 5.5/9. They drew two rapid games and then halved an armageddon decider, where the rule was that a draw on the board counted as a win for So, Black, in the score table. So was also awarded more than $15,000 as a share of the decisive games pool for his two early victories in the Sinquefield Cup.
Germany’s Vincent Keymer and Uzbekistan’s world title challenger Javokhir Sindarov were next on 5/9, but it was the US world No 2 Fabiano Caruana who qualified ahead of Sindarov for the Tour finals due to a slightly superior overall Tour performance.
