Round 8 Standings: 6.0 points—Aronian; 5.5—Karjakin; 5.0—Caruana, Dominguez, Giri; 4.0—Harikrishna, Van Wely, So; 3.0—Rapport, Nakamura; 2.0—Gelfand; 1.5—Naiditsch Round 9 Pairings: Rapport-Giri, Nakamura-Caruana, Naiditsch-Harikrishna, So-Van Wely, Gelfand-Dominguez, Aronian-Karjakin
Filipino Grandmaster Wesley So bowed to Cuban GM Leinier Dominguez in the eighth round Tuesday and dropped out of contention in the 76th Tata Steel Tournament Masters in Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Unable to parry Dominguez’s attack with the white pieces, So resigned after 21 moves of Petroff Defense and remained at 4.0 points, good for a share of sixth to eighth places with GM Loek Van Wely of the Netherlands and GM Pentala Harikrishna of India.
Top seed GM Levon Aronian of Armenia drew with GM Anish Giri of the Netherlands after 48 moves of a Catalan Opening to keep the lead with 6.0 points, half a point ahead of Russian GM Sergey Karjakin, who beat Israeli GM Boris Gelfand.