So settles for fourth straight draw; Carlsen nears Qatar Masters title

WORLD champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway trounced Grandmaster Shakhriyar Mamemdrayov of Azerbaijan in the eighth round on Monday night to inch closer to the Qatar Masters Open 2015 crown in Doha.

Though handling black, the top-seeded Carlsen (Elo 2834) forced the Mamemdrayov (Elo 2748) to surrender in 25 moves and kept the solo lead with only one round to go in the $130,000 tournament that lured 132 of the world’s top players, including Cavite province-born Wesley So.

Carlsen boosted his total to 6.5 points and needs only to draw his final match late Tuesday night against Russian GM Vladimir Kramnik, joint second with 6.0 points, to secure the title and the $27,000 winner’s purse.

The 22-year-old So, who now represents the United States, settled for a fourth successive draw, this time against Chinese International Master Lin Chen, and blew his title bid with 5.5 points.

Even if So (Elo 2775) beats Chinese defending champion GM Yu Yangyi (2736), also at second with 6.0 points, in their final tussle, the former child prodigy will still finish behind either Carlsen or Kramnik, a former world champion.

Kramnik bested countryman GM Sanan Sjugirov while Yu downed Swedish GM Nils Grandelius in the eighth round.

Sharing fourth to 20th places with So are Dutch GM Anish Giri, Russian GM Sergey Karjakin, Singaporean GM Zhang Zhong, Mamedrayov, Polish GM Darius Swiercz, Russian GM Sergey Karjakin, Ukrainian GM Ruslan Ponomariov, Sjugirov, Indian GM Pentala Harikrishna, Indian GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Chinese GM Ni Hua, Armenian GM Vladimir Akopian, Russian GM Nikita Vitiugov, Vietnamense GM Ngoc Turong Son Nguyen, Lin, Ukrainian GM Vassily Ivanchuk and the untitled Xu Yinglun. Roy Luarca