A flexible choice
Wesley opens the game up with a knight move, usually indicating that he wants to avoid mainline theory and just 'get a game'.
Woodward takes control of the center.
Wesley switches to a Queen's Pawn game.
We're back at more well-explored terrain here, and now it's on Wesley as to whether he wants to play the usual queen's gambit move next, or go for something quieter.
Wesley does go for the most principled choice, targeting Woodward's center and offering up a pawn. But it's not really much of a sacrifice, as he'd be able to win the pawn back quickly if Woodward does take it.
Instead, Woodward stays solid and just supports the central pawn.
Wesley pressures the center
He focuses on his queenside development, bringing his knight out in order to apply pressure against Woodward's central pawn.
The Tarrasch Variation
This approach is very concrete, but shown to be highly effective in recent years. Woodward just wants to trade off a bunch of pawns in the center and fight for equality in the most direct way possible.
Wesley takes, likely hoping that after a series of pawn exchanges he might leave Woodward with an isolated pawn in the center (known as an IQP).
Woodward grabs a pawn back, forcing Wesley's queen to step out into the center of the board.
Wesley takes back, centralizing his queen. It's a double-edged sword, as she is both a very active piece, but also a very vulnerable piece.
Woodward takes the pawn back, and we see that he has been left with that IQP (isolated queen's pawn) that we mentioned earlier as being Wesley's objective.
Wesley finishes queenside development
He brings the bishop out, pinning the knight and indirectly adding to the pressure against Woodward's central pawn. Andy has to navigate this one carefully, so that he doesn't just end up with the kind of position where you just suffer for a long time due to the weakness of the central pawn.
Woodward steps his bishop out, breaking the pin on his knight.
Wesley continues his development
He wants to play his bishop out and castle to the right hand side soon. Plus, he might want to meet Woodward's next likely move (bringing his queen's knight out to hit the queen) with a pin of this piece.
Woodward does bring the knight out, and now it gives Wesley the option of developing his bishop to pin the piece against his king. That's tempting, since otherwise Wesley will have to waste time moving his queen around.
Wesley goes for the natural move, pinning the knight as a way of meeting the attack on his queen.
Woodward forces Wesley to part ways with his bishop
He wants to induce the exchange, since Wesley cannot just drop the bishop back without losing his queen.
Wesley takes the knight, giving up his bishop pair but on the other hand leaving Woodward with a pretty weak structure.
Woodward takes back
In general, these positions are quite pleasant for the White side. Long term, Wesley will be looking to build a strategy around exploiting the dark squares on the queenside, as those are the ones that Woodward cannot control so well with all of his pawns sitting on the opposite color.
It seems to me that Wesley wants to win Woodward's bishop pair. By targeting the pawn, he's inviting Andy to guard it with his bishop (as shown in green), and then he might well jump forward with his knight. It's a safe way of handling the position, though perhaps not the most ambitious.
Woodward keeps his bishop pair
He avoids going to the more central square, where it could have been hit by Wesley's knight. This is a slightly riskier, but more ambitious choice. For now, the piece is passive, but long term it could become really strong on the diagonal, if Andy can open that up by pushing his pawns forward.
Wesley brings his king to safety
Next up, he's likely to try and place his rooks on central files, to bump up the pressure against Woodward's somewhat weak pawns.
Woodward brings his own king to safety.
Wesley immediately hits the pawn
The nice thing about this move is that it not only hits the pawn, it also threatens to jump to the right hand side with the knight. That would be a pretty strong square for the knight, so Woodward now has to contend with two threats.
Woodward moves his queen forward, covering against both threats at the same time.
Wesley drops his queen back
It's a multi-purpose move. For one, he wants to renew the threat of jumping his knight into enemy territory on the kingside. But he also has an idea involving driving the queenside knight to the left hand side, exploiting the weak dark squares in Woodward's position.
Woodward decides to push forward, improving his central pawn placement, but at the cost of allowing Wesley to jump in with his knight to the strong advanced post.
Wesley jumps in
To be honest, Woodward is doing pretty well here out of the opening. He's got a few ways to continue, with the most ambitious being to try to push his queen's pawn forward in the next few moves, to open up his powerful light-squared bishop.
Another good move from Woodward, with his intention likely being to jump his kingside knight into the center next, offering up a bishop trade. Wesley has failed to get any real edge here, as Andy's nice central control more than makes up for the fact that his pawns are a little vulnerable.
