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Wesley So’s next target: Aeroflot chess tourney


GM Wesley So is looking forward to his next big tournament – the 2010 Aeroflot Open chess championship on Feb. 9-17 in Moscow, Russia. Hardly disappointed by his fourth place finish in the 72nd Corus tournament in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands last week, the 16-year-old So quietly flew back to the country for a brief rest before preparing for another acid test in his young and storied career.

Wesley So prepares for his next match during the recent Corus chess tournament in The Netherlands.
“It’s a new challenge for me," said So, who is set to leave for the Russian capital via Hong Kong at 4:40 p.m. on Sunday. “It’s like in Corus. Madami ding magagaling at mahuhusay na mga players ang kasali dun sa Aeroflot," added So, who finished in a tie for fourth to fifth places in Group B of the Corus tournament in Wijk aan Zee. With Laylo But unlike in Corus where he was the lone Filipino participant in the category-16 tournament, So will be joined in Aeroflot by fellow GM Darwin Laylo. Both So and Laylo will compete in the centerpiece Category A for players with ELO rating higher than 2549. Laylo, the reigning Asian Zone 3.3 champion, is fresh from a respectable performance in the recent World Chess Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia late last year. The total prize fund in the Aeroflot tournament is 70,000 euro, with the champion getting the lion’s share of 21,000 euro, the runner-up receiving 12,000 euro and the third placer pocketing 7,000 euro. Cash prizes will also be given from the fourth up to the 30th placer. Aside from the cash prizes, the champion will also get outright invitation to play in the prestigious Dortmund round-robin tournament. Last year, So finished in a heavy tie for 17th to 36th places with five points on three wins, four draws and two losses in the nine-round tournament. The Filipino, however, bagged the top junior award by finishing ahead of fellow world junior campaigners GM Eltaj Safarli of Azerbaijan, GM Sanan Sjugirov of Russia and IM Ray Robson of the United States.
Laylo
So finished the 2009 Aeroflot meet one and a half points behind eventual champions GMs Etienne Bacrot of France and Alexander Moiseenko of Ukraine. Bacrot, however, clinched the title on a higher tiebreak score. So’s joint 17th place finish last year surpassed the 21st place performance of GM John Paul Gomez and the 76th place finish of IM Julio Catalino Sadorra in 2008. This year, Bacrot is expected to be back to defend the title. Aside from Bacrot, the other notable players invited in Division A-1 this year are GMs Arkadij Naiditsch of Germany, Bu Xiangzhi of China, Gabriel Sargisian of Armenia, Alexander Onischuk of the United States, Aleksej Aleksandrov of Belarus, Tigran Petrosian and Arman Pashikian of of Armenia; Murtas Kazgaeyev of Kazakhstan, Rauf Mamedov of Uzbekistan, Ilia Smirin and Maxim Rodshtein of Israel, Vadim Milov of Switzerland, and Evgeny Tomashevsky, Alexander Riazantsev, Dimitry Bocharov, Vadim Zvjaginsev and Pavel Smirnov of Russia. - GMANews.TV
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