So checks Czech, shares chess lead

MANILA, Philippines - Grandmaster Wesley So sustained his win run and stunned super GM David Navara of the Czech Republic to gain a share of the lead in the Corus Group B Chess Championship in Wijk Aan Zee, The Netherlands Saturday.

Riding the momentum of back-to-back victories over GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly of India and GM Laurent Fressinet of France, So dominated the higher rated Navara and fashioned out a 34-move victory in their Neo-Gruenfeld game to force a three-way tie for the lead with five points.

The Filipino champion emerged from the opening struggle with a slightly better position in the middle game then pounced on his rival’s dubious queen move on the 31st.

The Czech champion resigned three moves later when he was forced to give up a knight to save his queen that was under threat of a double-check with the black’s king.

Other five pointers were GMs Zahar Efienko of Ukraine and Luke McShane of England halfway through the Category 17 tournament.

In other results, GM Le Quang Liem of Vietnam stopped erstwhile unbeaten McShane and GM Li Chao of China drew with Efimenko in the other featured seventh round matches.

Navara also became So’s fifth victim from the elite 2700 rating club.

He previously humbled GMs Vassily Ivanchuk (2764) of Ukraine and Gata Kamsky (2730) of the US during the 2009 World Cup and GM Ni Hua (2724) of China in the Asian Continental Championship in Subic last year and GM Fressinet (2707) in the sixth round Friday.