Wesley So earns a spot in the quarterfinals at Skilling Open – Manila Bulletin

Grandmaster Wesley So tied his last five games to finish third in the preliminaries and book a quarter-final seat in the process at the Skilling Open on the Champions Chess Tour on Tuesday.

After scoring six points in his first 10 games, the 27-year-old So went on to tie with France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Russia’s Peter Svidler and Ian Nepomniachtchi, current world champion Magnus Carlsen and Azerbaijani Teimur Radjabov to seal the Third place. .

The two-time United States champion finished tied for third with Nepomniachtchi and Armenia’s Levon Aronian with 8.5 points each, but finished with the highest tiebreak.

Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura of the United States emerged first and second with nine points each, while Radjabov, Vachier-Lagrave and the Dutch Anish Giri claimed the remaining places in the knockout round.

So he has managed a quarter-final showdown with Radjabov in a couple of quick four-game matches on Wednesday and Thursday.

The other couples face Carlsen against Giri, Aronian against Nepomniachtchi and Vachiere-Lagrave against Nakamura.