Wednesday, January 23, 2008 Hometown bet captures open chess title
HOMETOWN bet National Master (NM) Elwin Retanal bested fellow NM Alex Lupian of Davao City via the tiebreak to emerge champion in the 1st Benjamin Bautista Sr. Memorial Active Chess Open Final at the Malita Gymnasium, Malita, Davao del Sur over the weekend.
Both woodpushers tallied 6.5 points each but Retanal had superior tiebreaks of 22.5 while Lupian settled for the runner-up honors with 20 tiebreaks.
Sharing the third to fifth spots were Davao City's Jammy Dano, Jhonnele Balquin and Nazario Ubanan who scored 5.0 apiece in the event sanctioned by the National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) Region 11.
Carlo Rosaupan grabbed the solo sixth spot with his 4.5 points while Dharim Bacus, Elias Banguiran, Nofre Reyes, Reynaldo Quiñonez, NM Ernesto Fernandez, Reynaldo Gempero, John Ray Batucan, Peter Tidoy and Vincent Umayan shared the seventh to 15th slots with 4.0 each.
NM Levi Mercado, Roy Lagat and Werner Priete made 3.5 each to tie in in the 16th to 18th place of the meet organized by the Malita Chess Association.
Meanwhile, Balquin bested foes to pocket the 1st Quintin Tan Blitz Cup Open Chess Tournament also held in Malita.
He garnered 4.5 points over 4.0 scorers Retanal, Priete, Dano and Nazario Ubanan. (MLSA)
