Draw with Italian GM sends So to joint 4th

MANILA, Philippines - GM Wesley So forced world No. 2 GM Fabiano Caruana to a 31-move draw of a Ruy Lopez to stay in the thick of things after four rounds of the 77th Tata Steel Masters in Wijk an Zee in The Hague, Netherlands Tuesday night.

Coming off a draw against current world champion GM Magnus Carlsen of Norway last Sunday and a shock win over defending titlist GM Levon Aronian of Armenia Tuesday, So sustained his form and tried to unnerve Caruana with the black pieces. But the Italian GM held his ground although he had to dig deep to fend off So’s counter-attack before the two agreed to split the point on a drawish position.

“He (So) played an interesting move,” said Caruana referring to So’s ninth move to g8 in an interview with chessbase.com. “I knew about the move but I couldn’t remember what I wanted to do, it’s quite rare.

“Maybe I was slightly better at some point but I misplayed it,” he added.

The draw hiked So’s output to 2.5 points but the Filipino ace slid to joint fourth after sharing the third round lead with a victory over Aronian.

Former World Challenger GM Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine grabbed the solo lead with 3.5 points following a 30-move demolition of French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in their super-sharp Sicilian duel.

The other 2.5 pointer is Polish GM Radoslaw Wojteszek.

Caruana is in second with three points in a tie with Chinese GM Ding Liren, who notched his third straight win with a 40-mover against Azeri GM Teimour Radjabov in their King’s Indian Defense match.

Caruana later admitted he refused an earlier offer of a draw by So that almost cost him the game.

“He surprised me with a draw offer early on but I wanted to play a few more moves, which turned out to be an incorrect decision. I was worse but I think, more or less, managed to hold it,” he said.

So’s impressive showing also boosted his current rating to a career-best 2778.1 as he stayed at No. 9 in the world ranking, just behind No. 6 Aronian (2788.8), No. 7 Dutch GM Anish Giri (2784.3) and No. 8 Russian GM Vladimir Kramnik (2783).

So will next face reigning women’s world champion GM Hou Yifan of China in the fifth round.