Friday, April 11, 2008 So beats World Junior Champion in 4th round
DUBAI—Wesley So continued his rampaging campaign in the 10th Dubai Chess Open, displaying his attacking prowess to score a vengeful victory over World Junior Champion Ahmed Adly and maintain a perfect slate after four rounds here Wednesday.
So, currently the world’s youngest grandmaster at 14, leads the tournament in a two-way tie with fellow junior player Fide Master Salem AR Saleh of the UAE, the Arab Under-18 champion who disposed of dark horse Zhou Weiqi, a highly rated but untitled young Chinese who last February created a stir when he won the tough A2 division of the Aeroflot Chess Festival in Russia over a very strong field of Russian and other noted grandmasters.
The fifth round will have So playing the white pieces against Saleh, who also won over Ukrain’s GM Valeriy Neverov in the third round.
So’s victory was sweet revenge after the Egyptian grandmaster outplayed him in last year’s World Junior Championship in Yerevan, Armenia, wherein Adly, defending with the Sicilian Najdorf, parried the Filipino’s over aggressive play to win a pawn and secure the point in the endgame.
The rematch again saw So testing Adly’s Sicilian Najdorf, but the Filipino deviated on move six, opting for the more active bishop move to the g5-square as opposed to
the pawn push to f4 in the previous match. So also castled early, tucking his king to safety in the queenside, avoiding a repeat of their encounter in Yerevan where So
faced problems with his king in the center.
The change of system went well for the Filipino as Adly eventually lost his way in the complicated variation, which allowed So to launch a strong attack against Adly’s king in the middle of the board, forcing the Egyptian’s resignation on the 37th move.
Draw
International Master Julio Catalino Sadorra, meanwhile, halved the point with reigning PGMA Cup champion GM Li Chao of China after 27 moves of a French Defense. Sadorra came out from a tense middlegame battle with a pawn up, which he tried to protect in a delicate rooks-and-pawns endgame, but his weak pawn structure gave Chao enough counterplay, forcing the Filipino teenager to settle for the draw.
Sadorra, who earlier missed a win in another rook-and-pawn endgame against GM Tigran Kotanjian of Armenia in the third round, now has three points at joint third.
At joint second with 3.5 points each are GMs Pavel Kotsur (Kazakhstan), Tamaz Gelashvili (Georgia), Abhijeet Gupta (India), Kotanjian and Merab Gagunashvili (Georgia).
Meanwhile, the other Filipino bets, who are playing under the banner of the Filipino Chess Players League (FCPL)-UAE, encountered mixed results. FM Antonio Molina Sr. defeated Amir Ali Taghikhani of Iran to hike his tally to two points, while NM Robert Arellano and Jobannie Tabada lost their matches to likewise stay at two points.
Arellano lost to Iran’s Amin Nasri, while IM Mas Hafizulhelmi of Malaysia defeated Tabada. The sixth Filipino entry in the nine-round Swiss tournament, FCPL president Ernesto Yap, has one point after dropping his fourth-round match to World Under-12 champion Srinath Narayanan of India. (JCT)
