FIFTEEN-year-old sensation Lennon Hart Salgados made Cagayan de Oro City and the province of Misamis Oriental proud in the ongoing 10th Asean Youth chess championships in Hue, Vietnam.

Salgados, a 4th-year student of Corpus Christi High School, was among the fightingest 6 players out of 25 RP hopefuls who made it to the medal circle in the just-concluded standard chess competition.

"The Manny Pacquiao Blog". Click here for stories and updates on the Filipino boxing champ.

The former "drowning incident" survivor, who resides in Zone 5, Barangay Bonbon, played through undefeated in nine rounds. But just too many draws (5 in all against 4 wins) had Salgados settling for silver in the 16-under boys rivalry topped by the top-seeded Nguyen Van Hai of Vietnam.
Van Hai, whose third-round match with Salgados ended in a truce, secured the gold after drawing his 9th and final round match with Kaushik Murali of Singapore.

Salgados also played safe agreeing to split the point with Vietnamese Bui Manh Hung on second board to claim the runner-up honor.

National Master Alcon John Datu, the other Filipino bet in 16-under division, garnered 5 points to improve at 6th place.

Tristan Frech Ibaoc, the other qualifier from CDO-Misor chess community, collected 4.5 points to share 16 to 20th places in 10-under boys class.
The Philippine contingent's first gold was delivered by Cherry Ann Mejia who conquered the 14-under girls field ahead by 2 points from her closest pursuer.

Sheider Nebato, a native of General Santos City and now a freshman college varsity player of Manila's Far Eastern University (FEU), duplicated Salgados' silver finish in the Open 20 category by scoring similar 6.5 points.

Producing three bronzes for the country were Julius Gonzales (Open 8), Mira Mirano (Girls 12) and Jedara Docena (Girls 20).

RP coaches GM Buenaventura "Bong" Villamayor and IM Idelfonso Datu are hoping for their wards to win more medals in the Rapid event (still ongoing as of posting time) and blitz competition to cap the week-long Asean chessfest.