FILIPINO grandmaster Wesley So climbed up the FIDE rankings despite his title setback in the 2018 Norway Chess tournament.
From no. 9, he moved up to no. 7 with 2779.5 ELO points after Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana earned the €75,000 top purse for beating So in round 8.
Caruana, who remained at no. 2, forced So to resign under time pressure in 48 moves of a Ruy Lopez last Thursday. The 2822.1 ELO-rated Caruana said he didn’t do well in the opening and drifted away.
Then, they got into time trouble and with just seconds on the clock, he made a good move by grabbing a pawn with his rook to h3 move on the 40th. That’s when So blundered with a rook d3 push.
So went on to settle for fifth place with a win, a loss and six draws for four points.
World no. 1 Magnus Carlsen ended up in a three-way tie for second position after he drew with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in 17 moves of a Ruy Lopez.
Sharing 4.5 points with Carlsen are Hikaru Nakamura and Viswanathan Anand. Nakamura halved his point with Levon Aronian in 42 moves of a Queen’s Gambit Declined.
Anand, who was in the lead in the early rounds, won in 32 moves of a Queen’s Gambit Declined over Sergey Karjakin.
The games were shortened after GM Ding Liren injured himself in a bicycle accident after three rounds and was forced to withdraw.
