FEU-Mandaya tops Dabaw tourney So gets $75,000 from Sinquefield Cup
FAR EASTERN University-Royal Mandaya HotelCMO exacted revenge over elimination-round tormentor CM Farm-Tagum, 96-89, to crown itself as the 31st Kadayawan sa Dabaw Sports Festival 2016 champion held recently at Davao City Sports Center-Almendras gym.
Veteran Raymar Jose teamed up with rookies Jose Allen Trinidad, Wendel Comboy, Ken Holmqvist and Prince Orizu as FEU avenged its 72-81 loss to CM Farm-Tagum and affirmed its top-billing.
The 6-foot-4 Jose topscored with 19 points and was later voted as Most Valuable Player. Trinidad added 18 points while Comboy contributed 15. CAVITE-BORN Grandmaster Wesley So tightened his hold of seventh spot in the world rankings by topping the recent 2016 Sinquefield Cup at Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, Missouri.
So wound up with 5.5 points on two wins and seven draws, raising his live Elo rating to 2782.2, just below fellow US team stalwart GM Hikaru Nakamura (2789.2) and way ahead of former world champion Viswanathan Anand (2776.2) of India.
The 22-year-old So won over Bulgarian GM Veselin Topalov and Nakamura and then held world No. 2 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France in the ninth and final round to claim the $75,000 champion’s purse in the elite 10-man tournament.
Norweigian GM Magnus Carlsen remains world No. 1 with his 2857 rating, followed by Vachier-Lagrave (2813), Fabiano Caruana (2808.2) of the US, Vladimir Kramnik (2802) of Russia and Levon Aronian (2795.2) of Armenia. The fourth edition of the annual Sinquefield Cup is an elite international event, featuring 10 of the strongest chess players in the world.