WESLEY SO hammers Ivanchuck in World Cup chess 2009

report from manila bulletin

KHANTY-Mansiysk, Russia – GM Wesley So of the Philippines authored one of the biggest upsets in the 2009 World Chess Cup when he pulled the rug from under former world championship contender GM Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine in the second round at the Khanty-Mansiysk Festival of Arts here.

Buoyed by his convincing 4-1 win over GM Gadir Guseinov of Azerbaijan in the first round, So chalked up another major triumph when he beat the sixth-seeded Ivanchuk (ELO 2739) in 39 moves in the first of their two-game match in the 64-player, second round.

So, widely considered as the world's strongest player in the 16 years old and below category, needs only a draw against Ivanchuk with the white pieces in their second game to advance to the 32-player third round.

A win by Ivanchuk will send the match into tiebreak stage.

The Bacoor, Cavite-born So, who rose to prominence by becoming the world's seventh youngest player to earn a GM title in December 2007, played almost flawlessly against the highly-rated Ivanchuk despite handling the black side of the board.

The high school student of St. Francis of Assisi College-Bacoor won a pawn with 13. Qxd4+ and then forced the Ukrainian champion to give up a rook and bishop for knight and bishop.

On the 28th move, So wisely steered the game into his advantage by forcing an exchange of the queens and went into the endgame with two rooks, a knight and five pawns against Ivanchuk's rook, knight, bishop and four pawns.

Earlier Monday, So swept all three rapid tiebreak matches against Guseinov to become the only Filipino player to advance to the next round.

The 59th-seeded So, who was forced into the rapid tiebreak stage after losing the second game to Guseinov, left nothing to chance and swept his Azerbaijan rival in the next three matches.

The two other Filipino campaigners, GMs Rogelio Antonio Jr. and Darwin Laylo, bowed out of contention after the first round.

Here is the full round 2 result:

No. Name Nat. G1 G2 Tot 1 Amonatov, Farrukh TJK ½ 0 0.5 Gelfand, Boris ISR ½ 1 1.5 2 Gashimov, Vugar AZE ½ 1 1.5 Zhou, Jianchao CHN ½ 0 0.5 3 Nyback, Tomi FIN 1 0 1.0 Svidler, Peter RUS 0 1 1.0 4 Morozevich, Alex. RUS 0 0 0.0 Laznicka, Viktor CZE 1 1 2.0 5 Sakaev, Konstantin RUS 1 ½ 1.5 Radjabov, Teimour AZE 0 ½ 0.5 6 Ivanchuk, Vassily UKR 0 ½ 0.5 So, Wesley PHI 1 ½ 1.5 7 Akobian, Varuzhan USA ½ ½ 1.0 Ponomariov, Ruslan UKR ½ ½ 1.0 8 Grischuk, Alexander RUS 1 ½ 1.5 Tkachiev, Vladislav FRA 0 ½ 0.5 9 Sandipan, Chanda IND 0 0 0.0 Jakovenko, Dmitry RUS 1 1 2.0 10 Wang, Yue CHN 1 1 2.0 Savchenko, Boris RUS 0 0 0.0 11 Inarkiev, Ernesto RUS 1 0 1.0 Eljanov, Pavel UKR 0 1 1.0 12 Karjakin, Sergey UKR ½ ½ 1.0 Timofeev, Artyom RUS ½ ½ 1.0 13 Milov, Vadim SUI 0 0 0.0 Mamedyarov, Shak. AZE 1 1 2.0 14 Shirov, Alexei ESP 1 0 1.0 Fedorchuk, Sergey UKR 0 1 1.0 15 Caruana, Fabiano ITA ½ ½ 1.0 Dominguez, Leinier CUB ½ ½ 1.0 16 Yu, Yangyi CHN 1 ½ 1.5 Bartel, Mateusz POL 0 ½ 0.5

No. Name Nat. G1 G2 Tot 17 Meier, Georg GER ½ ½ 1.0 Vachier-Lagrave, Max. FRA ½ ½ 1.0 18 Alekseev, Evgeny RUS ½ ½ 1.0 Fressinet, Laurent FRA ½ ½ 1.0 19 Khalifman, Alexander RUS ½ ½ 1.0 Tomashevsky, Evgeny RUS ½ ½ 1.0 20 Wang, Hao CHN 1 ½ 1.5 Ganguly, Surya IND 0 ½ 0.5 21 Shabalov, Alexander USA ½ ½ 1.0 Navara, David CZE ½ ½ 1.0 22 Malakhov, Vladimir RUS ½ ½ 1.0 Smirin, Ilia ISR ½ ½ 1.0 23 Sasikiran, Krishnan IND 0 0 1.0 Bacrot, Etienne FRA 1 1 1.0 24 Rublevsky, Sergei RUS ½ ½ 1.0 Areshchenko, Alex. UKR ½ ½ 1.0 25 Iturrizaga, Eduardo VEN ½ 0 0.5 Jobava, Baadur GEO ½ 1 1.5 26 Motylev, Alexander RUS 1 ½ 1.5 Najer, Evgeniy RUS 0 ½ 0.5 27 Zhou, Weiqi CHN 0 ½ 0.5 Kamsky, Gata USA 1 ½ 1.5 28 Vitiugov, Nikita RUS ½ ½ 1.0 Milos, Gilberto BRA ½ ½ 1.0 29 Cheparinov, Ivan BUL ½ ½ 1.0 Bologan, Viktor MDA ½ ½ 1.0 30 Naiditsch, Arkadij GER 1 ½ 1.5 Onischuk, Alexander USA 0 ½ 0.5 31 Li, Chao CHN 0 1 1.0 Pelletier, Yannick SUI 1 0 1.0 32 Polgar, Judit HUN ½ ½ 1.0 Nisipeanu, Liviu-Dieter ROU ½ ½ 1.0