DAVAO City's very own Fide master (FM) Austin Jacob (AJ) Literatus is not coming home empty-handed as he clinched two gold medals and a silver in the 16th Asean+ Age-Group Chess Championships that came to a close at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore Tuesday.
The 18-year-old champion from Toril helped Team Philippines capture the men's open 20 rapid team gold medal. He earned four points to add to the team's 14-point total with international masters (IMs) Jan Emmanuel Garcia and Paulo Bersamina tallying identical five points.
Fifth-seeded Indonesian Bala Chandra Dhulipalla made six points to capture the men's open 20 rapid individual gold as next two placers Garcia and Bersamina shared the silver in the seven-round Swiss System format event. Literatus, however, shared the fourth place with TheolifusTaherYoseph of Indonesia in the 22-player field.
In men's open 20 blitz, IndonYoseph scored perfect nine points to annex the gold while Garcia, Literatus and Bersamina shared for the silver with similar six points. Indonesia's Dhulipalla and Prince Mark Aquino tied for the bronze with 5.5 points each.
The Philippines, however, pocketed the bltiz team gold as Garcia, Literatus and Bersamina accounted for a total of 18 points while Indonesia scored 16 for the silver and Vietnam (15 points) ended up with the bronze.
The seventh-seeded Literatus, a BS-IT junior student at the National University, upset No. 2 FM Le Tuan Minh of Vietnam in the third round but bowed to fourth-ranked Yoseph in the third round, top-seed teammate Garcia in the sixth round and fifth-seeded Dhulipalla in the seventh round. The Dabawenyo eked out victories over Vietnam bets candidate master Vu QuangQuyen, FM Vuong TrungHieu, FM Nguyen Ha Phuong and FM CheQuocHuu as well as against Indonesian FM Arif Abdul Hafiz.
Literatus last competed in the Asean chessfest in 2012 in the boys 16-under category where she collected four golds and one silver.
Meanwhile, Davao City chesser Irish Yngayo of Davao Central College lifted the country to team bronze finishes in standard, rapid and blitz events.
Yngayo and Literatus advanced to the Singapore meet after topping their respective divisions in the 2015 National Age-Group Chess Championships held in Las Piñas City last April.