WCC: 3rd ROUND KNOCK OUT

Wesley So scalped his second Super GM and knocked Kamsky out of the tournament

www.ugra-chess.ru

The World Cup 2009 is experiencing an irreplaceable loss – the young Wesley So from the Philippines made a draw in the second game of Round 2 and knocked out the last World Cup winner, Gata Kamsky. “Everything was decided in the first game. At one point I was hoping that I could win against this player with my experience, - said Gata after the match. – But sadly, my opponent was not that easy to beat, as I was expecting.”

It is obvious: a new fantastic “gold nugget” has been found in Khanty Mansiysk now. Most probably in the nearest future, he will aspire for a place among the chess elite. And this is clear: no one from the high-class favourites can defeat him here. “The fact that Wesley So was born and grew up in a non-chess country, the Philippines , speaks about his fantastic talent,” – says the commentator of the Cup GM Sergey Shipov. To make the picture clear, we should also mention that he is practically self-educated and very enthusiastic. He has no coach and no financial support from the Government.

Judit Polgar played an excellent game against the rating favourite of the World Cup, Boris Gelfand. “The chess program was trying to find some defense for black but the solutions it offered, were too hard to realize for a human being,” – says Shipov. “Gelfand made one main mistake: he positioned pieces far from the king. He forgot how dangerous Judit could be in her attacks”. Bravo, Judit! To recover a from a loss in the first game against the tough Israeli player is a big feat.

The Ukrainian/Russian Sergey Karjakin and the Ukrainian Alexander Areschenko also recovered from a first game loss to equalize their match scores against David Navara from the Czech Republic and Dmitry Jakovenko of Russia, respectively.

Alexey Shirov managed to stop the marvelous series of 58 games without a loss, of the Russian Chess Champion Evgeny Tomashevsky. “The analysis of my loss of this game could make it clear: I should not play in the Cup,” – ironically mentioned Evgeny. “It could happen to anyone. It is a pity that my story stopped such ingloriously”.

Another series have been stopped at the Cup – Shakhriyar Mamedyarov made his first draw after five wins. Still it did not affect his qualification to the next Round.