So continued his meteoric rise to ELO 2700 stardom by hurdling GM Wouter Spoelman of the Netherlands for his fourth straight win and the solo lead after the eighth round of the 73rd Tata Steel-Corus Group B chess championship at the de Morianne Community Center here Sunday.

Looking almost unstoppable since the rest day before the start of the fifth round, the 17-year-old So handled the black pieces in a Nimzo-Indian with clockwork precision and easily dispatched the lower-rated Dutch player after only 34 moves.

The Filipino champion from Bacoor, Cavite, who is hoping to surpass the ELO 2700 rating and barge into the elite list of the world’s Top 50 players his year, gamely sparred with Spoelman in the early goings before marshalling his major pieces into one solid fighting unit headed for a successful mission.

When the smoke of battle cleared, the 21-year-old Spoelman had to resign or give up one or even two bishops to prevent the advance of So’s two connected queening pawns on the c and d files.

So, who started to go to the gym to improve his physical condition for about a month now, said Spoelman’s 26. Qxd3 was a blunder since Kg2 would have given him decent chances.

“I was really hoping to win the best game prize for this round, especially after winning four in a row,” said So, who again wore his favorite blue long-sleeves polo which is said to bring him good luck in major international tournaments.

(The honor, however, went to top seed GM Radek Wojtaszek of Poland, who defeated GM Le Quang Liem of Vietnam in 61 moves of the Slav).

The four-game winning streak by So was enough to put him in the solo lead with an eight-round total of six points on four wins and four draws before the tournament takes the second of three rest days on Monday.

Half a point behind So with 5.5 points is GM Luke McShane of England, who dropped out of the lead following a draw with GM Gabriel Sargissian of Armenia, while a full point behind with five points are GM Zahar Efimenko of Ukraine, Sargissian and Wojtaszek.

Efimenko, the last player to draw with So in the fourth round, fell in a huge upset to GM Vlad Tkachiev of France.

On Tuesday, So will resume his campaign when he plays white against GM Li Chao of China.

“Tomorrow is a rest day. I am going to the cultural tour from 10 to 18:00. It should be nice way to forget about chess,” twitted So in his official Barangay Wesley fan club.

Based on initial calculations by Barangay Wesley officials, So’s performance rating is now ELO 2691 or only nine points short of the ELO 2700 rating.

After Li, So’s remaining opponents are Tkachiev, GM Friso Nijboer of Netherlands, McShane and Wojtaszek.

National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) president/chairman Prospero “Butch” Pichay said So is expected to surpass the ELO 2700 rating either in Corus or the Aeroflot Open in Moscow scheduled early next month.

“There’s really no way to go but up for Wesley,” said Pichay.

So’s four-game winning streak mirrored his performance in 2009 where he also had a similar run from the ninth to 12th round on the way to the Group C title with a score of 9.5 points on seven wins, five draws and only one loss.

Last year, So had a two-game winning streak when he moved up to Group B and finished in a tie for fourth to fifth places with GM Erwin l’Ami of Netherland with 7.5 points on three wins, nine draws and only one loss to GM Anish Giri of Netherlands.

In the higher Group A, world champion Viswanathan Anand of India agreed to a draw with GM Levon Aronian of Armenia to gain a share of the lead with erstwhile solo leader GM Hikaru Nakamura of the United States with 5.5 points.

Anand and Aronian halved the point in 3 4moves of the Marshall Gambit.

Anand’s climb to the top was helped by No. 1 GM Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who defeated Nakamura in a superbly-handled attack from a sharp Sicilian line.

Carlsen moved into a shared third place, half a point behind Anand and Nakamura and alongside Aronian and GM Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, who outplayed GM Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine in only 19 moves with black.

Ed Andaya, Journal Online