THE country’s newest chess Grandmaster (GM), Enrico Sevillano, will be put to the test as he plays against students, teachers and parents in a simultaneous chess games dubbed “The Magis Eagles Grand Master Challenge: Chess Simul vs. GM Enrico Sevillano,” tomorrow at the Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu campus in Canduman, Mandaue City.
For the woodpushers of Ateneo de Cebu, it is a wonderful opportunity to match wits with the Cebuano GM who is now based in California. This is the first time in school history for a chess Grandmaster to play in a chess simul there.
“We are very grateful for this wonderful opportunity to meet and play against a Cebuano Grandmaster, and we hope this generates interest for a sport where Filipinos can excel,” SHS-AdC Athletic Director Rico Navarro said.
Sevillano will face off against 30 players at the same time. The hosts will choose whether to play white or black. Players who lose or draw their match with Sevillano will be replaced by other players, thus increasing the number of players who Sevillano will have to face within the set time.
Sevillano earned his GM norm when he won the Metropolitan Chess FIDE Invitational, a Grandmaster norm 10-player round-robin tournament held last August 2012 at the Radisson Los Angeles Airport Hotel in California. He was the 1986 Asian junior champion, a two-time Philippine Chess Olympiad player (1992 and 1994), the 2008 U.S. Open champion and the first Filipino ever to qualify for the U.S. Championship in 2009. /Correspondent Jonas Panerio