Chess World Cup day 1: Wesley So delivers, Antonio and Laylo defeated

No wash out for Filipino participants in day one of Chess World Cup. Early morning reports/results shows Wesley's win over Guseinov. The delay of retransmission from So-Guseinov live games leaves many with long, suspenseful and disappointing night. The live transmission suddenly interrupted during the opening salvos, and consequently, broke down after black's 11th move of a Kings Indian opening. By midnight, it's very clear that there is no point of waiting for everything to get back to "normal". In fact, I begun to think by that moment that the So-Gudeinov game is actually a pay-per-view match up! Anyway, chessbomb is still in its beta process and set backs like this is quite darn common. Let us allow them to make some improvement overtime. But I say what a situation for bad luck to come when you have the popular Wesley So playing on board, and he actually won! You can replay the game through the 11th move here. With the win against Gadir Guseinov (2625), Wesley So (2641) scores his first victory over an opponent rated above 2600 since Corus C this year. Things looks good for Wesley. I believe that he just needed a draw in the second game to advance to the next round.

As expected, GMs Rogelio Antonio and Darwin Laylo did not fare well with the favorites. Gata is just to much for Antonio's Caro-kann, Antonio's pet opening for decades. In fact, Antonio could write a book about the Caro Kann but it's just the classy Kamsky who this time shows him a thing or two about the opening to add to his arsenal. The game lasted for 42 moves but the game was pretty much over starting move 31 as he is still way way behind in development. You can watch replay of Kamsky-Antonio game with computer analysis here.

GM Darwin Laylo (2707) performed much better against David Navarra (2552) though, who opted for another Scandinavian but the result is still the same. Defeated by a stronger and world class players. Series of weak moves under time pressure simply cost him the game. The Navarra-Laylo game can be replay here, also with computer analysis.