Round 1 Asian Individual Chess Championship: Sweet 16 for 16 year old So

IM Nguyen Thanh Anh of Vietnam might have been a bit of a "star-struck" facing in round one a young chess celebrity in the region in the name of Wesley So resulting in a serious mistake that caused him the match in just 16 moves. The win, I believe, was the shortest game for Wesley So in a official tournament since he became a grandmaster three years ago. The biggest upset of the day saw untitled Chinese player and 50th seed Lou Yiping (2429) defeated 5th seed Pentala Harikrishna (2660) of India. Incidents like this, seeing an untitled and unknown Chinese player beating a top caliber player is no longer a surprise.

Defending champ, Surya Ganguly of India opted to skip from participating and defending his crown as he is currently helping his countryman and world champion Vishwanthan Anand in his title defense against Topalov in Sofia which will finally start today, April 22.


For Round 1 results, visit chess-results.com
Round 2 pairings
Starting rank list