So draws anew, drops to joint fourth

MANILA, Philippines – Wesley So continued to get dragged down by draws as he settled for another one, this time against Ukrainian Grandmaster Pavel Eljanov in 60 moves of a Gruenfeld Defense in the 11th round of the Tata Steel Chess Masters in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands Friday night.

It was the fourth-seeded So’s 10th straight standoff since he downed Dutch GM Anish Giri in the first round.

The draws dashed So’s title hopes as he  slid from a share of third spot to a three-way logjam for No. 4 with Giri and Eljanov with six points apiece.

Top seed and reigning world champion GM Magnus Carlsen of Norway continued to hold sway as he flattened reigning women’s champion GM Hou Yifan of China to stay at the helm with eight points, a full point ahead of GM Fabiano Caruana with seven points.

Caruana, who is expected to make the US team alongside So in this year’s World Chess Olympiad, split the point with Azeri GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.

Chinese GM Ding Liren downed Russian GM Evgeny Tomashevsky to jump to No. 3 with 3.5 points.

With two rounds to go, So will not be able to match his solid performance in this same event last year when he finished half a point behind Carlsen, the eventual winner.

Interestingly, So was playing Carlsen in the penultimate round at press time and will battle English GM Michael Adams in the final round tonight.