INQUIRER Sports

KHANTY-MANSIYSK, RUSSIA— Filipino Grandmaster Wesley So claimed the biggest scalp of his young career Wednesday night, sealing a 1.5-.5 victory over super GM Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine to barge into the third round of the 2009 World Chess Cup at the Khanty-Mansiysk Center of Arts.

Continuing his strong showing against higher-rated players, the 16-year-old So held Ivanchuk to a fighting draw in the second game of their second round encounter to forge a showdown with defending champion GM Gata Kamsky of the United States.

So stunned the sixth-seeded Ivanchuk (Elo 2739) with the black pieces in Game 1 Tuesday night. His confidence boosted, So then adeptly handled white to force Ivanchuk to a draw after 46 moves of a Slav Exchange Variation despite being under time pressure (seven minutes to Ivanchuk’s 52 minutes in the endgame).

Though rated lower than Ivanchuk with his Elo of 2695, the Russian-born Kamsky is deemed even more formidable, having won the 2007 edition of the biennial tournament. Kamsky had ousted Filipino GM Rogelio Antonio Jr. in the first round and Chinese GM Zhou Weiqi in the second.

With his shocker over Ivanchuk and a 4-1 conquest of GM Gadir Guseinov of Azerbaijan in the opening round, So became the first Filipino to gain the third round of the knockout tournament, eclipsing the achievements of Antonio and GM Mark Paragua, who both reached the second round of the event in separate occasions.

Asia’s first GM Eugene Torre went as far as the quarterfinals, but under a different world championship elimination format.