AN UNHERALDED Dipolog City player pulled off a surprise by outclassing top Davao Region begs in the 26th APM U20 Online Blitz Tournament held Tuesday, June 2.
Eleven-year-old Ghian Michael Aleria earned eight points in nine-round Swiss System format competition via chess.com server, beating Davao City's 12-year-old James Catayas who made seven points and Tagum City's 14-year-old John Esencia who scored 6.5 points.
Sara Dalagan of Tagoloan and Aaron Aton of Davao City received special citations. Dalagan was top under-12player with five points while Aton was top under-nine chesser with 4.5 points.
They all received minimal cash prizes from the organizers.
Tournament sponsor and organizer Ely Acas earlier said the series of youth chess tournaments under APM aim to give student players a venue to hone their chess skills through competition while they are the comforts of their homes.
Meanwhile, some Davao City's rated players are expected to compete in the 1st Philippine National Bullet Chess Championship Online Semifinal slated June 6 via lichess.org.
The tournament, organized by the National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP), stakes cash prizes of P6,000, P3,000 and P2,000 to the top three placers while the fourth to 20th players will claim P1,000 each.
The top 16 will qualify to the round robin grand finals where each participant is assured of P5,000 and the champion will pocket P30,000.
Entitled to join are grand masters, international masters, Fide masters, national masters, woman grand masters, woman international masters, woman Fide masters and woman national masters.