MANILA, Philippines -- Grandmaster Wesley So made shortwork of Croatian GM Ivan Saric in just 28 moves of a Ruy Lopez to move to solo second and half a point behind leader GM Magnus Carlsen of Norway going into the last two rounds of the 77th Tata Steel Masters in Wijk an Zee, The Netherlands Friday night.
Slowed down by draws in the last two rounds, So struck back big, unleashing a kingside attack early that forced Saric to blunder away a piece, allowing the Cavite-born former Webster University standout to extract the full point to enable him wipe Carlsen's one-point advantage to just half.
Carlsen, the reigning world champion, failed to translate his pawn and positional advantage into a victory and was held to a 47-move draw with French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in their Gruenfeld duel.
After 11 rounds, So has jumped from a share of No. 2 to solo hold of it with 7.5 points, or half a point off the pace, and turned this 13-round, ultra-competitive Category 20 tournament into a two-way title race with Carlsen.
So's penultimate round showdown with Dutch GM Anis Giri and Carlsen's duel with Chinese GM Ding Liren, which were both being played at presstime, will be critical as it will make or break their campaign.
And Giri, who trounced countryman GM Loek Van Wely in 52 moves of a Pirc Defense, and Liren, a marathong 65-move winner over Polish GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek of a King's Indian Defense, should be tough assignments for both as the two are currently grouped with Vachier-Lagrave at No. 3 with seven points apiece.
"It will be a tough last two rounds, anything can happen," So told Tata Steel TV's Yasser Seirawan, the United States former top board player.
So tackles Van Wely while Carlsen clashes with Saric in tonight's final round.
So is hoping to find a breakthrough win against Giri, ranked No. 6 in the world with a live rating of 2792.5 against World No. 7 So's 2788.5, after the two drew their two games--first in Group C of this same event six years ago and last year's Group A also here.
"We played several times, We drew in the C group in 2009. We were babies back then. We drew last year," said So of Giri.
So also owns the distinction as the only undefeated player in this event, having won four matches and drawn the other seven.
Two of his victories came at the expense of Ukrainian GM Vassily Ivanchuk, the former leader and World Challenger, and Armenian GM Levon Aronian, the defending champion, while a couple of his draws were with Carlsen himself and Italian GM Fabiano Caruana, the world's second highest rated chesser.