Wesley targets the weak pawn
But Woodward can just move in with his knight. This will force a bishop trade and hit the advanced knight of Wesley's. And that's going to stop Wesley from being able to pick up that queenside pawn that he's targeting.
Woodward continues his strong play as we find ourselves very much in the middlegame battle now. The bishops are about to come off, simplifying the position and leaving Andy that bit closer to easy equality.
Both Wesley's bishop and knight were under attack, so he had no real choice but to exchange.
Woodward takes back his bishop, and is now threatening to win Wesley's knight.
Wesley challenges Woodward's best piece
He drops his knight back, out of harm's way. And now there's pressure against Woodward's strong central knight and his queenside pawn. Andy has to be very careful here, since a bad move or two could just leave him down a pawn with little to show for it.
A clever tactical resource from Woodward, and the best move in the position. The point is that if Wesley takes the 'free' knight in the center, then at the end of the sequence Andy will be able to win back his piece as Wesley's knight will be hanging on the left hand side.
Wesley grabs the hanging pawn, the result of his efforts over the past few moves against Woodward's fragile structure.
Woodward takes back.
Wesley recovers his piece. The thing about this position is that even though Wesley is up a pawn now, Woodward has a lot of compensation for it. The reason for this is that he has the better minor piece, and his pieces are more actively placed.
This is way too risky from Woodward. He should have traded pawns instead, but he goes for a too ambitious choice of securing a passed pawn. The problem is that this pawn is as much a liability as it is an asset. And if Wesley manages to corral it and collect it, then he'll be two pawns up and it'll be resign time for Woodward. Of course, easier said than done!
Wesley doesn't find the most precise move, with the other rook being a bit of a more flexible choice. Now his right-hand rook might stay passive for a while, though I still think Wesley keeps the better practical chances here.
Woodward is understandably eager to push his passed pawn as far up the board as possible. The problem is that now, by placing it on a dark square, it becomes easier for Wesley to hunt it down. His rough plan over the coming moves is shown in the arrows.
The queen drops back, keeping tabs on the dangerous passed pawn. Now, Wesley is ready to push his pawn forward and bring his remaining rook to hit the enemy pawn over the coming couple of moves. Woodward must act fast against this plan.
This game is really going Wesley's way now, as Andy fails to find a good way of dealing with the threat. Wesley is going to round up the pawn now, and unless he slips up, it's going to be lights out.
No surprises, as Wesley turns his attention to bringing his remaining rook to pressure the pawn. He's going to win it, and then be two to the good with a winning position.
Woodward moves in with his queen
He knows he cannot save his passed pawn, so he wants to pick up Wesley's central pawn in exchange.
The game is simplifying now, and Wesley is going to have a clean extra pawn and a really healthy structure. His knight will also be very strong in the long run, so with best play this should be a win.
Woodward picks up the hanging pawn, before it was able to be pushed.
Wesley collects the passer.
Woodward makes some space for his king, avoiding tactics along the back rank.
Wesley improves his king placement, and now has a tactical threat to win Woodward's rook!
Wesley simplifies the position, trading off a pair of rooks.
Wesley reroutes his knight
His extra pawn lies on the queenside, so his winning plan involves bringing his knight into the game on that side to help support his passed pawns.
Woodward moves his rook towards the queenside, taking aim at Wesley's undefended pawn.
Wesley drops back to defend the pawn.
Woodward begins to arrange his pawns on dark squares, a typical strategy when you have the light-squared bishop (so that the two complement each other and control large chunks of the board).
Wesley centralizes his knight, gaining time against Woodward's rook.
Woodward moves the rook out of harm's way, pinning the knight.
Wesley begins the slow march of his pawn majority.
This will be a slow endgame grind if Wesley is to win, since for now it is just the bare minimum amount of material.
Wesley improves his king position, lending support to the knight.
Woodward advances his own king, keeping the pressure against Wesley's knight.
Wesley prepares a possible pawn push in the future, to drive Woodward's king back.
Woodward drops his rook back, just making sure to stay solid as Wesley attempts to gradually improve his position.
Continuing the march of the pawn majority.
Woodward is doing everything he can do here, trying to harmonize his position as much as possible to not make it easy for Wesley to make progress.
A nice move, fixing Woodward's right-hand pawn on a light square. This doesn't work well for him, since his own bishop is light-squared, so it leaves him very imbalanced on the dark.
