GM Wesley So 3rd Place at World Open Chess Championships

FILIPINO Grandmaster Wesley So settled for third overall in the 40th Annual World Open Chess Championship took place at the Sheraton City Center Hotel in Philadelphia last July 2 to 8.

The Bacoor, Cavite-based So tallied 6.5 points on account of 4 wins, 5 draws in nine outings, but took third place after a superior tie break over GMs Giorgi Kacheishvili of Georgia, Aleksander Lenderman, Alexander Evdokimov, Ray Robson, Yuri Shulman, and Mark Tyler Arnold of the USA.

So failed to bring home the championship trophy after settling a draw against Shulman in the final round.

GM Ivan Sokolov of the Netherlands defeated fellow seven-pointers GM Alexander Shabalov of the USA in the tie break match en route to the coveted chess title.

Earlier, So settled for an opening draw against FM Michael Bodek then beat Benjamin W Krause of the USA in the following round.

He split the point with GM Tsegmed Batchuluun of Mongolia in the third and GM Vladimir Romanenko of Belarus in the fourth round.

He won three consecutive wins against GM Alonso Zapata of Colombia, GM Deepan Chakkravarthy of India and GM Atanas Ivan Kolev of Belarus before settling a draw in the last two round against Shabalov and GM Shulman.

So is supported by National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) President/ Chairman Prospero "Butch" Pichay Jr. and Secretary-General Abraham ?Bambol? Tolentino Jr.-Marlon Bernardino-