RP's So loses again at Aeroflot Chess Festival

MANILA, Philippines – Grandmaster Wesley So of the Philippines suffered another defeat on Sunday at the Aeroflot Chess Festival 2009 at the Hotel Gamma-Delta in Moscow, Russia. The 15-year-old pride of Cavite bowed to fellow world junior GM Eltaj Safarli of Azerbaijan in their fifth-round match for his second loss in the tournament. So failed to counter against Safarli's aggressive king-side attack, forcing him to resign after 26 moves of a Ruy Lopez game. It was his worst defeat since becoming the world's seventh youngest GM in Dubai two years ago. The loss sent So to a tie for the 28th to 57th places in the 78-player field with just 2.5 points based on two wins, two losses, and a draw. So beat GM Anton Filippov of Uzbekistan in the first round and IM Tatiana Kosintseva of Russia in the third. He halved a point with GM Sergey Grigoriants of Russia in the fourth round. So will meet another grandmaster, Sanan Sjugirov of Russia, in the sixth round. So's misfortune seemed to have rubbed off on compatriot on IM Richard Bitoon, who suffered a defeat to fifth seed Petr Kiriakov (ELO 2539) of Russia. Bitoon landed in a group tied for 34th to 56th places with 2.5 points in Division A-2. In Division B, Haridas Pascua split a point with Kambez Nuri of Switzerland to post a score of 3.5 points after six rounds. Jan Emmanuel Garcia provided the only bright spot in what could be considered as a gloomy day for the Filipino campaigners: He won over FM Robert Aghasaryan of Armenia to hike his points to three, also in Division B. - GMANews.TV