So settles for another draw in Tata Steel Masters tiff

MANILA, Philippines – Grandmaster Wesley So settled for his third straight draw and split the point with Chinese Gm Ding Liren in 41 moves of a Slav Defense to continue to stay half a point off the pace after four rounds in the Tata Steel Masters Chess 2016 in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands Tuesday night.

For the second straight game, So couldn't find anything out of a pawn advantage in the endgame and settled for a draw in a Queen-and-pawn ending.

The day night before, So emerged a pawn up against Russian GM Sergey Karjakin but ended up splitting the point instead.

After four rounds, So, who beat Dutch GM and world No. 3 Anish Giri in the opening round and halved the point with reigning women's world champion GM Hou Yifan of China in the second, now shares the point with Hou, Karjakin, Ding and Ukrainian GM Pavel Eljanov with 2.5 points each.

They were half a point behind solo leader GM Fabiano Caruana of the US, who drew with Giri, with three points.

The tournament took a much-needed breather yesterday before plunging back into action tonight when So clashes with Czech GM David Navarra in the fifth round.