GRANDMASTER Wesley So’s black king was trapped.
But a blunder on the 35th move allowed him to outplay Hungarian rival Richard Rapport in 48 moves of a Reti Opening on Sunday in the third round of the 2017 Tata Steel Chess Masters in Wijk aan Zee, The Netherlands.
Rapport wielded the advantage after he trapped So’s white king on the back rank with his rook, and was keeping his rival at bay with a series of checks.
But he lost his advantage when So gobbled up the black queen in the 42nd move.
With Rapport’s blunder, So went on the counterattack to pin the black king on the eighth rank.
As Rapport conceded, the world no. 4 So move up to second place with two points.
He shares second to sixth places with Pental Harikrishna, GM Magnus Carlsen, Wei Yi and Sergey Karjakin.
Ukranian GM Pavel Eljanov is in the solo lead with 2.5 points.
He stayed ahead after Eljanov drew with Harikrishna in 42 moves of a Reti Opening.
Carlsen played to a draw in 27 moves of a Queen’s Pawn Game with Dmitry Andreikin while Karjakin prevailed over Loek Van Wely in 49 moves of a Pirc Defense.
According to analysts, Rapport played beautifully to reach a totally winning position, until a couple of blunders reversed this to a lost situation.