GM So shocks Ivanchuk in World Chess Cup
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:17:00 11/26/2009
KHANTY-MANSIYSK, RUSSIA—Filipino Grandmaster Wesley So excels against super GMs.
The 16-year-old So proved this again Tuesday night when he stunned Ukrainian Vassily Ivanchuk in the opener of their second round showdown in the World Chess Cup at the Khanty-Mansiysk Festival of Arts.
Brilliantly handling black, So forced the sixth-seeded Ivanchuk (ELO 2739) to surrender after 39 moves of a French Exchange Variation and needs only a draw with white in the second game Wednesday night to advance to the third round.
So earlier beat GM Gadir Guseinov, 4-1, in the first round, compensating for the early exit of compatriots and fellow GMs Rogelio “Joey” Antonio Jr. and Darwin Laylo.
A win by Ivanchuk, a former world championship contender, will send the match into the tiebreak stage.
So, a high school senior from St. Francis of Assisi College-Bacoor, gobbled up a pawn on the 13th move and then forced Ivanchuk to give up a rook and bishop for a knight and bishop.
On the 28th move, So forced an exchange of queens and went into the endgame with two rooks, a knight and five pawns against Ivanchuk’s rook, knight, bishop and four pawns.
So, who totes an ELO of 2640, has also beaten Chinese super GM Ni Hua and drew with Alexei Shirov of Spain in the 2008 Dresden Chess Olympiad. In last year’s Asian Chess Team Championship in the UAE, So also drew with Sergey Karjakin (ELO 2723) of Russia.
Top seed GM Boris Gelfand of Israel settled for a draw with GM Farrukh Amonatov of Tajikistan in their opening match on center stage, and so did second seed GM Vugar Gashimov of Azerbaijan opposite GM Zhou Jianchao of China.
Third seed GM Peter Svidler of Russia, No. 4 GM Alexander Morozevich of Russia and No. 5 Teimor Radjabov of Azerbaijan also suffered setbacks at the hands of Tomi Nyback of Finland, Viktor Laznicka of Czech Republic and Konstantin Sakaev of Russia.
Roy Luarca
Source: http://sports.inquirer.net
Go Wesley!