MANILA, Philippines — Grandmaster Wesley So reasserted his mastery of Dutch GM Loek Van Wely Thursday and bolstered his bid for a lofty finish in the 76th Tata Steel Tournament Masters in Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
With his three connected pawns on an unstoppable march, So forced Von Wely to resign after 41 moves of King’s Indian Defense and return to the upper half of the standings with 5.0 points.
So (Elo 2719) halted the two-win run of Von Wely, lowest ranked in the field with Elo 2672.
So’s sixth-round tormentor GM Levon Aronian (Elo 2812) of Armenia climbed to 7.0 points following a win over Russian GM Sergey Karjakin.
The Webster U sophomore plays Indian GM Pentala Harikrisna in the 10th round Saturday and Italian GM Fabiano Caruana in the final round. RL