Filipino Grandmaster (GM) Wesley So made it to the second round of the prestigious 2013 World Chess Cup being held at the Scandic Hotel in Tromso, Norway. The 19-year-old So scored a 1.5-0.5 win over reigning world junior champion GM Alexander Ipatov of Turkey in their two-game first- round meeting. So drew with the 20-year-old Ipatov after 59 moves of Grun- feld Defense/Exchange Variation in Game 2. The Filipino master defeated the Turkish bet in Game 1 via 45 moves of the Staunton Variation/Petroff Skirmish. In the second round, So will be facing the winner between 32nd seed GM Evgeny Tomashevsky of Russia and No. 97 American GM Alejandro Ramirez. Fellow Filipino GMs Oliver Bar- bosa and Mark Paragua, however, bowed out of contention after losing their respective first-round matches.
Barbosa succumbed to No. 29 GM Le Quang Liem of Vietnam, 0-2, while Paragua lost to No. 28 GM Dmitry Jakovenko of Russia, 0-2, in the tournament, which employs a two-game per round, knockout system format.
Meanwhile, GM John Paul Go- mez dropped to third spot after posting contrasting results in the fourth and fifth rounds of the 1 0th IGB Dato Arthur Tan International Open Chess Championship 2013 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Gomez was beaten by GM Xiu Deshun of China in the fourth round but bounced back with a victory against untitled Yoseph Theolifus Taher of Indonesia in the fifth round.Gomez is in third with four points along with top seed GMs Ma Qun, Wang Rui and Lu Shanglei of China, GM Alexander Fominyh of Russia, In- ternational Master (IM) Max Illing- worth of Australia and IM Nguyen Doc Hoa of Vietnam.(E. Noguera, ms)