I heard So has a schedule conflict he's trying to resolve.
Why Did Kramnik and So Decline the Grand Chess Tour?
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Kramnik said he didn't want to play all those tournaments, while So already had signed up for other events.
They have other, more important things to attend to.
Apr 27, 2015
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#5
What better events could possibly be on the calendar? $300,000 prize fund not enough? I hope So plays. This would be a great opportunity.
The new Grand Chess Tour, offering a million-dollar guaranteed combined prize fund for a slate of three connected 2015 tournaments, invited all top-ten players from the January 2015 FIDE rating list to participate.
The top-10 list for January 2015:
1 Carlsen, Magnus g NOR
2 Caruana, Fabiano g ITA
3 Grischuk, Alexander g RUS
4 Topalov, Veselin g BUL
5 Anand, Viswanathan g IND
6 Aronian, Levon g ARM
7 Giri, Anish g NED 2784
8 Kramnik, Vladimir g RUS
9 Nakamura, Hikaru g USA
10 So, Wesley g USA
Kramnik and So declined this prestigious invitation. Why? I can understand why Kramnik would, given he has a young family, is a veteran, probably has neough money and fame. But why did So decline? This seems like the ideal opportunity for him, exactly the type of opportunity he was seeking when he "quit" Webster University in October 2014 to become a professional chess player. Another weird move by So. See my related post about the So Consipracy Theory.