MANILA, Philippines - GM Wesley So agreed to a quick 22-move draw with Russian GM Sergey Karjakin to stay on top after eight rounds of the Tata Steel Masters 2017 in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands Sunday night.
So came out of their English Opening match with a slight positional edge with a pair of active bishops but failed to translate this into a winning attack and decided to halve the point with the reigning World Challenger.
So now has 5.5 points, half a point ahead of Ukrainian GM Pavel Eljanov and Chinese GM Wei Yi.
Eljanov and Wei drew with Polish GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Indian GM Pentala Harikrishna, respectively.
Hungarian GM Richard Rapport shocked reigning world champion GM Magnus Carlsen of Norway in 33 moves of a Reti Opening in one of the biggest reversals in the 13-round tournament.