So bags 2 wins, jumps to 2nd in Millionaire chess

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine-born American Grandmaster Wesley So bounced back from a heartbreaking fourth round defeat by beating GM Kayden Troff of the US and Cuban GM Reynaldo Ortiz Suarez to storm back to title contention in the Millionaire Chess Open in Las Vegas, Nevada yesterday.

After bungling a won game against Azeri GM Vasif Durarbayli the day before, the third-seeded So vented his ire on Troff with a quick, merciless 33-move win in a Queen’s Indian Defense and then needed to outplay Ortiz Suarez in the endgame to pull off a 60-move triumph in  a Bogo-Indian.

The pair of wins gave So five points and a share of second with seven others, headed by World No. 2 and US No. 1 Hikaru Nakamura, who split the point with Vietnamese GM Le Quang Liem in 45 moves of a Queen’s Pawn London System.

Le stayed alone on top with 5.5 points.

Joining So and Nakamura at No. 2 were GMs Yu Yangyi of China, Evgeny Bareev of Canada and Luke McShane, Aleksandr Lenderman, Ray Robson and Yaroslav Zherebukh of the US.

Playing black against Troff, So threw everything against his American foe and ended up winning the exchange that he easily converted into a win.

So outplayed and outmanuevered his Cuban opponent Ortiz Suarez in a hard-fought endgame to extract two pawns out of a double-edged but equal position.