Melendez tops Cepca

LAWYER Jong Melendez ruled the 22-player field in the July tournament of the Cebu Executives and Professionals Chess Association (Cepca) held at the Deep Blue Café’s D Woodpushers Chess Club at SM City-Cebu last Saturday.

Melendez, the director for the Prosecution Bureau of the Ombudsman –Visayas, scored 5.5 points after the 6-Round Swiss System tournament to advance to the Grand Finals to be held in December.

Melendez’s victory was highlighted by a win over NM Arnold Cadiz in the fourth round, before yielding a draw to USC-BED coach and Fide Arbiter Felix Poloyapoy in the fifth round. He finished the tournament with a victory over Rene Robillos on his final round.

Joining Melendez to the December finals was second placer NM Cadiz who finished the tournament with 5.0 points.

Finishing third to fifth places were Jun Kidlat (4.5 points), Rene Robillos (4) and lawyer Boy Tumulak (4).

Melendez and Cadiz joined Maggi Dionson and Caesar Fernandez who nabbed the June slots to the grand finals.

Eight more slots are scheduled to be filled by the August, September, October and November qualifiers.

Meanwhile, the Cepca players dominated over their counterparts from the host Deep Blue Café D Woodpushers Chess Club in the Matchplay event that was held last Sunday in the same venue.

Cepca earned 15 points, while Deep Blue had a total of nine points on the two rounds of friendship competition.