Tata chess: So draws Caruana; Ivanchuk in front

Wesley So forged a draw with world No. 2 Fabiano Caruana of Italy late Tuesday and remained in strong contention in the Tata Steel Masters at Wizk aan Zee, the Netherlands.

Showing his tenacity with black, So played Caruana (Elo 2820) on even terms until they agreed to a truce after 31 moves of a Ruy Lopez.

The Cavite-born So, now representing the United States Chess Federation, raised his total to 2.5 after four rounds, a full point behind solo leader Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine.

Ivanchuk, the oldest in the 14-man field at 45, bested Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France to climb to 3.5 points in the round-robin tournament with an average Elo rating of 2746.

Caruana was at 3.0 points with streaking Chinese Ding Liren, who claimed the Azerbaijan’s Teimour Radjabov as his third straight victim after an opening round loss to Caruana.

World champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway finally flashed deadly form to down the Netherlands’ Loek Van Wely and improved to 2.0 points in the company of another Dutch, Anish Giri, and Croatia’s Ivan Saric.

Giri settled for a draw with women’s world champion Hou Yifan, while Saric, lowest-rated at 2666, trounced Georgian Baadur Jobava.

Following the draw with Caruana, So, conqueror of reigning champ Levon Aronian, boosted his live rating to 2778.1, good for ninth place in the world and No. 1 in the US, displacing Hiraku Nakamura (2776). Roy Luarca