So splits point with women’s champ, stays in top 4

MANILA, Philippines – Grandmaster Wesley So failed in his bid in extracting a victory out of a drawish position and split the point with reigning women's world champion GM Houn Yifan of China in 66 moves of a Queen's Pawn game to remain in the top four after the fifth round of the 77th Tata Steel Masters in Rotterdam, The Netherlands Thursday night.

So bit into Hou's knight sacrifice, defended well against the dangerous kingside onslaught by returning it and emerged from the first time control a pawn down but slightly up in a rook-and-pawn endgame.

But Hou found all the answers and ended up extracting half a point against the fancied So, who was expected to win after a strong start wherein he beat World No. 5 GM Levon Aronian of Armenia and drew with current world champion GM Magnus Carlsen of Norway and No. 2 GM Fabiano Caruana of Italy.

The draw kept So stranded at No. 4 alongside Carlsen, Caruana and Durtch GM Anish Giri with three points apiece.

Carlsen bounced back from a shock third round defeat to Polish GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek with two straight wins including one against Aronian while Giri, the youngest participant in this Category 20 event at 20 years old, fended off Georgian GM Baadur Jobava's sacrificial attack to also win.

Ukrainian GM Vassily Ivanchuk continued to hold sway after halving the point with Chinese GM Ding Liren with four points.

Half a point off the pace with 3.5 points each were Ding and Wojtaszek, the latter pulling off another gigantic win by bringing down Caruana after stunning Carlsen three days back in two of the tournament's biggest upsets.

It was the third straight standoff for Hou, who remained tied for second to last with jujst 1.5 points to show.

So plays Jobava, who was at the bottom of the standings with just half a point, in the sixth round as of posting time.