Wild Card tournament starts today

Cebuano chess players aspiring to get a slot to the national finals will get their one chance to join the 2017 National Age Group Chess Championships (NAGCC) Grand Finals through the Wild Card Competition that will be staged today at the Knight Attack Chess Cafe at the 3rd Level of Robinsons Galleria-Cebu, starting at 11 a.m.

This event is part of the perks for being the host city of the national finals on May 2-10 that will be held at the Robinsons Galleria-Cebu Atrium.

The champion in each of the 14 categories will join the qualifiers from the three elimination tournaments, which were held at the different part of the country.

NAGCC National Finals local organizer John Velarde is hoping to draw the best Cebuano players into this wildcard entry since only few made it to the Visayas elimination in Aklan last January. Only a handful got their slots during the Mindanao qualifying held the other week.

“I am hoping that we could have more Cebuanos qualify. After NCFP granted us this opportunity, I am hoping we can have at least on Cebuano in every category. Through this wildcard tournament, we hope we can achieve that goal,” Velarde said.

The Wildcard competition is exclusive only for Cebuano players.

“Sa Visayas elimination, tulo lang yata ang nag- qualify. Si Jerish (Velarde), KC Belano and Jonas Dustin Bajo. Sa Davao elimination only four qualified— Aldritz Pondoyo, Laila Nadera, Jeremy Bajo, and Spica Gonzales. So sa dalawang qualifiers pito lang ka Cebuano players ang nakapasok. So in the wildcard, we will have additional 14 players going into the nationals,” Velarde added.

This is only a one-day event and it will follow a 7-Round Swiss System format using a Bronstein Delay time format of 20 minutes and a delay of five seconds.

Bronstein delay, is a time control invented by David Bronstein, using a method as the simple delay.

The only difference is that during the turn, the player can see how much time they are using because the clock starts counting down immediately. Once the turn is over, if they have used less than the duration of the delay period, the time is returned as if no time had been used. If the time used exceeds the delay period, the length of the delay period is added back to the player's remaining time.

Registration fee is P350. For details contact FA Marvin Ruelan at 0932-715-2411 or 0926-735-2951.