So faces Harikrishna Today
By Rene Bonsubre, Jr.
PhilBoxing.com
Thu, 21 Jan 2010
Filipino GM Wesley So will play against GM Pentala Harikrishna of India in the fifth round of the Corus B tournament in Holland. So currently has 2 points after four rounds and trails leaders Ni Hua of China and Anish Giri of Holland by a point. Harikrishna has 2.5 points.
The 23 year old Harikrishna (ELO 2672) became a grandmaster in 2001 at 15 years old. He is a product of India?s excellent chess training system being a former World Under-10 champion (1996) and a former World Junior Champion (2004).
In Tuesday?s battle of the prodigies, GM So played the black pieces against Indian GM Parimarjan Negi and wound up with a fourth draw in his fourth round game. Negi became the 2nd youngest GM in history at 13 yrs old in 2006. So became a grandmaster when he was 14, the youngest in Philippine history.
Negi opened with e4 and So responded with the Sicilian defense. Negi used the variation 5.Nc3 known as the Sicilian Kan. So entered the bishop and two rooks endgame with one pawn up and a better pawn structure. Negi got the pawn back as the bishops and rooks were exchanged from the 22nd to 30th moves.
As both players were left with one rook and six pawns, So?s rook sneaked to the 8th rank behind Negi?s pawns. But Negi managed to create a passed pawn on the a-file but his rook was in front of the pawn. There was a draw opportunity for Negi by perpetual check which was taken and a truce was declared after 37 moves.
Wednesday was a day off for all the players. The 16 year old So (ELO 2656) drew his first three games against Arkadij Naiditsch of Germany, Erwin L?Ami of Holland and Varuzhan Akobian of the U.S.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Rene Bonsubre, Jr..
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