So continues rise to stardom

KHANTY-Mansiysk, Russia - Grandmaster Wesley So added defending champion GM Gata Kamsky of the US to his growing list of world-class victims, claiming a decisive 1.5-.5 victory to advance to the Last 16 in the World Chess Cup at the Khanty-Mansiysk Center of Arts here Saturday night.

In a big follow-up to his equally shocking 1.5-.5 upset win over former world championship finalist GM Vassily Ivanchuk in the second round, the 16-year-old So wittingly went for a draw by forcing an exchange of the major pieces, ending Kamsky’s bid to extend the match after 42 moves of the Dutch defense.

So, who is expected to breach the super GM rating of 2700 at the end of the year, even held a slight initiative in a rook-and-bishop ending when he accepted Kamsky’s offer to halve the point.

The Filipino champion, who beat Kamsky with the black in the opener of their Last 32 match, will meet the winner of the match between GM Pavel Eljanov of Ukraine and Vladimir Malakhov of Russia.

The 11th-seeded Eljanov (2729) and the No. 22 Malakhov (2706) drew their first two games and were set to play rapid tiebreak matches late Sunday night.

“I’m really happy to have played well against Kamsky. But I really spend a lot of time preparing for my opponents. I know that even if they are already super GMs, they can also make mistakes,” So told the official website of the World Cup.

“I just hope I can sustain my momentum,” said So.

Kamsky, who lost to GM Anatoly Karpov in the 1997 World Championship, said So deserved the victory.

“It is clear that my opponent (So) was better prepared. I was thinking that I could win against this player with my experience. But sadly, my opponent was not that easy to beat, as I was expecting. He turned out to be a very serious player,” said Kamsky, who played the top board for the United States during the World Chess Olympiad in Turin in 2006 and Dresden in 2008.

“I was always choosing the wrong openings. Everything was decided in the first game. I played recklessly and got the problematic position. In the second game, I had to solve a difficult problem. But it is almost impossible to beat a good player with black,” said Kamsky.

“I played the Dutch defense, sacrificed a pawn and got some chances. But at one point, I went too far and the advantages for my opponent were clear enough and I offered a draw so as not to suffer,” said Kamsky.

National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) president/chairman Butch Pichay and secretary-general Tagaytay City Mayor Bambol Tolentino lauded So for his amazing feat.

“Clearly, Wesley is the newest chess superstar in the world,” said Pichay.

Tolentino attributed So’s success to his extensive training and preparations before the tournaments.

Sharing the limelight with So on the eighth day of competition was former women world champion Judit Polgar, who shocked top seed GM Boris Gelfand of Israel to level the score in their third-round showdown.

Polgar, one of only three female participants in the 128-player field, cashed in on Gelfand’s misplaced pieces on the board and launched a relentless attack against the Russian-born Israeli to prevail.

Also advancing to the fourth round in the all-GM tournament were Alexei Shirov of Spain over GM Evgeny Tomashevsky of Russia, 1.5-.5; Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine over Alexander Motyloev of Russia, 1.5-.5; Nikita Vitiugov of Russia overKonstantin Sakaev of Russia, 1.5-.5; Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan over Wang Hao of China, 1.5-.5; and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France over Yu Yangyi of China, 1.5-.5.