Filipino sensation Wesley So achieved his goal even as Chinese ace Ni Hua captured the 9th Asian Individual Open Chess Championship yesterday at the Subic Bay Exhibition and Convention Center.
Avoiding complications, So and Ni settled for quick draws against fellow grandmasters Zhou Jianchao of China and Abhijeet Gupta of India, respectively, as all four earned berths to the 2011 World Chess Cup slated in Khamty-Mansiysk, Russia late this year.
Top seed Vietnamese GM Le Quang Liem (ELO 2686) clinched the fifth and final slot by downing Chinese GM Ding Liren in their board three, final-round tussle of the $50,000 tournament organized by the National Chess Federation of the Philippines for the third time in four years.
The 26-year-old Ni, conqueror of So in the seventh round, pooled 7.0 points on seven wins and four draws to claim his second title on Philippine soil and pocket the $6,000 (about P266,400) top prize.
So, Gupta, Zhou and Le tallied similar 6.5 points, but the Filipino ace emerged second with the best tiebreak score followed by Gupta, Zhou and Le. They split the prizes for the second to fifth placers and picked up $3,625 apiece.
Ni, skipper of the vaunted Chinese team whose ELO rating reached a peak of 2724 last year, also ruled the 2007 Prospero Pichay Cup in Manila.
Had he drawn with Ni, So would have snatched his first international title at home. So, ranked 64th in the world with his ELO of 2665, topped the 2008 Dubai Open and Group C of the Corus Open last year.
For So, however, advancing to the World Cup for the second straight time was good enough.
“I’m happy to make it to the World Cup again,†said the 16-year-old So, who astounded the chess community when he bested former world championship contenders Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and Gata Kamsky of the United States and reached the round of 16 in the 2009 edition, also held in Khamty-Mansiysk. - PDI
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