WORLD CHESS CUP UPDATE: WESLEY SO DRAWS 2ND GAME WITH MALAKHOV, PLAYERS GO INTO TIEBREAK MATCHES TODAY
By Salvador Lopez
PhilBoxing.com
Wed, 02 Dec 2009
(Special to PhilBoxing.com) -- Philippine chess teen sensation Wesley So drew his second game of his Round of 16 match against Russian Vladimir Malakhov yesterday to force a play-off for a berth in the quarterfinals of the ongoing FIDE World Chess Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. The tournament is being held as an integral part of the World Chess Championship Cycle 2009-2011.
Playing black in a Chebanenko Slav, ironically, a Malakhov favourite, So was forced into a situation where keen positional understanding is required. Generally, young players as So would be more comfortable playing sharp positions requiring deep calculation instead of dour positions with hidden technical nuances. Nonetheless, So proved equal to the task and played the game with the same maturity as that of a veteran grandmaster, ? l? Magnus Carlsen. After the middle-game was over, So had already obtained the initiative and whilst presented with the chance to play 27....Ne4, which would practically force a draw, he played for a win instead with 27....Rc7 aiming for an eventual e5 breakthrough. However, just as in the first game of the match, Malakhov defended accurately and the game soon petered into a draw on the 38th move forcing the two players to go into a play-off today along with eight other players who also drew their respective matches.
So far, both Malakhov and So have shown excellent preparation in their games as demonstrated by their steady play in this competition. Hence, it would be difficult to predict who between these two combatants the eventual winner would be.
Earlier, three matches were decided in the regular 2-game mini-match entitling the victors outright qualification into the quarterfinals. In the only decisive game of the day, GM Sergei Karjakin, formerly of Ukraine but now a naturalised Russian, defeated his compatriot GM Nikita Vitiugov with the Black pieces to advance into the next round. Two other players, GM Shakriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan) and GM Peter Svidler (Russia), who were victorious in the first game against their respective opponents, only needed to draw their 2nd game with white against GM Alexei Shirov (Spain) and Victor Laznicka, respectively, to advance.
Whilst two other games ended in uneventful draws (GM Boris Gelfand of Israel v. GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France, and GM Alexander Grischuk v. GM Dmitri Jakovenko, both of Russia), it appeared that two other players missed their chances for outright qualification into the quarterfinals. Playing white in a Sicilian game, Italian teen sensation GM Fabiano Caruana had a dominating position against the higher-rated GM Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan) but allowed the latter to squirm out from imminent defeat and had to settle for a draw. Likewise, former FIDE world champion GM Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine) twice balked two winning chances and only managed a draw against GM Etienne Bacrot (France) in their Slav game. After blundering a pawn advantage on the 23rd move, Ponomariov, who played the white pieces, surprisingly obtained yet another winning position from an even Knight ending - thanks to Bacrot’s inexact play, but the former played the boo-boo 82. Kf7 to completely throw away the stored win.
The play-off games is due to start today at 6 p.m. Manila time.
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