Wesley chalks up 3rd straight draw

MANILA, Philippines - GM Wesley So battled American GM Varuzhan Akobian in a tense middle game skirmish but failed to translate a slight positional edge into a winning position, settling for another draw in the third round of the 72nd Corus chess tournament at the De Moriaan Community Centre in Wijk Aan Zee, Netherlands Monday.

The white playing So, raring to score a win after back-to-back draws with the black, gained a slight positional advantage in a sharp middle game battle and reached the endgame with a queen and four pawns.

But Akobian, who had two rooks and three pawns, held his own and neutralized So’s attacks with precise moves, forcing the Filipino GM to a draw after 33 moves.

The standoff followed similar results in the first two rounds where the 16-year-old Filipino champion split the point with top seed GM Arkadij Naiditsch of Germany and GM Erwin l’Ami of the Netherlands.

With 1.5 points, So remains in joint fourth place with six others in the 14-player, Category-16 Group B tournament.

The fourth year high school student at St. Francis of Assisi College is a full point behind GMs Ni Hua of China and Anish Giri of the Netherlands and half a point behind Naiditsch.

The fourth-seeded Ni crushed GM Tomi Niyback of Finland to join Giri in the lead.

Giri, the 15-year-old Dutch champion, settled for a draw with compatriot GM Dimitri Reindermann.

Naiditsch halved the point with GM Parimarjan Negi of India.

GM Pentala Harikrishna of India outclassed lone female participant IM Anna Muzychuk of Slovenia to join So in fourth.

So takes on Negi in the fourth round Tuesday.