INQUIRER Sports

KHANTY-MANSIYSK, RUSSIA?Filipino Grandmaster Wesley So hacked out a superbly strategized draw with defending champion Gata Kamsky in their second match late Saturday and eliminated the American from the 2009 World Chess Cup at the Khanty-Mansiysk Center of Arts.

The half point was all the 16-year-old So needed to bump the stunned Kamsky off the powerhouse list of contenders after the third round, 1.5-0.5, counting the Filipino?s impressive victory in their first match Friday.

The end for Kamsky came in the 42nd move of the Dutch defense when, without any more hopes of a decisive maneuver in a rook-and-bishop ending, he offered his hand to the young Filipino.

So?s victory was a reprise of his equally masterful 1.5-0.5 conquest of former world championship finalist GM Vassily Ivanchuk in the second round, in a duel where he also shocked the Ukrainian in the first game.

?I?m so happy to have played well against Kamsky,? So, who kept his initiative with the white pieces and wisely avoided unnecessary risks, told the tournament website.

?I really spend a lot of time for preparations. I know that even if [my opponents] are super GMs, they can also make mistakes.?

When truce was agreed, the brilliant high schooler from Bacoor, Cavite, even held a slight positional edge.

So?s strong results against Ivanchuk and Kamsky are expected to boost the Filipino GM?s ELO past the super GM level of 2700.

He next faces the winner between GMs Pavel Eljanov of Ukraine and Vladimir Malakhov of Russia in the 16-player fourth round.

The 11th-seeded Eljanov (ELO 2729) and the No. 22 Malakhov (ELO 2706) drew their first two games and were playing rapid (30-minute) tiebreak matches late Sunday night.

Kamsky, the Russian-born player who lost to GM Anatoly Karpov in the 1997 World Championship, said So deserved his victory.

?It is clear that my opponent was better prepared,? said the United States? board 1 player at the World Chess Olympiad. ?I was thinking that I could win against this player with my experience.

?Sadly, my opponent was not that easy to beat, as I was expecting. It is almost impossible to beat a good player with black.?

By reaching the last 16 of the tough tournament, So is already assured of about $30,000 (P1.46 million) in prize money, according to Tagaytay City Mayor Abraham ?Bambol? Tolentino, secretary general of the National Chess Federation of the Philippines.

?Wesley is peaking at the right time,? said Tolentino. ?It?s clear that he?s in the groove.?

Sharing the limelight with So on the eighth day of competition was former women?s world champion Judit Polgar, who stunned top seed GM Boris Gelfand of Israel in their second match to level the scores.

Polgar is one of the only three female players in the 126-strong field.

Also advancing to the last 16 are GM Alexei Shirov of Spain, who crushed GM Evgeny Tomashevsky of Russia, 1.5-0.5; GM Ruslan Ponomariv of Ukraine, winner over GM Alexander Motyloev of Russia, 1.5-0.5; GM Nikita Vitiugov of Russia, who eliminated GM Konstantin Sakaev of Russia, 1.5-0.5; GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan, who nipped GM Wang Hao of China, 1.5-0.5; and GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France, who ousted GM Yu Yangyi of China, 1.5-0.5.