So topples Iranian foe, enters 2nd rd of Chess World Cup

MANILA, Philippines -- Wesley So overpowered an inexperienced Parham Maghsoodloo of Iran in 40 moves of an English Opening to complete a two-game match sweep and barge into the second round of the World Cup 2015 in Baku, Azerbaijan Saturday night.

A day after carving out a 43-move win of yet another English game,  So, born in the Philippines but shifted allegiance to the United States last year, went straight for the jugular and utterly outplayed the 15-year-old Iranian.

It was a match So though is expected to dominate since Maghsoodloo's 2447 rating pales in comparison with the former's 2761.4, which is good for 12th in the world rankings.

So punished Maghsoodloo for his passive opening pawn plays and built his advantage by pouncing on the latter's kingside weaknesses.

When the end came, So came out the exchange up and ready to pounce on another pawn.

The win  thus arranged So an interesting duel with the winner of the showdown pitting Hungarian Csaba Balogh (2665) and Azeri Eltaj Safarli (2649), who wound up with a 1-1 deadlock.

Interestingly, So has an identical 1-1 head-to-head result against Balogh, whom he drew twice, and Safarli, whom he beat in the 2008 World Youth Under-16 Olympiad and then lost in the Aeroflot Open the next year.

So is eyeing  to bounce back from a humiliating last-place performance in the 10-player Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, Missouri more than a week back.

So lost 12.9 rating points in the St. Louis event that sent him sliding from No. 9 in the world FIDE rankings to No. 12.

So’s best performance in the event came six years ago in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia where he made it to the round-of-16 by stunning Gadir Guseinov, 4-1, Vassily Ivanchuk, 1.5-.5 and Gata Kamsky, 1.5-.5, one after the other before falling to Vladimir Malakhov, 1-4.

In the next two stagings, So exited as early as the second round with defeats to Russians Sergey Karjakin, 1.5-2.5, four years ago also in Khanty-Mansiysk, and Evgeny Tomashevsky, .5-1.5, two years back in Tromso, Norway.