In time trouble, Woodward makes Wesley's life a lot easier here. By bringing his rook to the file, he allows Wesley to challenge it with his own rook. Trading them simplifies and makes it easier for Wesley to convert his advantage. But not trading them would allow Wesley to bring his rook forward with check!
Wesley plays the right plan.
Woodward looks to be trying to force the pawn on to a dark square, likely figuring that this will give him a better chance of staving off Wesley's advances.
Wesley pushes the pawn forward, necessary since there was no other way to keep it. But it's more than enough here, as Wesley now has a straightforward path to victory in this knight and pawn ending.
Woodward is looking to bring his king forward, targeting the base of the pawn. To be fair, I was playing around with this endgame with the help of the computer, and it seems that Wesley is going to have to be much more precise than I initially suspected. So there's still some room for him to go wrong.
The best move, and the only one that keeps clear winning chances. The point is that now Woodward isn't in time to go chasing after the pawns, since his bishop is attacked.
Woodward drops his bishop back, trying to control possible forward jumps of Wesley's knight.
Wesley is playing a beautiful endgame here, sacrificing the pawn to deflect Woodward's bishop.
Woodward has to take back with the bishop, since if he were to take with the pawn, then Wesley would have a far-too-dangerous passer on the left hand side.
Wesley now gets to land his knight on this key square, from where he'll be able to target the right-hand pawn.
Wesley drops back, getting ready to win the pawn and set up a passer on a new flank.
Woodward goes hunting for the left-hand pawn, desperate to make a passed pawn of his own. The problem is that his will be too slow to march up the board.
A nice move, the point being that Wesley wants to make it difficult for Woodward's bishop to step on to the key diagonal from where it could stop the pawn that will soon start to advance.
Finding a new route towards the diagonal.
Wesley picks up the pawn.
Woodward establishes the bishop on the diagonal, but there's really nothing to do about the advance of the pawn here.
The problem for Woodward is that he's dealing with two separate threats. Wesley can not only advance the pawn, but he can also at the right moment shut down the bishop's vision.
Woodward sees nothing better than to try get his own pawn rolling up the board, but first he must take Wesley's!
The game should be reaching its final stages now, as the pawn will soon promote.
Woodward grabs the enemy pawn.
Today was a day for the veterans, as Hans Niemann fell to Fabiano Caruana, while Wesley So made it look easy against Andy Woodward.
The problem for Andy today seemed to be one of inexperience. The somewhat dull structure that Wesley aimed for from the start didn't lend itself to Andy's main strength of tactics and calculation. Instead, Wesley took him into terrain where deep strategic knowledge and strong practical decision-making is what matters the most. And while Andy may be strong across the board, these particular dimensions of chess strength take longer to mature than other skills.
In the game specifically, the opening seemed to have gone well for Andy, seemingly equalizing quite comfortably. Where things went wrong, however, was that he got overly ambitious after Wesley snatched one of his pawns. Still in that position, he had excellent chances to draw so long as he kept trading down. Instead, he pushed his passed pawn forward in the hopes of counterplay, and that was a trap of sorts that Wesley had laid out for him. Only a few moves later, Wesley rounded up that very pawn, and forced a transition to a winning endgame.
From there, it was flawless technique by a player who has remained near the top of the global rankings for over a decade now.
A big result for Wesley, who shares the lead with Caruana as we head into round 8 tomorrow!
Back from the dead!
Wesley So will no doubt still be feeling relieved, after his miraculous escape against Fabiano Caruana right towards the end of what was a very important game for the overall standings.
The effect of this game is felt today, as both Wesley and Fabiano (plus two others) share the lead on 4 points after six rounds. And, in a very real sense, it's Wesley who could be seen as the favorite to leap-frog the other leaders and carve out a sole lead, that is if he can win today against rising talent Andy Woodward.
Andy is no doubt a future 2700+ grandmaster, sporting a rating of nearly 2600 FIDE, at just 15 years of age. However, his age does make him more vulnerable, as he has not yet had the time to become as well-rounded of a player as he no doubt will be a few years from now.
And while Fabiano faces a big challenge from the Black side against Hans Niemann, Wesley may well see today as a great opportunity to strike and try to set the tone as we move into the latter stages of the Championships.
Of course, Andy will have other plans in mind..!