So bows to Giri, drops to third

WIJK AA ZEE, Netherlands – Grandmaster Wesley So did everything right for most part of his keenly awaited match with solo leader GM Anish Giri of Netherlands until he threw it away with a horrible blunder leading to a mate-in-two situation in the 11th round of the Corus chess tournament at the De Moriane Comunity Centre here.

So defended well against Giri’s relentless kingside attack that culminated with a sacrifice of two pieces and reached the endgame with a winning game in his hands.

But the 16-year-old Filipino champion blundered with his knight push to e2 on the 36th move, allowing the lower-rated but hard-fighting Dutch champion to checkmate him with a rook and queen in two moves.

The win enabled Giri, the 15-year-old Russian-born son of a Nepalese hydrologist working in a research firm in the Dutch capital, to widen his lead to a full point with only two rounds remaining in the category-16 tournament.

Giri, who will turn 16 on June 28, now has eight points, a full point ahead of GM Ni Hua of China and GM Erwin l’Ami of the Netherlands.

Ni halved the point with GM Pentala Harikirshna of India, while l’Ami split the point with IM Anna Muzychuk of Slovenia.

So, on the other hand, dropped to a share of fourth to fifth places with top seed GM Arkadij Naiditsch of Germany.

Experts who watched the game opined that So might have tried again to blitz an opponent under time pressure.

“Until that unfortunate giveaway, So was clearly the better player in this game. It’s probably a blessing that he sees the consequence of unnecessary blitzing while he’s winning. If he keeps this lesson in mind, he will dominate Giri for the rest of their chess careers,” noted one analyst.

“Wesley had about 28 minutes to Giri’s one. But he has a bad habit of trying to blitz an opponent under time pressure. He got away with it once in this tournament. But not a second time. This is a tough lesson for him to learn, but should help him in the long run,” added another expert.

In a match that could decide the champion in this 14-player Group B tournament, So opened with an e4.

But Giri, who holds the record as the world’s youngest active GM, deviated from his usual Sicilian and responded with the Petroff defense (1....e5 2. Nf3 Nf6). He launched an attack and sacrificed his knight then his bishop to open up lines towards So’s king.

Although So defended well, Giri found some inaccuracies and persevered until the Filipino’s blunder.