So ousts Ivanchuk
Advances to 3rd round of World Cup of chess vs Kam
GRANDMASTER Wesley So stunned GM Vassily Ivanchuk by holding the former world championship contender to a draw Wednesday in the second game of their World Chess Cup duel, completing a 1.5-0.5 win that sent him to the third round at the Khanty-Mansiyak Center of Arts in Russia.
After scoring a win with the black pieces last Tuesday, the 16-year-old So handled white in Game 2 needing just a draw to complete the ouster of Ivanchuk, the No. 6 seed with an Elo rating of 2739.
So chose the Exchange Variation of the Slav Defense and kept things under control with little risk. Ivanchuk, of Ukraine, tried hard but failed to find a way to complicate things and the game soon petered into a draw in the 46th move.
So, of Bacoor, Cavite, became the first Filipino player to go this deep in the tourney. He advanced against defending champion GM Gata Kamsky (2695) of the United States in the round-of-32.
The Filipino ace, who is already assured of $16,000, forced an exchange of the major pieces–bishop, knight and two rooks–and steered the game into a queen and pawn ending. When the game ended, So and Ivanchuk had a queen and three pawns each.
So (2640), one of three Filipino players who clinched slots in the tourney, qualified for the second round by defeating GM Gadir Guseinov of Azerbaijan in the first round. After splitting the first two games, the two played a rapid play-off where So scored a brilliant 3-0 win.
Ivanchuk was relegated to the sidelines in the company of fellow super GMs Teimour Radjabov (2748) of Azerbaijan and Alexander Morozevich (2750) of Russia who fell to lower-ranked opponents.
Other favored players like Alexei Shirov (2719) of Spain, formerly of Latvia, and Peter Svidler (2754) of Russia were forced to go into speed play-offs after being held to draws.
The Russian-born Kamsky eliminated another Filipino player, GM Rogelio Antonio Jr., in the first round and GM Zhou Weiqi of China in the second round.
A fourth-year high school student of St. Francis of Assisi College, So created history by becoming the first Filipino player to reach the third round of the world’s biggest individual chess competition. He surpassed the achievements of Antonio and GM Mark Paragua who both previously reached the second roundfo the World Cup.
Asia’s first GM, Eugene Torre, qualified for the quarterfinals of the World chess championship in the 70s when the format was still different.
The National Chess Federation of the Philippines has instructed Antonio and GM Darwin Laylo, the other Filipino player has been eliminated, to "stay behind and provide the much-needed assistance to So in his history-making campaign."
Laylo lost to GM David Navara of Czech Republic in the first round.
A victory by So over Kamsky will cement his claim as the world’s strongest junior player and give him the rare distinction of advancing to the 16-player fourth round.