Wesley So is a Filipino-American chess grandmaster and is one of the highest ranked chess players in the world. Born on October 9, 1993, in Las Piñas, Philippines, So was a chess prodigy who achieved the grandmaster title at the age of 14 years, 1 month and 28 days, the ninth youngest in history.
In 2008, he won the title of Philippines Chess Championship, making him the youngest person ever to achieve this. He participated in his first U.S. Chess Championship in 2014 and represented the United States for the first time in 2015 at the World Team Chess Championship, winning team gold and individual silver.
In 2016, he won the Grand Chess Tour title (held across several countries), and in 2017, he won the Tata Steel Masters. In the same year, he also won the U.S. Chess Championship. He was part of the gold-medal winning U.S. team at the 42nd Chess Olympiad and later that year, won the inaugural Fischer Random Chess World Championship, beating Magnus Carlsen, the reigning classical World Chess Champion.
He was awarded the Samford Fellowship (most prestigious award in the United States for top young chess players) in July 2013 and the Frank P. Samford Jr. Chess Fellowship in 2014. He also won the Coppa Città di Aosta in 2009 and the 2011 World University Games.