Tata chess 5th round: PH’s So faces Gelfand

Filipino Grandmaster Wesley So (ELO 2719) will face Israeli GM Boris Gelfand (2777) in the fifth round of Category A of the 76th Tata Steel Tournament Masters in Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam today.

So and Gelfand went into yesterday’s break with draws. So, notched a third straight draw after 57 moves of a Queen’s Pawn Game with GM Anish Giri (2737), hiking his tournament total to 2.5 points.

Joining So in the second position are Giri, GM Pentala Harikrishna of India (2706) and GM Sergey Karjakin of Russia (2756).

Gelfand, meantime halved the point with GM Arkadij Naiditsch of Germany (2737) after 30 moves of King’s Indian Averbakh.

To seed GM Levon Aronian of Armenia (2803) defeated GM Hikaru Nakamura of the USA (2789) after 44 moves of King’s Indian Classical to grab the solo lead with 3.0 points. Aronian will face Naiditsch in the next round.