Pinoy GM So takes solo lead in 5th round of Zonal chess

Tagaytay City — Filipino teenage chess Grandmaster (GM) Wesley So defeated IM Bayarsaikhan Gundavaa of Mongolia (Elo 2522) on Friday to grab the solo lead after five rounds of the Asian Zone 3.3 Chess Championship at the Tagaytay International Convention Center here.

So is the country’s highest-ranked player and the tournament’s top seed with an Elo rating of 2682.

The 19-year-old So tallied 4.5 points in the nine-round Swiss-system tournament which offers two slots to this year’s World Cup in Tromso, Norway.

So took the solo lead after erstwhile co-leader and second seed GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son of Vietnam (Elo 2631) halved the point with GM Darwin Laylo (2491) of the Philippines.

Ngoc Truong Son, who won five gold medals in the 2005 Manila Southeast Asian Games was is in a losing position but managed to salvage a draw with Laylo to improve to 4.0 points for solo second place.

“Pang siyam na laban na namin ni Ngoc Truong Son kala ko makaka iskor na ako kaso muling nauwi sa tabla,” said Laylo referring to their nine head-to-head matches which all ended in draws.

Sharing third to eighth places with 3.5 points each are defending champion GM Susanto Megaranto of Indonesia, FM Gombosuren Munkhgal of Mongolia, Laylo, 12-time national open champion GM Rogelio Antonio Jr. and IM Nguyen Doc Hoa of Vietnam.

Megaranto drew with Duc Hoa, Munkhgal upset GM Dao Thien Hai of Vietnam and Antonio edged countryman FM Haridas Pascua.

In other matches, GM Mark Paragua bested countryman GM Eugene Torre, GM John Paul Gomez subdued FM Rudin Hamdani of Indonesia, US based GM Rogelio Barcenilla Jr. routed Ravdanlkhumbuu Amgalanbaatar of Mongolia and FM Mari Joseph Turqueza shocked IM Rolando Nolte.