Sanchez Copped Chess Crown in Cannes

Filipino Grandmaster Joseph Sanchez reigned supreme in the just recently concluded 25^th Cannes Chess Festival in Cannes, France.

The 15^th seeded Sanchez essayed a masterful win against Italian GM Sabino Brunello after 33 moves of the English Opening to vault into the top position with 7.0 points just a half-point ahead of his nearest pursuers.  The first ever Grandmaster from Cebu extracted the tough win with the disadvantageous black pieces.

Sanchez led all throughout the tournament from start to finish to better his third placed finish two years ago.

Young chess lion IM Xavier Gazquez of Spain collected 6.5 points to capped his performance with joint second to sixth places finish with GMs Michael Roiz (Israel), Christian Bauer (France), Evgeny Romanov (Russia) and Andrey Sumets of Ukraine.

Sanchez totes an Elo rating of 2513 and currently ranked 8^th in the Philippines and 68^th in Asia.

Wesley So Places Fifth in Aerofloat Open Blitz Chess

Filipino Super Grandmaster Wesley So picked up the cudgels he left as he vaulted and finished to fifth place in the just recently concluded Aerofloat Open Blitz Chess Championships in Moscow, Russia. The tournament served as a qualifying tournament for the World Blitz Championship.

The 17-year old So, who pulled out of the regular event (Group A) due to exhaustion, piled up six wins to wound up tied for fifth place with Russian Grandmaster Nikita Vitiugov with 13 points. The effort of So is remarkable enough since he is just seeded 23^rd in the tournament.

So is one and a half point behind champion GM Shakhiyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan and one point behind GM Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine.

So also trailed Russians GM Dmtry Andreikin and Evgeny Tomashevsky by just half a point.

So’s wins comes at the expense of Piort Korobkov of Russia, GM Vitaly Kunin of Russia, GM Ruben Felgaer of Argentina, GM Vallejo Pons of Spain, GM Ian Nepomniatchi of Russia and GM Le Quang Liem of Vietnam.

So was held to draws by IM Aleksei Pridorozhni and GMs Ponomariov and Alexander Grischuk.

Wesley So Opens Corus Bid Against Naiditsch

Wijk Aan Zee, Netherlands – Super grandmaster Wesley So of the Philippines open its bid in the 2010 Corus International Chess Championships at the de Moriaan Community Center Saturday when he faces top seed GM Arkadij Naiditsch of Germany in the first round.

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