World No 1 Magnus Carlsen drew with Wesley So in the sixth round to keep his sole lead in the Qatar Masters Open.
The Norwegian top seed raised his total to 5.0 points with the Philippine-born Grandmaster So, now representing the United States, and 12 other Grandmasters sharing second with 4.5 each.
Equal in material and position, the former training partners agreed to a truce after 39 moves of a Ruy Lopez, as Carlsen maintained his edge over So in their personal match-ups.
Carlsen won once over So in the Sinquefield Cup in four meetings this year with the other matches at Tata Steel and Gashimov Memorial events also ending in draws.
It was So’s second straight draw and third overall to go with three victories to hike his total to 4.5 points, or just half a point behind Carlsen, who kept the sole lead despite the standoff with five points.


Anish Giri

The fourth-seeded So also kept his place at No. 2 but will share it with others including fellow favourites, GMs Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, Anish Giri of the Netherlands and Sergey Karjakin of Russia, the third, fourth and fifth seeds who all recorded fighting draws.
Kramnik split the point with No. 7 Azeri GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Giri halved the point with Indian GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly, and Karjakin drew with Polish GM Dariusz Swiercz to likewise stay in the hunt.
Also at No. 2 were GMs Yu Yangyi of China, Pentala Harikrishna of India, Dimitry Jakovenko, Sanan Sjugirov and Ruslan Ponomariov of Russia and Ni Hua of China.
Harikrishna made the most out of his sixth round fixture against Vladimir Fedoseev to move half point close to the leader. Before the sixth round, Harikrishna was behind compatriots Surya Shekhar Ganguly and Vignesh NR. But his win in the sixth round ensured he moved close to the leader.

The victory against came easy for the Indian as Fedoseev gave away his rooks cheaply and lost his attacking pieces putting Harikrishna in control of the game.
And soon Fedoseev resigned for Harikrishna to win the full point in the Qatar Masters Open sixth round.
The Indian is next lined up with Swiercz Dariusz and if all goes well then P Harikrishna should come away with the full point.
GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly had perhaps the most difficult fixture for an Indian in the sixth round, going up against Dutch prodigy Anish Giri.
Ganguly, however, managed to avoid losing to one of the world’s best and picked half a point to maintain his position at the tournament.
On the other hand, youngster Vignesh, too, managed come out with a draw result against the top rated woman chess player Yifan Hou in the sixth round.