WESLEY SO DRAWS WITH ARMENIAN GM, KEEPS SHARE OF 4TH

Philippine Daily Inquirer
Feb 15 2010

MANILA, Philippines–Filipino Grandmaster Wesley So went for a win
with the white pieces but had to settle for a draw with Armenian GM
Arman Pashikian in the sixth round of the 2010 Aeroflot Open chess
tournament Sunday at the Hotel Gamma-Delta in Moscow.

The 16-year-old So saw his two-game win run broken, but stayed in the
title hunt with 4.0 points, just half a point behind pacesetters GM
Boris Grachev of Russia and Vietnamese GMs Le Quang Liem and Nguyen
Ngoc Truong Son with three rounds to go.

So, seeded 17th with an ELO rating of 2656, complicated matters when he
gave up a knight in his 30th move for two pawns. Pashikian, however,
forced an exchange of queens in the 36th move to steer the game into
a drawish ending with both players having bishops of the same color.

They halved the point in 52 moves.

Sharing fourth to 14th places with the high school senior of St.

Francis College-Bacoor were defending champion GM Etienne Bacrot of
France, German GM Arkadij Naiditsch, Bulgarian GM Ivan Cheparinov,
Brazilian GM Giovanni Vescovi, Indian GM Krishnan Sasikiran, Ukrainian
GM Anton Korobov and Russian GMs Artyom Timofeev, Boris Savchenko
and Ivan Nepomniachtchi and Pahsikian.

Lodged at 3.5 points were top seed GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, third
seed GM Alexandr Motlyev, former world championship candidate GM Gata
Kamsky and last year’s co-champion GM Alexandr Moiseenko.

In the pivotal seventh round, So will handle black against Timofeev.

But So’s compatriot GM Darwin Laylo continued to struggle. Laylo lost
to GM Yuriy Ajrapetjan of Ukraine, his fifth in six matches. Roy Luarca