2017 Asian Chess Championship

Wang Hao beat Julio Sadorra with the black pieces in the final round to win the 2017 Asian Championship on tiebreaks over Bu Xiangzhi. They will be joined in the 2017 World Cup by Vidit and Yu Yangyi, who finished half a point back on 6.5/7 afster drawing their game, and Mongolia’s Tsegmed Batchuluun, who had the most wins of the players on 6/9. The women’s event was won by Vietnam’s Vo Thi Kim Phung, who finished with a brilliant unbeaten 7.5/9. Silver went to Guliskhan Nakhbayeva while Vaishali, the older sister of Praggnanandhaa, took bronze.

The top Indian player was Vidit, who bounced back from his loss to Wang Hao in Round 5 with three impressive wins in a row, meaning a solid draw with Black against Yu Yangyi in the final round was sufficient to secure a World Cup spot and also the bronze medal, since he had more wins than his opponent.

The final World Cup place went to a surprise candidate, 30-year-old 4-time Mongolian Champion Tsegmed Batchuluun, who lost two games, to Rustam Kasimdzhanov and Vidit, but with five wins finished above the rest on the somewhat controversial tiebreak (for a Swiss tournament) of most wins. He won his final three games, finishing with a win over 17-year-old Aravindh, when the youngster’s will-to-win led him astray.

The other 17-year-old, Wei Yi, has already qualified for the World Cup, but it was still a disappointing event for the chess world’s most exciting rising star. Coming straight from winning the 11-round Chinese Championship, he lacked some spark as he went on a run of four draws in a row from rounds 2-5. Perhaps feeling it was time to win at all costs, he played sharply with Black against Vietnam’s Tran Tuan Minh, only for it all to go horribly wrong.