GM So jumps to World's Top 20

MANILA, Philippines -- Grandmaster Wesley So is slowly but surely crawling closer to his goal of breaching the 2750-rating plateau.

Counting his perfect six-of-six effort in last December’s Pan American Games where he led Wesbter U to the title and his first three games in the ongoing Tata Steel Masters in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands, So has gained a whopping 15.3 rating points that sent him skyrocketing into the Top 20 in the world.

Only 20 years old, the second youngest in the elite Top 30 in the world, So now has a rating of 2734.4 rating, which was good for 20th in the world and closer to his set goal of reaching the 2750 mark before the year ends.

“One game at a time,” said So, who took a much-needed one-day rest after arriving in the morning of Saturday’s opening round from a 32-hour flight stright from St. Louis in the United States.

Tired and weary, So showed the form that catapulted him from No. 30 in the world last year to No. 28 this month with a 2719 rating and blasted Hungarian Richard Rapport in the first round before fighting for draws in his next two games, the first against second seed and World No. 3 Hikaru Nakamura of the US and German Arkadij Naiditsch.

So will face Dutch Anish Giri, who is nine months younger than the former, in the fourth round of the Tata Steel, known before as Corus then Hoogovens, hoping to keep his hold of the lead that he currently shares with the latter, Nakamura, top seed Levon Aronian of Armenia, No. 3 Fabiano Caruana of Italy and Pentala Harikrishna of India.

The 11-round, 16-day tournament is the strongest tournament So, a major awardee of the Phl Sportswriters Associaiton Awards Night on Jan. 25 at the Manila Hotel having won five tournaments last year, has participated on being a Category 20 event that boasts of an average rating of 2743.