Pinoys annihilated as So falls

Filipino Grandmaster Wesley So, the tournament’s 33th seed (ELO 2708), yielded to No.32 seed GM Evgeny Tomashevsky of Russia (ELO 2709), 0.5-1.5, in their two game standard play at the 2013 World Chess Cup at the Scandic Hotel in Tromso, Norway.

So needed to win their second match after losing the first of their standard play duel to remain in the tough tournament.

The Russian however, stopped the top Filipino chesser in just 23 moves of their Ruy Lopez Opening, Marshall attack encounter using the white pieces late Thursday.

So also lost to Tomashevsky (ELO 2708) late Wednesday in their first game after 51 moves of Grunfeld Defense, Prins Variation, using the disadvantageous black.

Tomashevsky’s win pushed him to the third round where he will face the winner of the match between top seed GM Levon Aronian (ELO 2813) of Armenia and GM Igor Lysyj (ELO 2656) of Russia who drew their two-game standard play to force a rapid playoff late Friday.

So’s loss completed the annihilation of the three-man Philippine team after GMs Mark Paragua and Oliver Barbosa lost to higher-ranked rivals in the first round of the 128-player, knockout-style event organized by the World Chess Federation.

Barbosa, the 100th seed bowed to 29th seed GM Le Quang Liem (ELO 2712) of Vietnam while Paragua who is seeded 110th, yielded to 28th seed GM Dmitry Jakovenko of Russia (ELO 2724) in their two-game standard play with similar 0-2 scores.

In the first round, So toppled GM Alexander Ipatov of Turkey, 1.5-0.5, to arrange a Round 2 encounter with Tomashevsky who needed a tie breaker against GM Alejandro Ramirez of the United States.