So gains highest Pinoy Elo ever, now world’s No. 76
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:07:00 01/02/2010
Ukraine and Gata Kamsky of the United States, So earned 16 points to boost his old Elo of 2640 in November.
The Elo 2656—the highest-ever achieved by a Filipino player in history—lifted the world rating of the high school student of St. Francis College to No. 76 in a tie with GM Boris Avrukh of Israel.
So also moved up to No. 6 among the world’s top junior players, two notches higher than his previous position in the September quarterly rating of Fide.
The Filipino trails only junior GMs Magnus Carlssen (Elo 2810) of Norway, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2730) of France, Sergey Karjakin (2720) of Russia, Fabiano Caruana (2675) of Italy and Ian Nepomniactchi (2658 ) of Russia.
The multi-awarded campaigner from Bacoor, Cavite, also moved up to No. 8 overall in Asia and retained No. 1 in the world under-16 category.
More importantly, So’s dramatic rise also enabled the Philippines to move up to No. 29 among chess-playing nation in the world—up by five notches from 34th in the previous quarterly list.
“I’m very happy for my achievements in the previous year. I hope 2010 will be just as good to me,” said So, who is scheduled to leave for Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands on Jan. 13 to compete in Group B in the Corus (formerly Hoogovens) tournament.
National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) president and chair Prospero “Butch” Pichay lauded So for his newest achievement, saying his success a welcome gift to the country and the Filipino people for the new year.
Here is the full article.
With good training, So can be as good as Magnus.
“World’s number 76”
~ It should be “world’s number 75” remember Ivanchuk quit chess after losing to So.