So escapes with draw vs women’s world champ

MANILA, Philippines – Grandmaster Wesley So escaped with a 54-move draw of a Ruy Lopez against reigning women's world champion Hou Yifan of China to stay in a three-way logjam on top with GMs Fabiano Caruana of the United States and Ding Liren of China after two rounds of Tata Steel Masters Chess 2016 in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands Sunday night.

Playing black, So, who defeated Dutch Anish Giri in Saturday's first round, lost his way in the middlegame and allowed Hou to snatch a pawn and a slight positional advantage but found a way to force a draw in the end after the two ended up with a pair of bishops in a closed position.

The draw kept So at the helm with Caruana, who battled men's world champion GM Magnus Carlsen of Norway to a 32-move standoff of a King's Indian Attack, and Ding, who split the point in 33 moves of Slav Defense, with 1.5 points apiece.

So has Russian Sergey Karjakin as his third round foe, which was being played at press time.

Carlsen was held to two straight draws and is half the point off the pace with one point, the same score by Hou, Karjakin, and GMs Sergey Karjakin of Azerbaijan, Evgeny Tomashevof Russia, Loek Van Wely of the Netherlands, David Navara of the Czech Republic and Wei Yi of China.

Giri, English GM Michael Adams and Ukrainian GM Pavel Eljanov were at the bottom with half a point each.