AFTER losing in the first round, Lapu-Lapu City’s chess phenom Jerish John Velarde got back on track and logged his first win in the scheduled nine-round standard category of the Asian Youth Chess Championships 2018 in Chiangmai, Thailand yesterday.
The 12-year-old Velarde, who is the 24th seed of the under-12 division of the standard competition, lost to 63rd-seed Matthew Ryan Chen of Chinese Taipei in the opening round but recovered to beat 51st-seed Dinupa Adithya Hewage of Sri Lanka in the next round.
Velarde is now ranked 45th in the under-12 standard competition with rapid category champion and top seed, Candidate Master (CM) D. Gukesh of India leading with 2.0 points followed by second-seed Bardiya Daneshvar of Iran with 2.0 and third-seed CM Quoc Hy Nguyen of Vietnam also with 2.0 points.
The top three are ranked according to their accumulated tiebreak points.
Velarde will face 43rd seed Kai-Chun Chen of Chinese Taipei in the third round today.