An excerpt from an interview with Wesley So, who just turned 30: "I learned chess when I was seven or eight. A lot of people played on every corner of the neighborhood I lived in. You see, chess is very popular in the Philippines, because in third-world countries, chess is the poor man’s game. Rich people play tennis, polo, and golf, while poor people play chess because you don’t need anything-no uniform, no field or courts. Children don’t need money to play chess. People make the pieces out of bottle caps, or whatever materials they have. So every week I would cut out newspaper clippings about famous grandmaster games, study them, and then I’d go from street to street with a makeshift board, challenging anyone who knew how to play. People get very creative. While a chess book typically costs around 1500 pesos, which is a full two-day salary for many Filipinos, it’s not uncommon for one person to buy the book, Xerox every page, and then sell the photocopied versions for a few pesos a copy." Wesley So
He is the Ronaldo of the Chess. Master of Calculated moves and multiple strategies. We are still seeing the half of his potential, he still has the chance to be on top.
He has one of the best calculation power in the history of chess, but he lost much of his play aggressiveness when he moved to the US. His games tend to be drawish nowadays. Maybe he needs bigger reasons to win, like a country to fight for.
His experience with intuition only chess at an early age actually helped him IMO to win the very first Fischerandom World Championship against Magnus Carlsen who did poorly against him on that particular format.
