Wesley succumbs to top-seed Russian GM

MANILA, Philippines - GM Wesley So’s World Cup campaign came to an abrupt end last night when he dropped the second tiebreak game to top seed GM Sergey Karjakin in Khanty Mansiysk, Russia last night.

So, who held Karjakin to two draws in their standard matches and in the first game of the tiebreak, failed to stop his fancied rival’s attack this time and resigned after 38 moves of a Caro-Kann defense.

Karjakin took the match, 2.5-1.5, to advance to the next round.

Earlier, So and Karjakin fought to another standoff in 22 moves of their Queen’s Pawn game.

Instead of playing his pet French defense, So, 17, opted to use the Caro-Kann line, hoping to spring a surprise but ending up on the defensive end as Karjakin launched a massive queenside attack that netted the latter a passed pawn on the a-file.

It was enough for the 21-year-old Karjakin to convert it to a victory for a third round match with Hungarian Judit Polgar.

So, a quarterfinalist here two years ago, settled for $10,000 for reaching the second round.

So disposed of Chinese GM Ding Liren also via the tiebreak, 2.5-1.5, in the first round.