Filipino Grandmaster Wesley So drew his ninth round game against Grandmaster Emil Sutovsky of Israel.
GM So had the white pieces and played 1. d4. GM Sutovsky responded with his favourite Gruenfeld defense. So used the Classical Bf4 line and prepared well for the opening as he had a slight advantage entering the middle game.
A series of exchanges left So a pawn up and he managed to simplify the position into a rook plus two knights endgame with the Filipino having a passed e-pawn in the center. It was now a matter of coordinating his pieces to continue creating threats.
The 16 year old So?s e-pawn reached the 6th rank on his 35th move and Sutovsky used his rook to block the pawn advance. But the 32 year old Sutovsky defended well and after and exchange of knights, So?s pawn could not make headway and a truce was declared after 42 moves.
GM Bong Villamayor said that So missed winning chances during the endgame in his live commentary on chessdom.com.
