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ČEZ Chess Trophy 2015
GM Wesley So (2778)
USA, where he also lives. He has represented at the Chess Olympiads since he was 12, he became a grandmaster at the age of 14 and entered the chess top ten when he was 20. He is currently the No. 7 in the world ranking (ELO 2778).
In 2008, he won at the largely attended tournament in Dubai and a year later he won Group C at the prestigious tournament at Wijk aan Zee. In the same year he was also successful at the Chess World Cup, making it to the fourth round. Since then, So has won a couple of slightly simpler tournaments and became the Philippine Champion in 2011.
One of his most significant achievements is the success at Reykjavik Open in 2013, where he failed to become a champion only due to a worse tie-break score, and especially the last year’s triumph at the Capablanca Memorial in Havana and the Millionaire Chess Tournament in Las Vegas, and also the super tournament at Wijk aan Zee this year, where he shared the second place.
Wesley So studied at Webster University in the USA but left the university this year in order to completely and professionally devote himself to chess.
The full overview of So’s tournament result and videos of some of his interesting chess games can be found on his website.
GM David Navara (2751)
Grandmaster David Navara (30) has been the best Czech chess player for many years. He regularly represents at Chess Olympiads and international tournaments, during the annual Prague Chess Society festivals he already played against Anatoly Karpov, Viktor Korchnoi, Vladimir Kramnik, Nigel Short, Boris Gelfand, Alexei Shirov, Vassily Ivanchuk, Judit Polgár, Sergei Movsesian, Peter Svidler, Hou Yifan, and Hikaru Nakamura.
Navara‘s best result in the world ranking was the 13th place (from 1 January till 30 June 2007), he is currently 14th (ELO 2751).
In January 2007, he attended his first super tournament (Corus 2007 at Wijk aan Zee), where he managed to draw with black pieces with the then world champion Vladimir Kramnik, as well as with the then best ranked world player and current world champion Vishy Anand, and with the then No. 1 Veselin Topalov. He also defeated the current No. 1 Manus Carlsen. In summer 2007 he won the prestigious rapid chess tournament in the German city of Maize, which saw the competition of 762 chess players, including the world top ten grandmasters.
During the European Cup in Budva, Navara shared 1st to 11th place, qualifying for the World Cup.
In 2011, he was very successful at the World Cup, where he made it to the eight best players. The super tournament at Wijk aan Zee in January 2012 was less successful for Navara, yet he managed to win with black pieces over the tournament champion and the world No. 2 Levon Aronian.
He won the European Blitz Chess Championship 2014 and came second at the European Individual Chess Championship this year.
After finishing studies at a grammar-school, he was accepted to four different universities. He chose to study Logic at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, graduating in 2010. He is single and lives at home with his parents. His hobby is sociology and he likes to watch historical documents on TV. Sport, apart from chess (if chess is a sport), is of no interest to him.
He writes a very interesting blog, which has thousands of followers.
The ČEZ CHESS TROPHY 2015 festival will feature the launch of Navara’s book “Můj šachový svět“ (My chess world).