What's Next for Wesley So?

Philippines' #1 chess player Wesley So crushed the competition in the recent Annual Capablanca Memorial Tournament last week. Immdediately right after his victory, the 20-year-old Caviteño was shrouded with praises from thousands of fellow Filipino chess fans all over the world.

So's remarkable triumph in Havana boosted Philippine chess morale; with a lot of young aspiring players worshipping him, making him their idol...

Which really isn't that bad if we ain't talking about religion :)

Just after that monumental but very quick draw So made with Hungarian GM(Grand-Master) Zoltan Almasi, it was clear who would bring home the filthy bacon.

It is fantastically fortunate that the extremely hard work of Wesley So and his US-based coach, GM Susan Polgar has beard fruit, and that such training had not been in vain:)

Perhaps one of the key factors that lead to Wesley's triumph in Havana was his 8th round win against Cuban Grandmaster Leinier Dominguez. Their imbalanced game seemed OK for both sides(black and white), only until Dominguez first faltered. NOTE: at that time, a lot of Hispanic chess blogs were tackling about So especially when he faced Dominguez and the Spanish GM Vallejo Pons. I guess they were intrigued by So's "DOUBLE DEAD" performance when he beat both Dominguez and Pons! Only GM Lazaro Batista Bruzon(who is not related in any way to Batista the WWE wrestler by the way), was able to hold So flawlessly in two games. 

So the million dollar question right now is...

What's next for So?

Lazaro Batista Bruzon who drew with Wesley So
in both of their games took 2nd place in the
tournament...

By now, So is currently rated #15 in the FIDE live ratings, which means that So might get even more elite tournament invites. While this is obviously good for the Filipino #1, this also means that the challenges will be tougher. One big challenge for So that I could easily  pinpoint is his arch-nemesis, GM Anish Giri:). It is very well-known that So has a recognizably bad performance against the Dutch-Bangladeshi hybrid which I will not dicuss because I've got a feeling that the majority of Filipino chess fans will crucify me for even mentioning the name Giri:)

Anyways...

A lot of Filipino chess players from the homeland are prasing So right now and are making noise that Wesley So should be given 100% support its national government. And hopefully, So will get the support he needs which will fuel his passion even more to climb to the top of the chess elite.

Anish Giri