All eyes on So in Asian Individual Championships
| by Ed Andaya |
| Monday, 12 April 2010 20:41 |
GM Wesley So of the Philippines will be one of the favorites when the 2010 Asian Individual Chess Championships, one of the biggest and most prestigious chess competitions in the region, finally comes off the wraps on April 20-30 at the Subic Exhibition and Convention Center in Subic. So, the country’s highest-rated player with an ELO of 2665 based on the FIDE quarterly rating April, will be seeking his first major international title this year and a second straight appearance in the World Chess Cup next year. The 16-year-old Filipino champion, who was described as a “gold nugget” by the foreign chess press after beating former world championship candidates GM Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine (ELO 2739), and GM Gata Kamsky of the United States during the 2009 World Chess Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, will head the local challenge in this prestigious 10-day competition hosted by the National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) for the second straight year. So will be joined by fellow World Cup veterans GMs Rogelio Antonio Jr. and Darwin Laylo, Asia’s first GM Eugene Torre and several other equally-talented woodpushers. The Filipinos will go up against a crack foreign delegation, which included GMs Ni Hua (ELO 2667) , Zhou Jianchao (ELO 2650) and Li Chao ( ELO 2613) of China, Krishan Sasikiran (ELO 2686) and Pentala Harikrishna ( ELO 2660) of India, Le Quang Liem (ELO 2689), Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son (ELO 2642) and Dao Thien Hai (ELO 2523), Susanto Megaranto (ELO 2527) of Indonesia, Zhang Zhong (ELO 2603) of Singapore and Anton Fillipov (ELO 2598) and Khamrakulov Djubarek (ELO 2509) of Uzbekistan. |
In all, a total of 60 players, including 19 from China and 12 from India, have already confirmed their participation in this annual event which serves as qualifying tournament for the 2011 World Chess Cup.
At stake in the Asian Individual Chess Championships are US $40,000 in cash prizes and four berths to the 2011 World Cup also in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia.
Here is the full article.
Special thanks to Ed Andaya for sending us the link.
Go Wesley!
Isn’t Le Quang Liem to player to look out for?