So Finishes Fifth, Nguyen, Vachier-Lagrave and Caruana tied for first in Ninth Round of Biel Chess Festival

Nguyen Truoc Son provided the biggest reversal in the penultimate ninth round of the 43^rd Biel Chess Young Grandmasters Tournament as he demolished fast-rising star Anish Giri of the Netherlands 1-0, to forge a three-way tie with Grandmasters Maxim Vachier-Lagrave of France and Fabiano Caruana of Italy who scored draws on their respective games. The three totes an identical 5.5 points out of the possible 9.0 points.

Vachier-Lagrave handling the disadvantageous black pieces was held to a draw by Indian GM Paramirjan Negi while Caruana extracted a draw from GM David Howell of England.

Caruana and Vachier-Lagrave will dispute in a two game knockout matches to determine the finalist against Nguyen.

In other chess actions in Biel, Switzerland, GM Wesley So of the Philippines who was at on the losing game against GM Dmitry Andreikin of Russia, still managed to eked out a hard fought draw to hike his total points to 4.5 and finished at the middle pack of the 10 All-GM, single round tournament that gathered some of the best young woodpushers from around the round.

Second seed GM Evgeny Tomashevsky of Russia was also held to a truce against GM Maxim Rodhstein of Israel.

Standings after nine round in the Young Grandmasters Tournament Section of Biel Chess Festival

Wesley So vs Anish Giri in Corus Chess Group B in Eleventh Round

A dream collision between two of the hottest and fast-rising chess superstars in the planet between last year’s giant killer in World Cup GM Wesley So of the Philippines, and the tournament’s darkhorse Anish Giri of the Netherlands in the crucial eleventh round of the 72nd Corus Chess tournament at the De Moriaan Community Centre here.
So who wielded the upset axe against Vassily Ivanchuk and Gata Kamsky last year in the World Cup will play the white pieces against the impressive hometown bet, Giri.
Giri holds a fragile half-point lead over So and two other players going into the last three rounds left in the relatively tough Category 16, 14 player event.
So is the reigning Group C winner last year.

Standings and results from rounds 1 to 10 below…

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