MANILA, Philippines – Filipino Grandmaster (GM) Wesley So settled for 5th overall in the 43rd Biel International Chess Festival Young Grandmasters tournament in Biel, Switzerland on Wednesday.

So split the point with Vietnamese GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son in the 9th round.

The 16-year old Bacoor, Cavite campaigner tallied 4.5 points, the same output of GM Evgeny Tomashevsky of Russia and GM Maxim Rodshtein of Israel.

After the Sonneborn-Berger (SB) tie break was applied, So garnered 19.50 to land in 5th place. Tomashevsky accumulated 18.75 for 6th place while Rodshtein notched 18.50 for 7th.

The Sonneborn-Berger tie break is calculated by adding scores of the opponents who were beaten by a given player and half the scores of the opponents who he drew with. This has been adopted from round-robin tournaments and is usually used as a secondary method.

Three players -- Ngoc Truong Son, GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France and GM Fabio Caruana of Italy -- finished with identical 5.5 points.

Vietnamese GM Ngoc Truong Son (the best player, according to Sonneborn-Berger points) qualified for the final.

Vachier-Lagrave bested Caruana in the semifinals to arrange a titular showdown with Ngoc Truong Son. – by Marlon Bernardino

Finals:

Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son vs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

Standings after Round 9

Points SB
1. Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son (VIE, 2617)
    5.5 (24.00 SB points)

    Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA, 2723)
    5.5 (23.75 SB points)

    Fabiano Caruana (ITA, 2697)
    5.5 (23.25 SB points)

4. Dmitry Andreikin (RUS, 2650)
    5.0

5. Wesley So (PHI, 2674)
    4.5

    Evgeny Tomashevsky (RUS, 2708)
    4.5

   Maxim Rodshtein (ISR, 2609)
   4.5

8. Anish Giri (NED, 2672)
    4.0

9. David Howell (ENG, 2616)
    3.5

10. Parimarjan Negi (IND, 2615)
       2.5