MANILA, Philippines - Wesley So grabbed a pawn on the 22nd move and it slowly it led to his elimination by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France in the fourth round of the World Cup in Baku, Azerbaijian on Tuesday, September 22.
So's pawn grabbing ultimately cost him a piece. Even if he had 3 pawns for it, there was no way for him to capitalize on it as the French grandmaster played the endgame accurately to prevail in 68 moves of an English Opening.
So goes home to the United States, which he has been representing since October 2014, with $25,000 for reaching the fourth round. He has failed to beat Vachier-Lagrave, who is now up 3-0. A consolation is that So ousted Le Quang Liem, the Vietnamese who has a lifetime 2-0 score against him, in the third round.
According to 2700Chess.com, So remains at 12th spot in the world rankings, losing 11.3 points in this tournament. He was ranked seventh in the world last August but lackluster results in the Turkish team championship and a last place finish at the super-strong Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis pulled him down to number 12.
"The window of opportunity is running out. Unless he can find a serious coach who can help him, he will not get to the top," said Paul Truong, one of So's coaches at Webster University at the Chess Philippines Facebook page.
Around a month after So formally broke with the National Chess Federation of the Philippines in October 2014, he dropped out of Webster University to become a professional.
So has no coach to work with, only powerful chess software loaded into his laptops.
The world's best players have coaches to supplement such silicon aid. Whether this is enough is open to debate.
As Dutch grandmaster Anish Giri wrote about So in the recently-published book After Magnus: Who can Dethrone the World Champion?, the Philippine-born So has shown an ability to recover from setbacks. His next event will be the Millionaires Chess tournament two weeks from now in the US. – Rappler.com