GRANDMASTER Wesley So, who is expected vault to no. 7 in the world rankings, finished tied for second place after he stopped Dutch GM Loek Van Wely in the final round of the super-strong 77th Tata Steel Masters in Wijk an Zee Sunday night.
After 13 rounds, So tallied 8.5 points on five wins and seven draws against a lone loss. He ended his campaign tied in a four-way logjam at No. 2 with French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Dutch GM Anish Giri and Chinese GM Ding Liren.
Norwegian GM Magnus Carlsen, the reigning world champion, topped the Category 20 tournament, considered as the Wimbledon of chess.
Two of his wins were upsets posted on Armenian GM Levon Aronian, who was last year’s winner, and Ukrainian GM Vassily Ivanchuk, a former World Challenger.
Two of his draws were with Carlsen and World no. 2 GM Fabiano Caruana of Italy.
So earned 16.8 rating points from Tata.
By adding the 8.7 points he gained from topping the North American Open in Las Vegas late last year, So is expected to vault from No. 10 to No. 7 in next week’s FIDE ratings’ list with a new norm of 2787.5.
The Cavite-born former Webster University standout, now representing the United States, will also overtake GM Hiraku Nakamura as the highest-rated woodpusher from the US.