Tata Steel chess: PH’s So settles for draw anew

Wesley So

Filipino Grandmaster Wesley So failed to exact revenge on local bet GM Anish Giri, settling for a third straight draw that pulled him out of top spot in the fourth round of the 76th Tata Steel Tournament Masters Category A in Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, on Wednesday (Thursday in Manila).

Handling black, So, the 20-year-old finance business sophomore at Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri, agreed to split the point with Giri, who bested him in their first meeting in 2010, after 57 moves of Queens Pawn Game.

So climbed to 2.5 points but yielded the lead to top seed and world No. 2 GM Levon Aronian (Elo 2803) of Armenia, who beat second seed and world No. 3 GM Hikaru Nakamura (2789) of the United States after 44 moves of King’s Indian Classical for 3.0 points.

In the end, Giri had three pawns, knight and a white bishop while So had two pawns, knight and a black bishop.

Bunched with So at second place  were Giri, GM Pentala Harikrishna (2706) of India  and GM Sergey Karjakin (2756) of Russia.

Harikrishna subdued GM Loek Van Wely (2678) of the Netherlands after 29 moves of Catalan Opening while Karjakin trounced GM Richard Rapport (2691) of Hungary after 44 moves of French Winawer skirmish.

Italian GM Fabiano Caruana (2782) took a plunge after losing to Cuban GM Leinier Dominguez  (2754) after a marathon 108 moves of Ruy Lopez Opening.

Caruana remained at 2.0 points, the same output of Dominguez and Nakamura.

Round 4 standings: 3.0 points—Aronian; 2.5—Harikrishna, Karjakin, So, Giri; 2.0—Dominguez, Caruana, Nakamura; 1.5—Van Wely, Rapport; 1.0—Naiditsch, Gelfand.

Round 5 pairings Friday: Harikrishna-Giri, Caruana-Van Wely, Rapport-Dominguez, Nakamura-Karjakin, Naiditsch-Aronian, So-Gelfand