So wins anew, surges to joint second

MANILA, Philippines - Grandmaster Wesley So punished Georgian GM Baadur Jobava’s middlegame misadventures to hack out the win that catapulted him from a share of fourth to a three-way logjam at second after six rounds of the 77th Tata Steel Masters in Wijk an Zee, the Netherlands Friday night.

Venturing into the intricate, fireworks-laced Guioco Piano game as black, So was forced to move his king early after Jobava complicated things by avoiding theory but the latter ended up with a cramped position with his misplaced knights facing off with the former’s dangerous pair of bishops.

A weak move by So gave Jobava a chance to hold but a pawn capture turned out to be his downfall as the Cavite-born former Webster University standout pounced on it and went an exchange up that gave him the win.

“Baadur (Jobava) plays a lot of different openings, it’s hard to prepare against him because you don’t know what to expect,” So told chessbase.com. “Best thing to prepare against him are lots of rest and sleep and just a clear head.”

The win sent So, who also beat Jobava in last year’s ACP Golden Classic in Bergamo, Italy, into a three-way tie for No. 2 with reigning world champion GM Magnus Carlsen of Norway and GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek of Poland with four points, half a point behind solo leader GM Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine with 4.5 points.

Carlsen outplayed GM Fabiano Caruana of Italy in a duel between the two highest ranked chessers in the world while Wojtaszek halved the point with current women’s world champion GM Hou Yifan of China.

Ivanchuk, a former World Challenger, for his part, went for the win but ended up drawing it with GM Ivan Saric of Croatia.

So is expected to go for another win against GM Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan, who was in the middle of the pack alongside Caruana with three points each, in their seventh round match being played at presstime.

The victory sent So’s live rating skyrocketing to a career-high 2781.4, a few points shy of overtaking World No. 8 GM Levon Aronian of Armenia (2782) and No. 7 GM Vladimir Kramnik of Russia (2783).

If So could sustain his winning ways, he’ll have a chance to win the tournament while achieving his goal of barging into the elite group of chessers led by Carlsen and Caruana with a minimum of 2800 rating.

The 21-year-old So, however, isn’t thinking that far.

“I would say everybody has a chance to win this very long tournament,” said So. “So far, it’s relatively early to tell because we’re not even halfway through and lots of things can happen.

“I just have to maintain my composure,” he added.