JUST IN: It’s a tie for the first day of the finals matches between Filipino-American Grandmaster Wesley So and the current world’s top chess player, Magnus Carlsen of Norway, at the Skilling Open.
The Cavite-born So, representing the United States, is battling Carlsen for the Skilling Open title in two days of finals matches at the first stop of the 2020-21 Champions Chess Tour which started on November 22, 2020, and is set to wrap up on November 30.
So and Carlsen ended their first day of final matches in a tie in the online chess game streamed live on November 29 (U.S. time, November 30 Philippine time).
Carlsen took the first and 3rd games while So won the 2nd and 4th matches, ending the day with a 2:2 scorecard.
The two super grandmasters will play their second match on November 30 (U.S. time, December 1 Philippine time). In case of another tie, the two will play a tiebreaker game to decide the winner of the $30,000 prize pot of the Skilling Open.
The Skilling Open had 16 players in the preliminaries which were trimmed down to 8 in the quarterfinals, and 4 in the semifinals. So won his finals spot after edging out his fellow U.S. grandmaster, Hikaru Nakamura, in the semifinal matches on November 28, 2020 (U.S. Time).
Wesley So aims to again wrest the chess champion title against Carlsen after winning against the Norwegian in front of the latter’s home crowd for the first-ever Fischer Random Chess Championship in November 2019.
So is coming off strong in the online chess matches this season, reclaiming the United States Chess Championship title in October and co-sharing the world title of the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz with Magnus Carlsen in September.
At the chess24 post-game interview, Wesley So humbly acknowledged that facing Carlsen is an honor itself.
“It’s always a great honor to meet Magnus in the match especially in the finals… I hope to be able to put up a good, worthy fight and play interesting games,” said So.
CATCH the Skilling Open live games here and SEND CONGRATULATIONS AND WELL WISHES in the comments below to Wesley So for playing in the finals at the Skilling Open vs. the world’s top GM Magnus Carlsen!
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