Chessers yield to tough Chinese

MANILA, Philippines - A young China squad stopped the Philippines’ remarkable run in the World Chess Olympiad, scoring a whopping 3.5-0.5 victory to gain a share of the overall lead with the United States after nine rounds in Istanbul, Turkey late Thursday.

GM Wesley So averted a shutout by holding GM Wang Hao to a 64-move draw in their Fianchetto variation of the King’s Indian Defense on the top board as GMs Oliver Barbosa, Eugene Torre and Mark Paragua all bowed to their respective rivals.

Barbosa, the highest scorer for the Phl with six points, including a win over GM Gawain Jones in the Phl’s 3-1 shock victory over 10th seed England in the eighth round, was the first to fall after GM Ding Liren, 20, crushed his kingside attack in just 26 moves of Soultanbieff Variation of the Slav Defense.

Paragua followed suit minutes later after he got lost in a series of exchanges in the middle game against GM Li Chao, who sacrificed a rook for a knight to pave the way for a passed pawn on the d-file en route to a 43-move win in their Exchange Variation of the Gruenfeld.

Torre, 60, lost to 27-year-old GM Bu Xiangzhi, who gobbled up the Filipino’s pawns on f and h files to fashion out a 50-move victory in the bishop vs knight endgame of the Queen’s Pawn Fianchetto game.

So tried to salvage a win against Wang but he failed to cash in on a pawn advantage in the queenside in the middle game, losing the edge several moves later and even fell a pawn down.

But So found a way to force a draw as he remained unscathed in the tournament with 5.5 points on two wins and seven draws including six straight against the world’s best.

The loss dropped the Phl from joint second to a share of eighth place with eight others including fourth seed Hungary and seventh pick Azerbaijan with 13 points.

The fifth ranked US, meanwhile, shocked the top seed Russia, 2.5-1.5, to the lead with China, Armenia and its victim at 15 points.

No. 9 The Netherlands and Argentina  are at fifth with 14 points each.

The 35th-ranked Filipinos try to rebound against the Vietnamese, who also stunned England in an equally impressive 3-1 win, in a crucial penultimate round match for Southeast Asia supremacy.

Vietnam is expected to field in GM Le Quang Liem (2693), GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Song (2639), International Master Nguyen Van Huy (2506) and either IM Nguyen Doc Hoa (2505) or GM Dao Thien Hai (2518).

The Phl, for its part, is expected to stick with So and perhaps rest one among Barbosa, Torre or Paragua in favor of a well-rested IM Oliver Dimakiling, who has won his first three matches here before dropping the fourth.

The Phl women’s team suffered its second straight loss, this time to 10th seed Romania, 1.5-2.5, and skidded to a share of 38th spot with 10 points and two rounds to go.