CHESS #1380

The Jerusalem Grand Prix is a 16-player knockout

Ding Liren is the 2019 Grand Chess Tour Champion, beating Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the finals of the London Classic. Magnus Carlsen beat Levon Aronian to take third place. Ding took home $150,000, while MVL won $100,000. Carlsen collected $60,000 versus Aronian’s $40,000. Ding has played great chess in 2019 but he’s still been overshadowed by Carlsen who has now gone 107 classical games without loss.

In the concurrent Fide Open, Praggnanandhaa and Anton Smirnov (both 7.5/9) tied for first place. Aravindh Chithambaram (7) was in a tie for 3rd-5th. Pragg’s Elo is now above 2600, which makes him the second-youngest to