Wednesday, September 17, 2008

IM Bitoon shines in Pichay Cup

The Manila Times

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

INTERNATONAL Master Richard Bitoon shone the brightest among the Filipino players in the Fourth Prospero Pichay Cup international chess championship Tuesday at the Duty Free Fiesta Mall in Parañaque City.

Bitoon dropped his fourth-round match to top seed Grandmaster Murtas Kazhgaleyev of Kazakhstan, but remained the best Filipino performer in the field.

His moment came in the third round when he shocked GM Susanto Megaranto of Indonesia.

Bitoon, a 32-year-old graduate of Southwestern University, has three wins and one loss so far in the tough nine-round Swiss System tournament.

GMs Jayson Gonzales and Mark Para-gua matched Bitoon’s output after four rounds.

Gonzales drew with IM Ronald Bancod in the third round and Wan Yunguo of China in the fourth round while Paragua cru-shed Nguyen Van Huy of Vietnam in the third and halved the point with second seed GM Zhang Zhong of Singapore in the fourth.

the three Filipinos shared third place with GM Saidali Iuldachev of Uzbekistan, Zhang, GM Mikheil Mchedlishvili of Georgia, GM Wen Yang of China, GM Ehsan Ghaemmaghami of Iran, GM Marat Dzhumaev of Uzbekistan and GM Konstantin Shanava of Georgia.

They’re only half a point behind Kazhgaleyev and GM Li Shilong of China.

Kazhgaleyev, the highest-rated player here with an ELO of 2641, drew with Iuldachev in the third round before beating Bitoon. Li drew with Zhang in the third and stunned GM Wesley So in the fourth.

The 14-year-old So dropped into a big group of players with 2.5 points

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