AFTER two victories, Filipino prodigy Wesley So had another draw, his sixth, for his Round 8 match with Chinese GM Hua Ni for the Grandmasters B category of the 2010 Corus Chess Tournament at the Wijk Aan Zee, at the Netherlands, Sunday night.
It only took 17 moves for So (2656) and Ni (2657) to figure that it was an even match.
The match was anticipated to be a vengeance game as the two players had already played against each other twice.
The first was a draw during the 2006 President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Cup and the second had So winning their head-to-head match when the Philippine Team face China during the Dresden Chess Olympiad in Germany in 2008.
So used the Ruy Lopez Berlin Variation to beat the Chinese opponent.
The game started using the Rossolimo variation of the Sicilian Opening with Ni playing with the White pieces and So using the Black pieces.
The same play So and Ni used when they played againt each other at the PGMA Cup in Subic.
The result of the match put So and Ni to a joint 2nd to 5th place with Dutch GM Erwin l’Ami with 5 points each.
Indian GM Anish Giri (2588) continued to hold the top spot with 6.5 points.
As of press time So played against GM Emil Sutovsky of Israel (2657) in Round 9 match.