GMs So and Laylo banner RP flag in World Blitz Championship prelim

GM Wesley So and GM Darwin Laylo displayed their chess blitz skills in the World Blitz Championship-Preliminaries held in Moscow, Russia right after the conclusion of Aeroflot Open 2010 and finished 62nd and 114th in a 156-player field.

GM So scored 9.5 points and while GM Darwin piled up 7.5 points out of possible 18.0 points. GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2730) topped the event with 13.5 points and qualified for the World Blitz Championship to be held in Moscow in November 2010. "It will consist of 20 players (10 participants of Mikhail Tal Memorial 2010, 6 winners of the Qualification Tournament of Feb.18, 2010 and four to six wild cards named by the Organizers)."

Laylo, who suffered the probably worst performance in his chess professional chess career in the Aeroflot Open redeemed himself by splitting the round against world-class GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2741), the tournament's top seed, in Round 1.

Here are the individual performances of So and Laylo in the blitz competition:

GM So's performance round by round:

Rnd	Color	Score	Chg	No	Code	Title	Name	FIDE	Sex	Fed.	Born
1	W	2.0	1.30	103	617822	GM	Sebag, Marie	2510	F.	FRA	1986- -
2	B	2.0	1.39	68	634654	GM	Feller, Sebastien	2579	M.	FRA	1991- -
3	W	1.0	0.47	44	8603537	GM	Zhou, Jianchao	2632	M.	CHN	1988- -
4	B	1.0	0.45	48	2806851	GM	Rodshtein, Maxim	2622	M.	ISR	1989- -
5	W	1.5	0.73	123	4166728	FM	Nakhapetiane, Pogos	2449	M.	RUS	1989- -
6	B	0.5	-0.01	29	4100107	GM	Dreev, Alexey	2650	M.	RUS	1969- -
7	W	0.0	-0.58	58	4132394	GM	Belov, Vladimir	2595	M.	RUS	1984- -
8	B	0.5	-0.09	60	4138716	GM	Bocharov, Dmitry	2594	M.	RUS	1982- -
9	W	1.0	0.41	65	12500739	GM	Ghaem Maghami, Ehsan	2589	M.	IRI	1982- -

GM Laylo's performance round by round:

Rnd	Color	Score	Chg	No	Code	Title	Name	FIDE	Sex	Fed.	Born
1	B	1.0	0.74	1	13401319	GM	Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar	2741	M.	AZE	1985- -
2	W	0.0	-0.27	5	623539	GM	Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime	2730	M.	FRA	1990- -
3	B	0.5	-0.13	118	2806126	IM	Gerzhoy, Leonid	2459	M.	CAN	1987- -
4	W	2.0	1.36	119	927368	IM	Boskovic, Drasko	2454	M.	SRB	1982- -
5	B	1.5	0.95	98	4153251	GM	Panarin, Mikhail	2518	M.	RUS	1983- -
6	W	1.0	0.69	9	4121830	GM	Motylev, Alexander	2697	M.	RUS	1979- -
7	B	0.0	-0.36	21	2905540	GM	Cheparinov, Ivan	2660	M.	BUL	1986- -
8	W	0.5	-0.12	116	14114330	IM	Pavlov, Sergey	2470	M.	UKR	1987- -
9	B	1.0	0.32	135	4103963		Kanter, Eduard	2419	M.	RUS	- -