So wins after 5 draws

WIJK AAN ZEE, Netherlands – Grandmaster Wesley So played his best game yet and ended a string of five draws with an ego-boosting win over 2005 European champion GM Liviu-Dieter Nisepeanu of Romania in the sixth round of the 72nd Corus chess tournament at the De Moriaan Community Centre here Friday.

So dusted off an old idea against Nisipeanu’s hyper-modern Reti opening, countering with a solid Slav formation with the disadvantageous black pieces and getting rid of an impending draw with precise continuation for his first win in the tough, 13-round, category-16 tournament.

The 16-year-old Filipino champion, who rose to prominence by becoming the world’s seventh youngest GM in 2006, had a rook, two knights and five pawns against Nisipeanu’s rook, two bishops and three pawns.

Under threat of an unstoppable rook-knight attack by So, the former world championship candidate Nisipeanu resigned in 35 moves.

 “It’s a big win for Wesley – with black,” said Filpino GM Buenaventura “Bong” Villamayor, one of several players doing the analysis for Chessdom.com

Villamayor said So wisely minimized NIsipeanu’s two bishops by finding some good squares for his pieces and consolidated his advantage in the endgame to clinch the win.

With the win, So vaulted into a tie for third to sixth places with top seed GM Arkadij Naiditsch of Germany, Pentala Harikrishna of India and David Howell of England with 3.5 points.

They are only one and a half points behind surprise leader GM Anish Giri of the Netherlands and one point behind GM Ni Hua of China and Erwin l’Ami of the Netherlands.

Giri, the 15-year-old Dutch champion, defeated GM Tony Nyback of Findalng in 37 moves of the Slav defense.

In the seventh round Saturday, So will play white anew against taildender GM Dmitri Reindermann of the Netherlands.

In Group A, GM Alexei Shirov of Spain saw his five-game wining streak come to anend when he settled for a draw with GM NIgel Short of England in only 31 moves of the Ruy Lopez.

The Latvian-born Shirov failed to improve on Viktor Korchnoi’s record for the longest winning streak in Corus.

A former world championship challenger. Korchnoi started with an 8-out-of-8 series to win the 1968 edition of the annual chess event for a final score of 12 out of 15, losing only one game — to Lajos Portisch.

But the draw with Short was enough for Shirov to remain on top of the Group A standings at the hlafwya mark of the annual competition.

Shriov is still one and a half points ahead of the world’s highest rated player, Magnus Carlsen of Norway, and three other players.

Carlsen battled world champion Viswanathan Anand of India to an uneventful draw after only 19 moves of the Sicilian Dragon.

GMs Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and Hikaru Nakamura of United States played each other to a draw in only 16 moves of another Slav.