MALMO, Sweden—Filipino Grandmaster Wesley So got entangled in a trap by Swedish GM Nils Grandelius and horribly lost by checkmate in the fourth and penultimate round of the 19th Sigeman and Co. chess championship at the Hipp Theater Sunday.
Despite handling white, So allowed the Swede to gain tempo, blundered in his 17th move and suffer the humbling debacle when Grandelius’ queen caught his unprotected king on d1 for mate in 31 moves of the Nimzo-Indian defense.
Opting not to castle, So faced heavy attack by black’s more active queen, bishop and knight during the middle game and was unable to recover, virtually dropping out of title contention with 2.0 points.
So will try to bounce back when he battles GM Jonny Hector of Sweden in the last round.
Defending champion GM Anish Giri of the Netherlands and GM Hans Tikkanen of Sweden shared the lead with 2.5 points each in the six-player event.