14 year old Filipino World Chess GrandMaster

I walked past a group of people, while I was walking along Zamora St., encircling around a table with a chessboard on top of it. People looking at the chessboard were all quiet and seemed to be in deep concentration. I couldn’t help but be curious, so I decided to go back and look at what they were looking at. I learned a little later that they were trying to analyze how to make a mate in just one move and such move made Wesley So win in the 2008 Dubai Open held in the United Arab Emirates. Who is Wesley So, I thought.

 

Wesley So is a Filipino who was born on October 9, 1993. He is a chess prodigy who is currently the youngest World Chess Grandmaster. He is the 7th youngest grandmaster in chess history. He achieved the Grandmaster title in December 2007 at the age of 14 years, 1 month and 28 days during the 3rd Pichay Cup International Open in Parañaque City, Philippines.

 

According to www.chessgame.com, Wesley So nailed his first GM result in the Offene Internationale Bayerische Schaha Meisterschaft in Bad Wiessee, Germany in November 2006 and his second GM norm in the World Juniors Under-20 Chess Championship in Yerevan, Armenia in September 2007.

GM So has also won the World Under-16 Team Championship Board 1 gold medal with a phenomenal score of 9.5/10. In his home country, he holds the record of having been the youngest member of the national men’s team to the Chess Olympiad (2006 – Turin, Italy) at the age of 12 as well as the country’s youngest National Open Chess Champion and its youngest National Junior Open Chess Champion.

In his young but distinguished career, Wesley has competed in World Youth Championships in 2003, 2004 and 2005, finishing equal first in his age group in Belfort in 2005 alongside Srinath Narayanan, Sanan Sjugirov, and Samvel Ter Sahakyan. His other achievements include two Gold Medals in the 6th Asean Age-Group Chess Championship, Vung Tau, in Vietnam; three Gold Medals in 7th Asean Age-Group Chess Championship, Pattaya, in Thailand and competing in the 37th Chess Olympiad in Turin in 2006.

So won the Dubai Open (2008) in the United Arab Emirates, besting over an international field that included 23 other grandmasters.

The world record of Wesley is indeed astonishingly admirable. We are very proud to our kababayan.