Wesley So blows Millionaire Chess Open title defense

Wesley So. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Wesley So bowed to fellow Super Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura in their tiebreaker early Monday and blew his title-retention bid in the 2016 Millionaire Chess Open in Las Vegas.

So wound up fifth while Nakamura, also a member of the United States team like the Philippine-born So, advanced to the final four with Vietnamese GM Le Quang Liem, Russian-born Aleksandr Lenderman of the US and Chinese GM Yu Yangyi.

Yu will face Lenderman while Le will tackle Nakamura in the knockout semifinals of the $1 million event won by So last year.

Le, Yu and Lenderman finished the seven-round elimination round with 6.0 points each. So, who lost to GM Vasif Durarbayli of Azerbaijan in the fourth round, notched 5.5 in a tie with Naka-mura and several others.