With a score of 5.5 out of 9 games, with draws in the last three games, Wesley So emerged as the victor in this year’s Sinquefield Cup, the third leg of Grand Chess Tour 2016. That, despite of in the last round, Veselin Topalov had a winning position, which would have guaranteed him playoff games against So to determine the ultimate champion.

Topalov-Aronian's ending is mate in 38 for White. With accurate play Topalov will play a tiebreak with So tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/PObMa4YNIa

— Lennart Ootes (@LennartOotes) August 14, 2016

But in the end, Levon Aronian was able to hold off Topalov to a draw.[replay]

Results of the Round 9 games follow:

Sinquefield Cup 2016 Round 9 Results

Name	Rtg	Res.	Name	Rtg
Veselin Topalov	2761	1/2-1/2	Levon Aronian	2792
Peter Svidler	2751	1/2-1/2	Viswanathan Anand	2770
Fabiano Caruana	2807	1-0	Anish Giri	2769
M. Vachier-Lagrave	2819	1/2-1/2	Wesley So	2771
Hikaru Nakamura	2791	1-0	Ding Liren	2755

Thus, Wesley So was the clear winner of the tournament by 1/2 point over Viswanathan Anand, Levon Aronian, Fabiano Caruana, and Veselin Topalov.

Sinquefield Cup 2016 Final Ranking

#	Name	Pts	SB
1	So, Wesley	5.5	24.50
2	Anand, Viswanathan	5.0	22.25
	Aronian, Levon	5.0	21.75
	Caruana, Fabiano	5.0	21.50
	Topalov, Veselin	5.0	21.00
6	Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime	4.5	20.25
	Nakamura, Hikaru	4.5	18.50
8	Ding, Liren	4.0	17.50
9	Svidler, Peter	3.5	15.25
10	Giri, Anish	3.0	14.50

With this tournament win, Wesley So now leads the Grand Chess Tour 2016 race with 30 points.

Look back at what happened in Grand Chess Tour Paris and Leuven.

Replay all the games from:

• Sinquefield Cup 2016
• Your Next Move — Grand Chess Tour 2016 Rapid Games
• Your Next Move — Grand Chess Tour 2016 Blitz Games
• Grand Chess Tour Paris 2016 – Rapid Round
• Grand Chess Tour Paris 2016 – Blitz Round

Photos credit: Grand Chess Tour.