Wesley trips Chinese GM, gains in WC

MANILA, Philippines - Grandmaster Wesley So beat GM Ding Liren’s King’s Indian Defense in the first of two-game tiebreakers last night then held his Chinese rival to a draw in the second to complete a 2.5-1.5 victory and advance to the second round of the World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia last night.

Forced to play a two-game tiebreaker after their standard matches ended in a pair of draws, the 64th ranked So, 17, went for the win as he leaned on a queenside passed pawn to gain the positional advantage en route to victory.

The 65th-seeded Ding was forced to resign on the 46th after giving up a knight to stop the latter’s a-pawn on the seventh rank from being promoted.

He then forced a 40-move standoff in their Nimzo-Indian encounter in the second tiebreak to clinch the win. So still had 16 minutes left in his time as against Ding’s five.

However, GM Mark Paragua fell by the wayside as he lost to Englishman GM Michael Adams, 0.5-1.5, in their own side of the duel.

But So, out to improve his quarterfinal match finish here two years ago, will have top seed GM Sergei Karjakin of Russia as his next opponent. Karjakin made shortwork of Tunisia’s IM Mejdi Kaabi with a 2-0 win.

Karjakin is the highest-rated player in the 128-player field with a FIDE rating of 2788, barely ahead of the 2768 rating of second seed GM Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and the 2741 of eighth pick Gata Kamsky of the United States.

Ivanchuk and Kamsky were two of the four victims of So when he made it as far as the quarterfinals two years ago before losing to another Russian GM Vladimir Malakhov.

Each round except for the final consists of two games with time control of one hour and 30 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes until the end of the game with additional 30-second increment for every move.