BREAKING NEWS: SO DRAWS GAME 2 AGAINST MALAKHOV, TIEBREAK MATCHES WEDNESDAY
By Rene Bonsubre, Jr.
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 01 Dec 2009
The second game of the fourth round mini-match between GM Wesley So of the Philippines and GM Vladimir Malakhov of Russia ended in a draw after 38 moves. Their first game also ended in a draw after 65 moves.
They will be playing their tie break rapid games on Wednesday and the winner will advance to the 5th round where there will be only eight players left in the running for the 2009 World Chess Cup.
GM Vladimir Malakhov played white in game 2 and opened with 1.Nf3 and GM So curiously transformed it into the Chebanenko variation of the Slav defense which is Malakhov's favorite. The game progressed into a struggle of the open a and b files with So doubling his rooks along the a file on his 15th move. But after subsequent exchanges the position was balanced after 19 moves. With the exchange of Queens on the 22nd move, So held a slight edge according to the analysis on chessdom.com. The fight shifted to the center in a rook + knight + bishop endgame. On the 34th move, So exchanged his knight for Malakhov?s bishop and avoided giving drawing chances to the 29 year old Russian but Malakhov still managed to keep the 16 year old So at bay.
The FIDE World Chess Cup 2009 is taking place in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia from November 20th to December 15th 2009. It is a seven-round knockout event with six rounds of matches comprising two games per round, with the winners progressing to the next round. There are now only 16 players left in the fourth round. The finals or seventh round consists of four games.
As for the players still in the event, the remaining field contains a mix of favorites and surprises, with the top three seeds still in the running. Here are the "sweet sixteen" matchups that are being contested in the fourth round:
* Boris Gelfand (#1 seed) vs. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (#17)
* Alexander Grischuk (#8) vs. Dmitry Jakovenko (#9)
* Viktor Laznicka (#61) vs. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (#13)
* Nikita Vitiugov (#28) vs. Sergey Karjakin (#12)
* Vugar Gashimov (#2 seed ) vs. Fabiano Caruana (#50)
* Ruslan Ponomariov (#7) vs. Etienne Bacrot (#23)
* Peter Svidler (#3) vs. Alexei Shirov (#14)
* Wesley So (#59) vs. Vladimir Malakhov (#22)
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