So outwits English GM in 32 moves

MANILA, Philippines - Wesley So outwitted GM David Howell of England in their Caro-Kann game and pulled off a 32-move victory with the black in the Filipino GM’s big start in the 43rd Biel Young Grandmasters Chess Championship in Biel, Switzerland Monday.

So, ranked fourth in the compact 10-player, Category-17 field, gained a strong positional advantage in the middlegame then pounced on the time-pressured Howell in the endgame to complete the rousing victory.

So threatened to capture white’s rook on b3 when Howell squirmed in time trouble and lost the match.

The 16-year-old Filipino champion from Bacoor, Cavite thus shared the early lead with No. 10 GM Maxim Rodshtein of Israel, who trounced ninth seed GM Parimarjan Negi of India.

So takes on GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France in the second round, hoping to make the most of the white against the defending champion, who settled for a draw with third seed GM Fabiano Caruana of Italy.

Two other matches in the nine-round, all-GM tournament ended in fighting draws with fifth seed GM Anish Giri of the Netherlands halving the point with second seed GM Evgeny Tomashevsky of Russia and No. 6 GM Dmitry Andreikin of Russia splitting the point against seventh seed GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son of Vietnam.

Howell opened with his usual e4 and So countered with the ancient opening line named after English player Horatio Caro and Austrian Marcus Kann as far back as 1886.