Beating Wesley So is extremely hard to do.
So bested Alexander Onischuk in their first rapid playoff then forged a draw by perpetual check in the second to add the 2017 US chess championship to his growing title rack in St. Louis, Missouri, on Monday.
The top-seeded So and sixth-ranked Onischuk both wound up with 7.0 points after 11 rounds of the 2017 US Championships, necessitating the two-game, 25-minute battle for the $50,000 top purse.
Living up to hype, So chalked three wins and eight draws to extend his unbeaten streak to 67 games in standard chess and wrest the crown from second seed Fabiano Caruana, who shared third to fifth spots with four-time US champion Hiraku Nakamura and 10th round co-leader Akobian Varuzhan.
So has been invincible since last July, topping the Sinquefield Cup, bagging the board 3 gold medal in the Baku Olympiad, ruling the London Classic and winning the super-strong Tata Steel Championship.
Though the Cavite-born So’s live Elo rating slipped to 2815.4, he kept second spot in the world behind reigning titlist Magnus Carlsen (2836) of Norway.
The 23-year-old So, who moved to the US on a college chess scholarship in 2012, will next play in the (Vugar) Gashimov Memorial set April 20 to May 1 in Shamkir, Azerbaijan. —ROY LUARCA