IM offers So a draw despite a pawn up

MANILA, Philippines — Wesley So dodged a bullet as he escaped with a 46-move draw with International Master C R G Krishna of India at the start of the Chess.com Isle of Man International at the Villa Marina in Isle of Man Saturday night.

The Cavite-born, Minnetonka, Minnesota-based So was punished by Krishna, whose rating of 2445 pales in comparison to the World No. 9’s 2776, for the former’s opening adventurism as the latter emerged a pawn up and was about to win a second pawn and whip up a strong kingside attack.

But Krishna blundered it all away and decided to agree to a draw with So even though the Indian was still a pawn up.

It was a fortunate escape by the fifth-seeded So, who fell into a 40-chesser logjam at 64th place with just half a point to show in this nine-round event considered as the strongest open tournament ever held as six of the world’s top 10 players joined.

The draw also kicked So from ninth in the world down to 10th with a live rating of 2772.1 after once peaking as high as No. 2 last year when he breached the 2800-rating plateau.

So, however, was not the only one derailed by upset draws as second seed Anish Giri of the Netherlands, No. 4 Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, No. 8 Hikaru Nakamura of United States and No. 10 Radoslaw Wojtaszek Poland all suffered the same fate.

So, however, will have a chance to bounce back as he was playing another Indian IM in Harshit Raja in the second round at press time.