So braces for tough Asian tourney

MANILA, Philippines - GM Wesley So sets out as one of the favorites in the Asian Individual Chess Championships which starts April 20 featuring the best and the finest players in the region at the Subic Exhibition and Convention Center in Subic.

A berth in the next year’s World Cup will be staked in the 10-day tournament where So, the country’s highest-rated player with a 2665 rating in the latest FIDE quarterly rating, will be seeking his first major international title this year and a second straight stint in the World Cup.

The 16-year-old Filipino champion, who humbled the likes of former World Championship candidates Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and Gata Kamsky of the United States during the 2009 World Chess Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, looms as one of the players to watch in the tournament hosted by the National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) for the second straight year.

He will be joined by fellow World Cup veterans GMs Rogelio Antonio Jr., Darwin Laylo and Eugene Torre.

The foreign delegation includes GMs Ni Hua (2667) and Zhou Jianchao (2650).