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.