So blitzes Saric, gains solo second

MANILA, Philippines - Grandmaster Wesley So made shortwork of Croatian GM Ivan Saric in just 28 moves of a Ruy Lopez to move to solo second, half a point behind leader GM Magnus Carlsen of Norway going into the last two rounds of the 77th Tata Steel Masters in Wijk an Zee, The Netherlands Friday night.

Slowed down by draws in the last two rounds, So made a decisive move versus Saric, unleashing an early kingside attack that forced Saric to blunder away a piece, allowing the Cavite-born former Webster University standout to extract the full point.

Carlsen, the reigning world champion, failed to translate his pawn and positional advantage to a victory and was held to a 47-move draw by French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in their Gruenfeld duel.

So seized solo second with 7.5 points, turning this 13-round Category 20 tournament into a two-way title race with Carlsen.

So was playing Dutch GM Anis Giri while Carlsen was tangling with Chinese GM Ding Liren in the penultimate round at press time.

Giri, who trounced countryman GM Loek Van Wely in 52 moves of a Pirc Defense, and Liren, a marathon 65-move winner over Polish GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek in a King’s Indian Defense, should be tough assignments for both as the two are currently grouped with Vachier-Lagrave at No. 3 with seven points apiece.

“It will be a tough last two rounds, anything can happen,” So told Tata Steel TV’s Yasser Seirawan, the United States former top board player.

So tackles Van Wely while Carlsen clashes with Saric in the final round.

So (2788.5) is hoping to find a breakthrough win against Giri, ranked No. 6 in the world with a live rating of 2792.5. They drew their two previous matches here.

“We’ve played several times. We drew in the C group in 2009. We were babies back then. We drew last year,” said So.

So also owns the distinction as the only undefeated player in this event, having won four matches and drawn the other seven.

Two of his victories came at the expense of Ukrainian GM Vassily Ivanchuk, the former leader and world challenger, and Armenian GM Levon Aronian, the defending champion, while a couple of his draws were with Carlsen himself and Italian GM Fabiano Caruana, the world’s second highest-rated chesser.