So passes acid test, holds Italian to draw

MANILA, Philippines – Filipino Grandmaster Wesley So passed the biggest test of his meteoric chess career as he finished sharing fourth with two others by engaging Italian Fabiano Caruna to an 11th and final round draw in the Tata Chess Steel Masters in the Netherlands Sunday night.

Playing in the strongest tournament of his life, So, 20, ended up with six points on three victories and six draws against two losses in 11 games to end up in a logjam for No. 4 along with Caruana, the third seed and World No. 6, and Cuban No. 6 Leinier Dominguez Perez.

The Webster U standout also wound up with the fourth highest tournament performance rating in the Category 20 (average rating of 2743) event with 2781, next to eventual champion Levon Aronian of Armenia with 2911, Dutch Anish Giri with 2809 and Russian Sergey Karjakin with 2806.

The top-seeded Aronian, who is the second highest rated player in the world next to Danish Magnus Carlsen, ran away with the title with eight points that was only tarnished with a shock 38-move defeat to Dutch Loek Van Wely in their Dutch encounter.

Giri and Karjakin wound up at joint second with 6.5 points apiece.

Counting his perfect six-of-six performance in last month's Pan American Games in Lubbock, Texas, where he steered Webster U to the title, So is expected to move from No. 28 to No. 19 by the end of the month as his rating zoomed from 2719 to 2737.7.

So's current world standing is the highest by any Filipino since Asia's first Grandmaster and many-time Olympiad veteran Eugene Torre made it as far as the quarterfinals of the Candidates Matches in 1983.

So's final round showdown with Caruana didn't end up a walk in the park as he needed to sacrifice a rook for a knight to come out with a pair of bishops. He used these to block the dangerous passed pawn on the a-file by the latter and settled for the draw in 38 moves.

"Wesley's rise to the top is good not just for Philippine chess but the Phl sports in general," Torre told The STAR. "What's scary about it is that Wesley is only 20 years old and still moving up the ladder."