So bites into Carlsen’s lead

WESLEY So cruised past Ivan Saric in the 11th round Friday night and gained solo second behind world champion Magnus Carlsen in the all-Grandmaster Tata Steel Masters in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands.

Handling white sharply, So trounced Saric of Croatia in 28 moves of a Ruy Lopez, Closed Variation, to rise to 7.5 points and inch closer off  Carlsen, who posted 8.0 following a draw with former world junior champion  Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France in 47 moves of a Gruenfeld, Exchange Variation.

His fourth win against seven draws stretched So’s unbeaten run to 54 games and tightened his grip of world No. 7 with a live rating of Elo 2788.5.

So was trying to displace tormentor Anish Giri (2792.5) at sixth place in the 12th and penultimate round being played Saturday night.

It won’t be easy, however, as Giri, who’ll be playing white, has beaten So twice and drawn three times in their past games since 2009.

Giri had also shown fine form in besting fellow Dutch Loek Van Wely in the 11th round.

Norweigian icon Carlsen (Elo 2860) was tangling with Chinese champion Ding Liren, sharing third with Vachier-Lagrave at 7.0 points following a victory over Pole Radoslaw Wojtaszek (5.0).

Other 11th round matches saw women’s world champion Hou Yifan (4.0) of China hand cellar-dweller Baadur Jobava (1.5) of Croatia another defeat and Levon Aronian (5.0) draw with Vassily Ivanchuk (6.5). World No. 2 Fabiano Caruana (6.0) of Italy also drew with Teimour Radjabov (5.0) of Azerbaijan.

The Cavite-born So, now representing the United States,  has drawn Van Wely for his final assignment Sunday.

Also battling in the crucial 12th round were Van Wely and Jobava, Radjabov and Hou, Ivanchuk and Caruana, Vachier-Lagrave and Aronian, and Saric and Wojtaszek.

So is trying to sustain the form that gave him the Millionaire Chess title and the $100,000 that goes with it last October in Las Vegas. Before that, last June, So also ruled the 9th Edmonton International Chess in Canada. Roy Luarca