PH Int’l chess under way in Subic

Foreign Grandmasters are favored to lord it over their local counterparts in  the Philippine International Chess Championships which starts today at Subic Bay Peninsular Hotel in Olongapo City, Zambales.

China’s Wang Hao leads the higher-rated invaders with an Elo of 2678, followed by Russians Anton Demchenko (2629), and Boris Savchenko (2613), Georgians Mikheil Mchedlishvili (2611) and Levan Pantsulaia (2607), Belarusian Kovalev Vladislav (2603), Georgian Merab Gagunashvili (2588), Belarusian Kirill Stupak (2562), Armenian Tigran Kotanjyan (2473) and  Indian Sriram Jha (2416).

Venerable GM Eugene Torre, board 3 bronze medalist in the 2016 Baku Chess Olympiad, will spearhead the Filipino challenge in the nine-round Swiss system tournament which ends Dec. 11.

Joining Torre are GM John Paul Gomez, GM Joey Antonio, GM Darwin Laylo,  International Masters Paulo Bersamina, Oliver Dimakiling, Haridas Pascua, Jerad Docena, Jan Emmanuel Garcia and Ricardo De Guzman, and Janelle Mae Frayna, the country’s first WGM and WIM Bernadette Galas.

Also entered are Vietnamese IM Tran Tuan Minh (2478), Indian IM Abhimanyu Puranik (2476), Vietnamese Fide Master Tran Minh Thang (2399), Indian Harshit Harnish Raja (2399), Singaporean FM Lee Qing Aun (2227), Chinese WGM Lei Tingjie (2468) and Indian WGM S. Vijayalakshmi (2381).

Rep. Prospero “Butch” A. Pichay Jr., chair and president of the organizing National Chess Federation of the Philippines, will grace the 2 p.m. opening ceremony.