Indian Grandmaster R. Praggnanandhaa tied with Wesley So for the top spot on points after nine rounds but lost out in the Armageddon to finish second in the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis.

After drawing with Anish Giri of the Netherlands in the final round, Praggnanandhaa forced a tiebreaker against So, who was leading for the most part. In the tie-break, So played out a draw with black pieces in the Armageddon to win the tournament after the two Rapid games were drawn.

Praggnanandhaa needed to beat Giri to edge past So in the standings but the Dutchman found some resourceful moves when it mattered the most.

In the final round, Uzbekistan’s Javokhir Sindarov had to win with black against So to catch up with him at the top. The American played solidly, exchanged pieces at will and reached a bishop and pawns endgame to force a draw.

In the Cairns Cup for women, China’s Tan Zhongyi emerged champion despite going down in the final round to Stavroula Tsolakidou of Greece.

The results (ninth round): Sinquefield Cup: Wesley So (USA) 5.5 drew with Javokhir Sindarov (Uzb) 5); Jorden van Foreest (Ned) 2 drew with Vincent Keymer (Ger) 5; Levon Aronian (USA) 4 drew with Samuel Sevian (USA) 4.5; Fabiano Caruana (USA) 4.5 drew with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra) 4.5; R. Praggnanandhaa 5.5 drew with Anish Giri (Ned) 4.

Tiebreak: So beat Praggnanandhaa 1-1, 1-0.

Cairns Cup: Stavroula Tsolakidou (Gre) 4.5 bt Tan Zhongyi (Chn) 6.5; Alice Lee (USA) 6 drew with Carissa Yip (USA) 5; Bibisara Assaubayeva (Kaz) 5 drew with Koneru Humpy 3.5; Divya Deshmukh 4.5 drew with Anna Muzychuk (Ukr). 4.5; Alexandra Kosteniuk (Rus) 3 bt R. Vaishali 2.5.

Published - August 20, 2026 10:30 am IST