Xiong now has the sole lead at Wik in the challenger’s section. Yes!! Two rounds to go…
…and he has passed Sam Shankland on the live rating list. He is now the highest rated American player not named Nakamura, Caruana, or So.
…but unfortunately Jeffrey lost today in round 12 to Aryan Tari, while Markus Ragger, Gawain Jones, and Ilya Smirin all won. Going into the last round Jeffrey has 8.0, tied with Smirin and 0.5 points behind Ragger and Jones. At least he has white in the final round while the other three have black. The relevant final round pairings are:
Erwin L’Ami - Markus Ragger
Jeffrey Xiong - Benjamin Bok
Eric Hansen - Ilya Smirin
Lu Shanglei - Gawain Jones
Meanwhile in the top section Levon Aronian won with white against Loek Van Wely, and Magnus Carlsen won with black against Pavel Eljanov. All other games were drawn, so going into the final round Wesley So leads by half a point over Aronian, Carlsen, and Wei Yi. The relevant final round pairings are:
Dmitri Andreikin - Levon Aronian
Wei Yi - Radoslaw Wojtaszek
Ian Nepomniachtchi - Wesley So
Magnus Carlsen - Sergey Karjakin