Wesley salvages tie for 2nd spot

WESLEY So trounced Dutchman Loek Van Wely in the final round Sunday night and joined a four-way tie for second in the all-Grandmaster Tata Steel Masters won by Norwegian world champion Magnus Carlsen in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands.

When the tiebreak was applied, however, So slid to fourth behind  Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France and Anish Giri of the Netherlands but ahead of Ding Liren of China.

The quartet wound up with similar 8.5 points behind Carlsen (Elo 2860), who tallied 9.0 following a draw with Croatian Ivan Saric.

Smarting from his loss to Giri in the 12th round, So pierced Van Wely’s defenses with white and won in 32 moves of a Benoni.

So’s effort hardly made an impact, however, as Vachier-Lagrave and Ding also subdued Italian world No. 2 Fabiano Caruana and Armenian Levon Aronian, respectively.

Giri lagged behind Vachier-Lagrave after being forced to a standoff by Poland’s Radoslaw Wojtaszek.

Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine settled for sixth with 7.5 points, ahead of Caruana (7.0), Teimour Radjabov (6.0), Wojtaszek (5.5) and Aronian (5.5).

Hou Yifan of China finished with 5.0, Saric (4.5), Van Wely (4.0) and Jobava Baadur (3.0) in the event that boasted an average Elo rating of 2746.

The Cavite-born So, now representing the United States, posted a performance rating of 2854 that boosted his live rating to 2787.5, good for world No. 7 behind No. 6 Giri (2853) and ahead of No. 8 Vladimir Kramnik  (2783) of Russia, No. 9 Aronian (2777) and No. 10 Hiraku Nakamura (2776) of the United States.

So’s other victories came at the expense of Ivanchuk, Aronian, Saric and Jobava. He improved on his sixth-place finish in the 2014 Tata Steel Masters won by Aronian. Roy Luarca