By Rey Joble

WESLEY So, the country?s youngest grandmaster, is trying to achieve yet another milestone in his young career.

The 15-year-old chesser from Cavite will leave for Moscow on Feb. 15, along with three other Filipino campaigners, to compete in the biggest Swiss System chess event in the world?the Aeroflot Open.

So will be joined by international master Richard Bitoon of the Philippine Navy, Jan Emmanuel Garcia and Haridas Pascua.

The young chess wizard is coming off a victory in the 71st Corus Chess tournament in the Netherlands.

While So breezed past his counterparts in the Corus event, he is expected to have a tough grind this time in his bid to improve his ELO rating competing in the A1 division, which consists of the best players in the world with an ELO of 2549 and above.

Last year, Ian Nepomniatchi of Russia topped the A1 class by scoring seven points in nine rounds.

Newly minted grandmaster John Paul Gomez of the Philippines also participated here last year, scoring 5.5 points in the A2 class to wind up in 15th to 27th places.