By KRISTEL SATUMBAGA
Grandmaster Wesley So, who is now representing the United States, is seeing action in the $1.5 million Champions Chess Tour starting with the opening tournament, Skilling Open, scheduled Nov. 22-30.
The 27-year-old So, a two-time United States champion, was the seventh player invited in the online tournament that is considered the biggest, richest and most prestigious event in online chess.
Also confirming participation were Chinese Ding Liren, Armenian Levon Aronian, Azerbaijan’s Teimour Radjabov, Spaniard David Anton, Russian Sergey Karjakin, and Vietnamese Le Quang Liem.
Nine more players will be invited with reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen also being considered.
So is coming off a string of impressive performances including the US Championship more than a week ago where he blew away the field.
So emphatic was So’s finish that it was considered the third strongest performance behind only the late great former world champion Bobby Fischer.
He recently brushed aside 15-year-old wonder Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan, 18-10, to advance to the quarterfinals of the Speed Chess Championship against the winner between US teammate and world No. 2 Fabiano Caruana and Poland’s Jan-Krzysztof Duda.