Tight race at Pichay Cup

Pichay chess: Paragua, Bitoon in logjam at second
By Roy Luarca
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:28:00 09/17/2008

MANILA, Philippines—Grandmaster Mark Paragua carried the fight for the Filipinos on Monday in the fourth Prospero Pichay Cup international chess championship at the Duty Free Fiesta Mall in Parañaque City on Monday.

The 24-year-old Paragua trounced Nguyen Van Huy of Vietnam in the third round and drew with second seed GM Zhang Zhong of Singapore in the fourth to share second place with nine others, including countrymen International Master Richard Bitoon and GM Jayson Gonzales.

Paragua, the first Filipino to break the 2600 ELO, raised his total to 3.0 points and stay within striking distance of pacesetters GM Murtas Kazhgaleyev of Kazakhstan and GM Li Shilong of China.

Bitoon subdued GM Susanto Megaranto of Indonesia in the third round but saw his three-game win-streak broken by the top-seeded Kazhgaleyev of Kazakhstan in the fourth to remain at 3.0 points.

Gonzales drew his matches against countryman IM Ronald Bancod and Chinese Wan Yunguo, respectively.

Also with 3.0 points in the nine-round tournament are Zhang and fellow GMs Saidali Iuldachev of Uzbekistan, Mikheil Mchedlishvili of Georgia, Wen Yang of China, Ehsan Ghaemmaghami of Iran, Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan and Konstantin Shanava of Georgia.

Kazhgaleyev, the highest-rated player in the $30,000 event, halved the point with Iuldachev in the third round before beating Bitoon.

Li drew with Zhang and then stunned highly rated GM Wesley So, to boost his title bid. So, who earned his GM title in last year’s edition of this event, got stuck at 2.5 points.

The high school junior of St. Francis College-Cavite, who will man top board for the five-man RP team in the Chess Olympiad in November, was bunched with Bancod, IM John Paul Gomez, Haridas Pascua, Kim Steven Yap, Noel de la Cruz and GM Darwin Laylo.

Source: http://sports.inquirer.net