Bilbao Chess: Wesley So wins Bilbao Masters, 2015

American GM Wesley So (2760) won the tiebreak against Dutch GM Anish Giri (2798) to win the Bilbao Chess Masters, 2015.

Earlier during the day, both the games of Round 6 viz., Ding-Anand and So-Giri ended in draws, forcing a tiebreak match of blitz games to decide the winner among the Dutch and the American grandmasters.

In the first blitz game, Anish Giri built a winning position with the black pieces after So made some suspicious moves in a Queen’s Gambit Declined middlegame. Despite, being a pawn up, Giri failed to convert, and allowed So to fight back. Eventually, Giri ended up blundering a full piece, losing the game. In the second game, playing the white pieces, Giri again had a better position, but So defended hard. After several moves of back and forth, they both agreed to a draw in an opposite-coloured bishop ending.

GM Wesley So won the tie-break match 1.5-0.5, thus winning the tournament.

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