So opens Netherlands chess title with 56-move victory

MANILA, Philippines -- Wesley So outplayed Hungarian Richard Rapport with a clinical 56-move victory of their Irregular Opening to seize an early share of lead with three others at the start of the 76th Tata Steel Masters in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands Saturday night.

So, 20, punished Rapport's ploy of complicating things by deviating from opening norms, allowing the Filipino to equalize and gain positional advantage early by using his powerul central pawns to neutralize the latter's kingside attack.

So, coming off a strong effort in last December's Pan American Games in Lubbock, Texas where he steered Webster U to the title and emerged the best individual performance with a perfect six-of-six score, then sacrificed an e-pawn in the endgame to gain a piece.

When the smoke of battle dissipated, So, seeded eighth in this 12-man, Category 20 (2743 average rating) tournament, emerged with a light-colored bishop against his foe's harmless two pawns, forcing Rapport, the second lowest ranked player here, to resign on the 56th.

So, who has recently retained his priority list status in the Phl Sports Commission for striking gold in World University Games in Kazan, Russia last year, thus ended up tied at first place along with second seed Hikaru Nakamura of the United States, No. 3 Fabiano Caruana of Italy and No. 5 Sergey Karjakin of Russia.

Nakamura slammed German Arkadij Naiditsch after the latter failed to justify his knight sacrifice and resigned after 65 moves of their super-sharp Nimzo-Indian encounter while Caruana rammed into Israeli emigre Boris Gelfand's brittle Sicilian Defense to win in just 30 moves.

Karjakin, for his part, used his connected queenside passed pawns in bringing down Dutch Loek Van Wely 60 moves in their ultra-conservative Queen's Pawn Game.
And So did it after arriving just hours before the tournament unfolded.

"Wesley (So) arrived in Amsterdam for Tata after a 32 hours of journey. He's fortunate to make it at all given the St Louis weather in recent days," said So's Webster U Hungarian coach Susan Polgar, a former World women's champions.

Armenian Levon Aronian, the No. 2 player in the world and top seed here having a FIDE rating of 2812, drew with No. 10 Pentala Harikrishna of India in 30 moves via repetition of a Giuoco Piano opening while Dutch Anish Giri, the youngest participant here at 19 years old or seven months younger than So, split the point with Cuban Leinier Dominguez in 31 moves of the Berlin Variation of the Ruy Lopez opening.

The Tata Steel, formerly known as Corus and Hoogovens, is the strongest tournament So has participated on as he tries to hopes to come up with a solid performance here to reach his target of breaching the 2750 mark he set for himself this year.