Malakhov ends So’s fairy tale run in World Chess Cup

KHANTY-Mansiysk, Russia - Filipino Grandmaster Wesley So's fairy tale-like campaign in the 2009 World Chess Cup finally came to an end Wednesday. So, dubbed by the foreign chess media here as the "biggest sensation in the tournament," lost all his three rapid tiebreak matches to GM Vladimir Malakhov of Russia in their fourth round showdown and bowed out of contention at the Khanty-Mansiysk Center of Arts. The 16-year-old Filipino, whose strong positional games during the prestigious, 128-player competition earned him comparison with former world champion Anatoly Karpov, failed to shake off the older and more-experienced Malakhov in the first two classical games. It was a divergence from his stints at the previous rounds, where he stunned former world championship finalist GM Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and defending champion GM Gata Kamsky of the US both in two games. Slowed down by two hard-fought draws in their classical games, So was forced to battle it out with the 22nd-seeded Malakhov (ELO 2706) in the rapid tiebreak stage. But the Filipino, who was once quoted by foreign journalists here that he prefers to play in tiebreaks, could "not oversee that Malakhov feels completely at home in rapid." The final score: 4-1 for Malakhov. Despite his failure to reach the Last Eight phase, So earned US$30,000 (about P1.46 million) in prize money by making it to the round-of-16, the first-ever Filipino player to do so. Child's play over "Children's time is over. Goodbye, young talents. Your Khanty-Mansiysk fairy tale is over," said the official World Cup website in its Dec. 3 entry. Aside from So, the two other remaining young talents - GM Fabiano Caruana of Italy and Maxim Vachier-Lagrave of France - were also eliminated by their more-experienced rivals. The 17-year-old Caruana, who played against GM Vugar Gashimov of Azerbaijan, could not stand up the extra class performance of his opponent (although he had winning position in the second game of the match) and could not control the situation after his first defeat in the rapid game. Vachier-Lagrave, 19, had a brilliant match against top seed GM Boris Gelfand of Israel, but could not cope with him in the blitz game. Also making it to the quarterfinals were GM Dmityr Jakovenko of Russia, who slammed the door on compatriot GM Alexander Grischuk, 5-3; and GM Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine, who showed the door on GM Etienne Bacrot of France, 3.5-2.5. Already in the quarterfinals were GM Peter Svidler of Russia, who eliminated GM Alexei Shirov of Spain, 1.5-.5; GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan, who ousted GM Viktor Laznicka of the Cezch Republic, 1.5-.5; and GM Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine, who dumped GM Nikita Vitiugov of Russia, 1.5-.5 after their two-game encounters. The quarterfinal games will pit Gelfand against Jakovenko, Gashimov against Ponomariov, Svidler against Malakhov and Mamedyarov against Karjakin. - GMANews.TV