BAGUIO City National High School and Irisan National High School share early round leads in the first BCNHS Inter-School Chess Tournament and Word War I at the Baguio City National High School which started Wednesday at the library.
Four of BCNHS Main’s five Team A players enjoy a two to nothing score and are among the leaders in the inter-school chess.
Bernard Nillo remains unbeaten as the supposedly top seed, two others of the vaunted BCNHS Team A, are atop the leader board.
Fatima Bolitic, Carl Nillo and Charlie Dogaong are seated on the second, third and fourth boards as they helped the Kordillera Chess Association February edition champion in the race for the top team.
Bernard faces Angelique Chavez of University of Baguio High School as they dispute the leadership in the third round.
Bolitic faces BCNHS – B’s Erwin Resurrecion at board two, while the second of the Nillos, Carl, goes up against BCNHS-B’s Porsha Lagman and Dogaong meets BCNHS B’s Diana Posugac.
In Scrabble, Jonas Valdez of INHS scored a 374-147 drubbing of Portia Punay of UBHS and remain unbeaten after three games with a spread of 390.
He thus faces BCNHS’s Ricardo Miguel Leung, who beat Jaime Apoda of BCNHS Fort del Pilar Annex, 232-220, for the other perfect score.
Julie Bugtong of INHS registered the best score so far of 419 and beat Jerome Correa of BCNHS for his second win in three games and leads seven others with that card.
He leads though with spread of +279.
Also enjoying a 2-1 card are Carl Vincent Tawao (INHS), Apoda, Ceasar Belina, Monica de los Reyes, Mary Joanne Calpito and Portia Punay.
Forty chess players from five schools and 17 scrabblers started their bid in the first ever inter-high school Scrabble face off.
Players from Baguio City National High School led by the Nillos - Bernard, Carl Erikson and Alvin - and Palarong Pambansa bound Porsha Lagman will slug it out with rival University of Baguio High School led by two time Palaro standout Beverly Bendal.
The two schools will face opponents from Irisan National High School, BCNHS Fort del Pilar and Korean contingents from the Shalom International School in the tournaments backed by communications giant Smart.
“We welcome such undertakings here that is why I had no second thoughts when the organizers approached us to stage it here,” said BCNHS principal Dr. Elma Donaal in her welcome remarks of the event organized by Baguio City High School 1985 (CiTiHi 85) in coordination with the school and National Chess Federation of the Philippines director Raul Molintas, former city councilor Jose Molintas and the Benguet Electric Cooperative.
Side by side with the wood pushers are tile pushers from the host school, UBHS, INHS and
BCNHS – Fort del Pilar as they play competitive Scrabble in Word War I.
“This is a good number thinking that we only launched it the other week. We hope to stage another one in the future and hopefully make this a regular competition where we will also have an elementary as well as a college division,” said CiTiHi 85 president Pigeon Lobien.
Prices at stake are individual champion plums as well as second and third places in both events while the team with the most score wins the Molintas Cups.