BERNARD Nillo swept all his opponents powering Baguio City National High School to the championship of the first Inter-School Chess Tournament, even as Julie Bugtong of Irisan National High School won six games after losing in the second round to take the Word War I crown at the BCNHS library Thursday.
The Cordillera Chess Association February champion was one of the three Nillos in the powerful BCNHS team A. His cousins, Carl Ericsson and Alvin, had 5.5 points each, even as the 12-year-old Charlie Dogaong, the smallest among the 39 participants, had five of possible seven and Faith Bolitic, the lone female, ended up with 4.5 points for the team’s 27.5 points, 6.5 off its nearest rival, BCNHS B.
It was also a sweep for the Nillos, as Bernard’s younger cousins, Carl and Alvin, took second and third places in the individual standings. They received P1,500, P1,000 and P500 for their efforts, as well as medals in the events backed by Smart Communications.
Despite a third round setback to the eldest Nillo in the third round, Porsha Lagman ended up with five points and lead BCNHS to 21 points.
Erwin Resurrecion and Jayson Florendo had 4.5 points each, while Diana Posugac and Arvin Portugese had four and three points, respectively, in the five to play competitions.
The two bigger schools in the five high school competition organized by BCHS class of 1985 (CiTiHi 85) split that two events with Irisan National High School sweeping the individual. However, it had a more difficult time in the group division where it won by a single marker. Irisan finished with 23 points, one off the host school BCNHS.
Thanks to two defaulted games by two of BCNHS’s players on the first and second days in the tournaments also supported by Benguet Electric Cooperative and lawyers Raul Molintas and Jose Molintas.
Bugtong won seven of eight points for the individual crown and the P1,500 cash prize that goes with it.
His only setback was at the second round when he fell to fellow INHS student Jonas Valdez, 248-277.
But from there, the high school senior strung up five wins including a 279-221 fifth round victory against Valdez and a 333-267 sixth round win over the same person.
Bugtong has likewise scored the biggest point with 446 against Jaime Apola of BCNHS – Fort del Pilar Annex.
Portia Punay of University of Baguio took second place with six wins and two loses and spread of +209, while INHS’s Divine Singh sneaked past Valdez for third place. The schoolmates finished with a similar 5-3 slate, but the former had the higher spread of +463 against the three round leader who had +448.