MANILA, Philippines - Wesley So overpowered 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, now representing the US, went straight for the win and outplayed the 15-year-old Iranian.
So, the current world No. 12, pounced on Maghsoodloo’s passive opening pawn structure to seize the initiative then attacked his rival’s kingside to fashion out the win.
So will next face the winner between Hungarian Csaba Balogh and Azeri Eltaj Safarli, tied at one game apiece.
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 but lost in the Aeroflot Open the following year.
So is out to atone for his last-place performance in the 10-player Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, Missouri recently.
So lost 12.9 rating points in the St. Louis event that dropped him from No. 9 in the world FIDE rankings to No. 12.
So made it to the Last 16 for his best World Cup showing in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia six years ago where he stunned Gadir Guseinov, 4-1, Vassily Ivanchuk, 1.5-.5 and Gata Kamsky, 1.5-.5, before falling to Vladimir Malakhov, 1-4.