Asian Chess: Pascua leads PH bets with 2nd straight draw

MANILA, Philippines – International Master Haridas Pascua settled for his second straight draw while fellow IM Paulo Bersamina got derailed in the second round of the 17th Asian Continental Chess Championships (2nd Manny Pacquiao Cup) Tuesday night, December 11, at Tiara Oriental Hotel in Makati.

Not wanting to force the issue, Pascua split the point with Indonesian IM Novendra Priasmoro to catch up with Bersamina, who lost to Uzbek GM Nodirkbek Abdusattorov after stunning Vietnamese Super Grandmaster Le Quang Liem in the first round.

“The draw is okay because I want to preserve my energy for the succeeding rounds,”said Pascua, who only needs to raise his Elo rating 2442 to 2500 to earn his GM title.

“My focus is to gain rating points,” added Pascua, a member of Team Philippines in this year’s 2018 Batumi (Georgia) Chess Olympiad.

Unable to flash the form that enabled him to beat Le (Elo 2714) in Monday’s shocker, Bersamina bowed to Abdusattorov, who shared top spot with 8 others in the 64-player field with a perfect 2.0 points.

Bunched with the 17th seeded Abdusattorov were No. 2 GM Wei Yi (2728) of China, No.7 GM Ni Hua (2683) of China, No.8 GM S. P. Sethuraman (2664) of India, No.9 GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Song (2641) of Vietnam, No.10 GM Lu Shanglei (2636)  of China, No.11 GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly (2621) of India, No.12 GM Alireza Firouzja (2607) of Iran and No. 57 FM Lik Zang Lye (2321) of Malaysia.

Lye pulled off the tournament’s biggest upset when he downed top seed Chinese GM Wang Hao, who stayed at 0.5 with Filipino GMs Rogelio Antonio Jr. and Darwin Laylo.

Apart from Pascua and Bersamina, other Filipinos with 1.0 point and tied for 22nd to 44th places were IM Jan Emmanuel Garcia, IM Daniel Quizon, IM Roderick Nava, IM Ricardo De Guzman, IM Oliver Dimakiling, and untitled Michael Concio.

In Wednesday’s third round, Bersamina is pitted against Iranian GM M. Amin Tabatabael while Pascua is matched against Indian GM Anhimanyo Piranik.

Top seed Zhou Diner of China, IM Pham Le Thao Nguyen of Vietnam, IM Rout Padmini of India, WGM Hoang Thi Bao Tram of Vietnam and Woman Fide Master Turmunkh Munkhzul of Mongolia pace the women’s division with 2.0 points.

WIMs Bernadette Galas and Kylen Joy Mordido and WFM Allaney Gia Doroy led the Philippine bets with 1.0 point each.

The top 5 in the Open division advance to the World Cup while the women’s champion qualifies for the Women’s World Championship. – Rappler.com