So Wins North American Open, Hits New Rating High

It has been a very good and eventful year for Wesley So. He switched his federation to the U.S.A., gained a ton of rating points - no causal link between the two, of course. He started the year with a good result in Wijk aan Zee, won the Capablanca Memorial, came in a strong second in Edmonton (half a point behind Vassily Ivanchuk), won the ACP Golden Classic, won the Millionaire Chess Open, won all his games in the US Chess League this fall and has now finished the year with an easy victory in the North American Open in Las Vegas. So won his first six games to take a full point lead with three rounds to go. He nearly defeated second seed Bu Xiangzhi in round 7, drew quickly with Black in round 8 and finished with another win to take clear first with 8/9, a point ahead of the next four players.

So is currently 10th in the Live Ratings (which will be official in about 24 hours), and will get a good test in a week and a half in Wijk aan Zee. Further, while he has been overshadowed by some of the other super-prodigies like Fabiano Caruana (come home!) and Anish Giri, not to mention the world champion, it's worth remembering that So just turned 21 a couple of months ago and ought to have plenty of improvement left in him. His presence ought to be a real boon to American chess as well, and hopefully he and Hikaru Nakamura can spur each other on to bigger and better things.

Comments

[Jason Childress]

Is this the first time in history that the USA has had two Top-10 players?

[DM: Hmm, not sure. I guess the Nakamura & Kamsky duo never quite made it? In the early 1970s, I know Kavalek was pretty highly rated, so it's possible that at one moment he and Fischer made it. Byrne was a Candidate in 1974, so in one sense he was a top-ten player, but I don't know if his Elo reached that point. Certainly in pre-Elo days Fischer and Reshevsky were both top-ten players, and before that Reshevsky and Fine were.]

[Howard S Sample]

Byrne's peak rating, in 1973, was 2600 I believe, and I'm virtually positive that he never quite made it into the top-10. His excellent result at the Leningrad, 1973 interzonal was, arguably, a flash-in-the-pan, i.e., he was probably a bit lucky in that event.

[DM: Considering that he very nearly qualified for the Candidates again in 1976, I wouldn't consider him a "flash in the pan" at all. The "problem" Byrne had was that he only went pro well into his adulthood. He had a "real" job as a college professor for many years, and then decided in his 40s to give chess his best shot.]

On the other hand, Kavalek's rating in 1973 or 1974 hit a more-than-impressive 2620 I think ! That would almost certainly have been a top-10 standing. So, thusly, he and you-know-who would have been in the world's top-10 in 1973 or 1974.

But on the January 1, 1975 FIDE rating list, Karpov's name was at #1 because the previous #1 player had had his name dropped from the list due to the last two years of being inactive. Granted, he could have "reactivated" his rating by playing a match with Karpov later in 1975, but......well, we all know the rest of the story.

[Eyal]

- Kavalek indeed reached no.10 in the rankings on the 1974 list - so one might say that USA had two top-10 players then (I say "might" because Fischer wasn't active anymore, so his appearance at the top of this list might be considered merely a formality).

- Byrne was close, but the highest he reached was shared 12-14 (with Geller & Stein) in the 1973 list.

Kavalek's rankings can be seen here: http://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Kavalek,%20Lubomir.html ; Byrne's rankings here: http://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Byrne,%20Robert%20E..html