THE bronze medal in the Blitz competition may not be what he wanted, but it is good enough for Lapu-Lapu City whiz kid Jerish John Velarde, who finished third in the Open U10 category Blitz competition of the 2016 Asean + Age Group Chess Tournament held in Pattaya, Thailand.
Earlier, Velarde felt the pressure and finished at seventh in the standard competition after finishing with only 6.0 points in the nine-round Swiss System tournament.
The gold medal was won by unexpected champion Aditya Bagus Arfan of Indonesia, who scored a total of 7.5 points, upsetting the likes of Thien Puc Vo Pham and CMs Quoc Hy Nguyen and Minh Hieu Hoang.
Velarde, in fact, finished higher than teammates Mark Jay Bacojo, Robert James Perez and Del Emerson de la Cruz. The Philippine squad, however, earned a silver medal in the team competition.
The incoming Grade 4 student of Marie Ernestine School-Lapu-Lapu Campus, however, was not lucky in the Rapid event as he only finished at 26th place behind the gold medal winner Bacojo.
In the Blitz competition, Velarde had six wins, two draws and a loss on his way to settle for the bronze medal behind Cong Minh Pham and CM Quoc Hy Nguyen.
Vietnam won the overall championship after collecting a total of 29 golds, 28 silvers and 27 bronze medals, while the Philippines placed second with eight golds, 10 silvers and 11 bronzes, followed by Indonesia with five golds, two silvers and one bronze.