So settles for draw, stays at joint 2nd

BIEL, Switzerland – Wesley So agreed to a draw with Evgeny Tomashevsky of Russia in the sixth round to remain within striking distance in the 2010 Biel Young Grandmasters chess championship here Saturday.

The draw came after 24 moves of the Queen’s Gambit Declined as both players opted to play it safe on the sixth day after five consecutive action-packed games.

Tomashevsky, 23, had a queen, rook, bishop, knight and six pawns while So, 16, had a queen, rook, two knights and the same number of pawns.

The position after the 24th move also remained equal, with little prospects for slambang action.

“It’s a draw,” commented National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) executive director Willie Abalos, who followed the game analysis with IM Chito Garma and chess friends until late Saturday. “Tomashevsky played safely and Wesley did the right thing by not taking unnecessary risks with still three rounds remaining.”

The draw left both So and Tomashevsky in a five-way tie for second to sixth places with top seed Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France, Dmtry Andreikin of Russia and Maxim Rodshtein of Israel with 3.5 points.

So’s fifth-round tormentor, Fabiano Caruana of Italy, leads all players with four points.

Vachier-Lagrave , the highest-rated player here with an Elo of 2723, registered the lone victory for the day when he beat GM David Howell of England in the 10-player, all-GM tournament.

The three other matches – Caruana against Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son of Vietnam, Andreikin against Rodshtein, and Anish Giri of Netherlands against Parimarjan Negi of India – also ended in draws.

The players take a much-needed break Sunday before returning to action for the final three rounds.

The seventh round will resume at 2 p.m. Monday ( 8 p.m., Manila time) with So hoping to get back into contention when he meets Truong Son, one of the fast-rising young players from Vietnam.

After two consecutive games with the black pieces against Caruana and Tomashevsky, So will handle white against Truong Son.

Other crucial seventh-round matches will pit Caruana against Giri, Vachier-Lagrave against Tomashevsky, Rodshtein against Howell and Negi against Andreikin.