Haridas Pascua, Janelle Mae Frayna clinch GM rating points in Subic chessfest

INTERNATIONAL Master Haridas Pascua and Woman IM Janelle Mae Frayna finished with contrasting results but both ended up gaining rating points to achieve GM and WGM status at the conclusion of the Philippine International Chess Championships at Subic Bay Peninsular Hotel in Zambales Sunday night.

Pascua fell to WGM Lei Tingjie of China in 53 moves of an Symmetrical English Opening while Frayna pulled the rug from under WGM Subbaraman Vijayalakshmi in 20 moves of a Queen’s Pawn Game in the final round as the two finished their campaign by gaining precious rating points.

Pascua wound up in a group at 11th spot with five points to earn 12.4 points and improve from 2401 to 2413.4 while Frayna finished with 4.5 points to gain 3.2 points and see her rating increase to 2323.2 from 2320.

Pascua is eyeing to reach the 2500 rating mark to become the country’s 12th GM while Frayna is looking to breach the 2400 plateau to emerge the Philippines’ first ever GM and men’s IM title-holder.

And the two will have another opportunity to earn more points in the second leg that unfurled yesterday at the same venue of the event sponsored by the Philippine Sports Commission under Chairman Butch Ramirez, Burlington, Marc Adventures Mining, Inc. and Puregold.

Top seed Chinese GM Wang Hao battled third pick Russian GM Boris Savchenko to a marathon 116-move standoff to clinch the title.

Hao wound up tied with Vietnamese GM Tran Tuan Minh, who stunned No. 6 Vladislav Kovalev of Belarus in 60 moves of a super-sharp Sicilian, at first place with 6.5 points apiece but the former took the title and the $7,000 top purse via win-over-the-other tie breaker.

Lei clinched third place while Indian IM Puranik Abhimanyu ended up fourth.

Meanwhile, NCFP executive director GM Jayson Gonzales said the second leg will be stronger after GMs Mark Paragua, Eugene Torre and Darwin Laylo have all confirmed participation.