Wesley So finished the first half of the blitz rounds of Your Next Move — Grand Chess Tour 2016 at second place with 5 points out of 9, although, tied with Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik, and Hikaru Nakamura. Levon Aronian is slightly ahead at 5.5 points.

Crosstable after nine rounds of blitz games:

With three-quarters through the tournament, Carlsen is still ahead in the combined score (rapid scores are multiplied by two):

Wesley So is trailing closely behind by just 1 point, and considering that Carlsen is just a wildcard player in the Paris and Leuven leg of the Grand Chess Tour 2016, Wesley is, thus far, well poised to take home one of the top prizes in the tour.

Replay all the blitz games here.

Check out the Grand Chess Tour website to learn more about the tour.

Photo credit: Grand Chess Tour and Chessbase (for the crosstable).