Grandmaster Wesley So downed Russian Daniil Dubov in 33 moves of a Ruy Lopez in the 11th and final round to finish tied for first in the preliminaries of the Airthings Masters of the Champions Chess Tour Tuesday.
The 27-year-old So ended up at the helm with world champion Magnus Carlsen and fellow United States bet Hikaru Nakamura with 6.5 points apiece but wound up the No. 2 seed after tiebreaks were applied.
The Fischer Random world titlist and two-time US champ arranged a showdown with No. 7 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the quarterfinals set Wednesday.
The win against Dubov was also critical for So as he eluded Carlsen, who took the No. 1 seed and will tackle Dubov in the other bracket.
It meant So could face Carlsen, whom the former beat to rule the Skilling Open last month, in the finals, assuming he hurdles Dubov and the winner in the duel between Nakamura and Armenia’s Levon Aronian.
The other two quarterfinalists were Azerbaijan’s Teimour Radjabov and Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi.
More results at championschesstour.com.