So grabs share of lead in Paris chess tiff

MANILA, Philippines – Wesley So jump-started his title defense by scoring 2.5 points and sharing the lead with Magnus Carlsen after three rounds of Grand Chess Tour (GCT) Rapid, the kickoff event of the Tour in Paris, France Wednesday night.

So downed fellow United States chesser Fabiano Caruana in the opening round, outlasted Frenchman Etienne Bacrot in the second and then blew a won game to settle for a marathon 82-move draw with Russian Alexander Grischuk in the third.

The split allowed Carlsen to catch up as the Norwegian world champion bounced back from a first round draw with Grischuk by smashing Azeri Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Frenchman Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

The fourth to sixth rounds were being played at press time while the final three rounds are scheduled today.

The other participants in this event are the US' Hikaru Nakamura, Bulgarian Veselin Topalov and Russian Sergey Karjakin.

Nakamura, who won this same event a year back, was tied with Topalov at third with two points apiece.

The Cavite-born, Minnetonka-Minnesota-based So emerged the overall champion in last year's edition in this meet that will also hold tournaments in Leuven, Belgium, St. Louis, the US and London, United Kingdom, with a total prize fund of $1.2 million.