WESLEY SO

KHANTY-Mansiysk, Russia — Grandmaster Wesley So and GM Vladimir Malakhov of Russia fought to another draw and the match moved to a four-game rapid game in which each player plays the black and white pieces twice to break the tie in their World Chess Cup round of 16 match.

The draw followed a similar result in the opener last Monday, sending the match into tiebreakers to determine the player who will advance to meet third seed GM Peter Svidler of Russia in the quarterfinal stage.

The Filipino champion, who drew the respect of the entire chess world when he scalped former world championship contender GM Vassily Ivanchuk of Russia and defending champion GM Gata Kamsaky of the United States, is reportedly oozing with confidence and hardly intimidated by the 22nd-seeded Malakhov (ELO 2706).

"Generally speaking, I am OK if the classical games were drawn. Here the tie break goes. To my mind I play tie breaks better than classical games. But my previous opponents did not give me any chance to come to the tie breaks," So told the official World Cup website in an earlier interview.

If the match remains tied after the rapid tiebreak matches, the two players will go into rapid or blitz matches of shorter time duration. If more ties ensue, the players go into sudden death at a more rapid pace.

The 16-year-old So, who was earlier hailed by the foreign media here as a "perfect positional player who plays in the style of a young Anatoly Karpov," did not give the 29-year-old Malakhov any chance to take the initiative despite handling the white pieces in their second game Tuesday.

A queen exchange on the 22nd move, followed by the white bishops three moves later, brought about a position that offered little prospects so that both players readily agreed to split the point.

Next up for the winner of the So-Malkhov match is the third-seeded Svidler, who booted out last year's World Cup runner-up GM Alexei Shirov of Spain, 1.5-.5.

Svidler, the third highest-rated player here with an ELO of 2754, had earlier defeated Shirov in the first game despite playing black.