Viet GM forces draw, stalls Wesley's bid

MANILA, Philippines - Wesley So failed to gain headway with the white as GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son of Vietnam forced a 26-move draw in their Gruenfeld encounter, foiling the Filipino GM’s bid to gain a share of the lead in the seventh round of the Biel Young Grandmasters Chess Championship in Biel, Switzerland Monday.

The standoff stalled So at second with four points, half-a-point behind fifth round tormentor Fabiano Caruana of Italy heading into the last two rounds of the tournament among 10 of the world’s leading youth GMs.

So was poised to capture Nguyen’s b-pawn with his rook to equalize before both players agreed to split the point.

The four other matches all ended in draws with Caruana halving the point with GM Anish Giri of the Netherlands. GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France also drew with GM Evgeny Tomashevsky of Russia, so did GM Parimarjan Negi of India and GM Dmitry Andreikin of Russia, and GM Maxim Rodshtein of Israel and GM David Howell of England.

So, 16, takes on the fifth-seeded Giri in the penultimate round Tuesday.