The SPICE Cup Invitational 2012

The SPICE Cup Invitational is happening in St. Louis, Missouri from October 16 to 20, 2012. It is expected to be a Category 18 tournament, just four notches below the highest FIDE tournament category.

The participants for this event (Invitational category) are six members of the Top 100 FIDE Ratings List (with their respective September 2012 ELO ratings and countries):

• [player]Maxime Vachier-Lagrave[/player], 2697, [country]France[/country];


• [player]Ding Liren[/player], 2694, [country]China[/country];


• [player]Le Quang Liem[/player], 2693, [country]Vietnam[/country];


• [player]Csaba Balogh[/player], 2668, [country]Hungary[/country];


• [player]Wesley So[/player], 2667, [country]Philippines[/country];


• [player]Georg Meier[/player], 2656, [country]Germany[/country].

We at ChessHive, being fans of [player]Wesley So[/player] and [country]Philippines[/country] chess, will certainly bring the updates as they unfold. So stay tuned!

Round 9 Results for Team Philippines in Istanbul 2012

It was a devastating defeat for Team Philippines against China in Round 9 of Istanbul 2012 World Chess Olympiad. The score: 3.5 vs. 1.5, in favor of China. Only Wesley So on Board 1 managed to avoid a loss -- he drew his game against another 2700+ ELO rated player Wang Hao.

Bo.	Philippines	Score	China
1	Wesley So	1/2-1/2	Hao Wang
2	Oliver Barbosa	0-1	Liren Ding
3	Eugene Torre	0-1	Xiangzhi Bu
4	Mark Paragua	0-1	Chao Li

These were the first losses for Eugene Torre and Mark Paragua in this tournament. So far, only Wesley So has no loss, with 2 wins and 7 draws.

There are only 2 rounds left, so we can only wish more luck to our team Philippines!

You can replay the games from these pages:

• Wesley So vs. Hao Wang


• Liren Ding vs. Oliver Barbosa


• Eugene Torre vs. Xiangzhi Bu


• Chao Li vs. Mark Paragua

After this heartbreaking loss to China, Philippines is ranked No. 12 going into the 10th round, which they will be up against Vietnam.

Vietnam is ranked No. 16 after 9 rounds and was seeded 27th at the start of the tourney. Check out the profile of Team Vietnam.