Levon Aronian has won the inaugural Superbet Rapid & Blitz

Levon Aronian has won the inaugural Superbet Rapid and Blitz and almost guaranteed himself a place in the London Grand Chess Tour finals after beating Sergey Karjakin in a playoff. It was a bitter end for Karjakin, whose missed win in the final round deprived him of any chances of going to London. Vishy Anand is now well-placed to book a ticket through the final event in his native India, while the main stars in Romania were perhaps the wild cards Anton Korobov, Le Quang Liem and Vladislav Artemiev, even if it was a day too far for Anton.

Going into the Superbet Rapid & Blitz Levon Aronian was the only player in the field to have won a Grand Chess Tour event this year (the St. Louis Rapid & Blitz), and in fact apart from Levon only Wesley So and Fabiano Caruana had ever won a Grand Chess Tour tournament in its 4-year history. He started the final day in 2nd place, a point behind Korobov and half a point ahead of Le Quang Liem, but after beating both those players in the first three rounds, along with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, he’d opened up a 2-point lead over Korobov and a resurgent Vishy Anand.