So gets $75,000 from Sinquefield Cup

CAVITE-BORN Grandmaster Wesley So tightened his hold of seventh spot in the world rankings by topping the recent 2016 Sinquefield Cup at Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, Missouri.

So wound up with 5.5 points on two wins and seven draws, raising his live Elo rating to 2782.2, just below fellow US team stalwart GM Hikaru Nakamura (2789.2) and way ahead of former world champion Viswanathan Anand (2776.2) of India.

The 22-year-old So won over Bulgarian GM Veselin Topalov and Nakamura and then held world No. 2 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France in the ninth and final round to claim the $75,000 champion’s purse in the elite 10-man tournament.

Norweigian GM Magnus Carlsen remains world No. 1 with his 2857 rating, followed by Vachier-Lagrave (2813), Fabiano Caruana (2808.2) of the US, Vladimir Kramnik (2802) of Russia and Levon Aronian (2795.2) of Armenia.

The fourth edition of the annual Sinquefield Cup is an elite international event, featuring 10 of the strongest chess players in the world. Roy Luarca