So forces draw, heads to tiebreaker

MANILA, Philippines —  Wesley So fought local ace Baadur Jobava to a 54-move standoff in a Reti Opening to end up tied at 1-1 in their Last 16 duel of the FIDE World Chess Cup in Tbilisi, Georgia Wednesday night.

So, ranked No. 2 here but has dropped to No. 8 in the world with a live rating of 2785 due to poor play in the recent tournaments, steered the match into a closed position and carved a draw on a rook and pawn endgame.

They also halved the point in 40 moves of a Petroff in the first game, thus setting up two more games of 10 minutes plus 10 second-increment to break the tie.

In case of another standoff, they will clash in two blitz games of five minutes plus three-second increment.

The final tiebreaker, if necessary, will be a one-game duel called “Armageddon” where they will draw odds with the one to play the white pieces gets five minutes and no increment but must win to advance. The one with the black will have only four minutes with no increment but could clinch the win with just a draw.

They were playing two more playoff games using rapid time control – 25 minutes each plus a 10-second increment – at press time. The winner clashes with either Vladimir Fedoseev of Russia or Maxim Rodshtein of Israel, who also wound up with a 1-1 draw after standard play.

Among the Last 16 players, only three had advanced to the quarterfinals, including fifth seed Levon Aronian of Armenia, 11th seed Ding Liren of China, and No. 29 Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine.

Aronian downed Russian Daniil Dubov, 1.5-0.5; Ivanchuk shocked No. 13 Anish Giri of the Netherlands, 1.5-0.5, and Ding sent home compatriot Wang Hao, 1.5-0.5.