Aeroflot Open 2010

As of today (February 6), only GM Wesley So and GM Darwin are listed as the country's flag bearers in Aeroflot Open 2010 in Moscow, Russia.

It was earlier reported that GM Joey Antonio would also join this prestigious tournament but his name doesn't reflect yet in the list of participants.

GMs So and Laylo were reported scheduled to fly to Moscow Sunday (February 7). I'm not sure if So and Laylo will go to Russia together. Round 1 starts February 9.

It should be remembered that So joined last year's Aeroflot where he piled up a total of 5.0 points in nine rounds to finish 37th overall out of 78 players. He suffered two losses in the hands of IM Pavel Ponkratov and GM Eltaj Safarli for a +3-2=4 performance.

IM Richard Bitoon also participated in Aeroflot last year in Tournament A2 group, finishing No.30th with 5.0 points after erecting a +4-3=2 performance.

In this year's edition of Aeroflot, he will be in a much tougher field which includes GM Etienne Bacrot (2713), Aeroflot 2009 champ, GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2730), GM Sergey Zhigalko (2668), GM Andrei Volokitin (2692), GM Ilia Smirin (2668), GM Gabriel Sargissian (2680), GM Arkadij Naiditsch (2687), GM Alexander Motylev (2697), and GM Alexander Moisenko (2677), among others.

This year, I expect to see a Wesley So performing better than the Wesley So of last year. Good luck to Darwin and Wesley.

Let's watch again Wesley's games in the 2009 edition of Aeroflot Open:

REQUIRES JAVA