So draws for 8th straight, keeps share of 3rd place

MANILA, Philippines – Grandmaster Wesley So agreed to his eighth straight draw as he split the point with Dutch GM Loek Van Wely in 26 moves of a Queen's Pawn duel to stay in a share of third after nine rounds of the Tata Steel Chess Masters in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands Tuesday night.

The draw kept So stranded at No. 3 with five points, or 1.5 points behind solo leader GM Magnus Carlsen of Norway with 6.5 points and half a point off No. 2 GM Fabiano Caruana of the United States with 5.5.

Carlsen, the reigning world champion, smashed English GM Michael Adams in 66 moves of a Guioco Piano to continue to pull away while Caruana halved the point with Russian GM Sergey Karjakin in 60 moves of a Ruy Lopez.

So was playing Russian GM Evgeny Tomashevski in the ninth round as of posting time, eyeing his second win of the tournament after he trounced Dutch GM Anish Giri in the opening round.