Chinese IM forces So to marathon draw

MANILA, Philippines - Grandmaster Wesley So couldn’t pull off a win over a lowly-ranked Chinese International Master Lin Chen and settled for a marathon 132-move draw of a Slav Defense that dropped him to joint fourth after eight rounds of the 2015 Qatar Masters Open in Doha, Qatar Monday night.

So seized a slight positional edge and the tempo early on but couldn’t cash in on it as Lin, whose 2532 rating pales in comparison with the former’s 2775, held his ground to force a standoff in a rook-and-pawn ending.

It was So’s fourth straight draw and fifth in the last six for 5.5 points as he fell by a full point behind solo leader GM Magnus Carlsen of Norway and half a point off joint second GMs Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and Yu Yangyi of China heading to the final round of the nine-round Swiss system tournament.

With the draw, So slid one rung lower from No. 9 with a live rating of 2778.

Carlsen, the top seed and the reigning world champion, made shortwork of No. 7 GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan while No. 2 Kramnik and No. 11 Yu trounced GM Nils Grandelius of Sweden.

So guns for a victory in the final round against Yu for a crack at the top three in the top-level event featuring the world’s top players.