So crashes out of Vegas chess tiff

MANILA, Philippines – Wesley So lost to fellow American Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura in the playoffs for the last Final Four spot on Monday to kiss his back-to-back title bid goodbye in the Millionaire Chess Open in Las Vegas, Nevada.

So drew with Vietnamese GM and former Webster U teammate Le Quang Liem in 30 moves of a Queen's Indian Defense to finish in a 10-way tie for the fourth and last spot in the semis after Le, Chinese with 5.5 points apiece GM Yi Yangyi and US GM Aleksandr Lenderman clinched the first three spots with six points each.

So then beat American GMs Gregory Kaidanov and Fabiano Caruana, drew with English GM Luke McShane and Russian GM Aleksandr Shimanov and then split the point with Nakamura to finish tied with Nakamura with four points each in the multi-game playoff tiebreaker.

Given two games to break the tie, So, playing white, and Nakamura agreed to a quick 16-move standoff of a Ruy Lopez in the first game before the latter unleashed a vicious kingside attack to beat the former in 37 moves of an English Opening to advance to the semis.

The setback meant that So failed to defend the crown he won last year.

It was another sorry loss for So, who finished dead last in the Sinquefield Cup also in the US and wound up with a disappointing round-of-16 finish in the World Chess Cup in Baku, Azerbaijan all in the span of two months.

After peaking as high as No. 6 in the world early in the year, So has sank to No. 11 and his freefall continued after his failure in Las Vegas.

Filipino GM Rogelio Barcenilla, Jr. had a chance to join So in that multi-game tiebreaker but lost to 12th seed US GM Varuzhan Akobian and remained with 4.5 points.