David Howell is the winner of the Winter Chess Classic

David Howell has taken the $5,000 first prize at the Winter Chess Classic in Saint Louis after winning an epic 129-move game in the final round. The English GM played around 90 moves of that game on the 30 seconds a move increment, knowing a draw would have left him in a 3-way playoff with Dariusz Swiercz and Vladimir Fedoseev. The B Group was won by Andrey Baryshpolets, who went on a 5-game winning streak from Rounds 2-6.

When we last reported on the Winter Chess Classic after three tempestuous rounds David Howell was the sole leader on 2.5/3. Howell went on to draw his next five games, and things quietened down in general at the top of the table. It was only in Round 7 that Vladimir Fedoseev caught Howell by beating Jeffery Xiong in a knight and pawn ending. Then in Round 8 he withstood an assault by Sam Sevian and once against flawlessly exploited an endgame advantage to take a half point lead into the final round.

The next chess action in St. Louis will be the US Championships starting on March 29th, with Yasser Seirawan, Jennifer Shahade and Maurice Ashley back in the commentary booth. You can check out the line-ups on our live broadcast pages: Open, Women

See also:

• U.S. Chess Champs Winter Classic page
• Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis
• All the games with computer analysis on chess24: Group A | Group B
• Howell leads Winter Chess Classic in Saint Louis