CEBU CITY, Philippines— The upcoming first Cordova Philippines National Open: 500 Years of Legacy will field an elite cast of woodpushers that will be vying for chess supremacy on August 20 to 25, 2021, at the Solea Hotels and Resorts.
According to the organizer, Ariel Potot of the RiChessMasters, this will be the biggest and grandest chess tournament they will organize in terms of participants and cash prizes.
The list of elite woodpushers that will be seeing action in the nine-round Swiss system competition is composed of Grand Master (GM) Rogelio Antonio Jr. GM Darwin Laylo, GM elect Ronald Dableo, Women GM (WGM) Janelle Mae Frayna, International Master (IM) Paulo Bersamina, IM Michael Concio Jr., and IM Daniel Quizon.
“So far this going to be the biggest tournament RiChessMasters will be organizing. Around P300,000 plus worth of cash prizes is at stake. This is the RiChessMasters’ biggest tournament and watch out for bigger tournaments in 2022,” said Potot.
More elite woodpushers are expected to sign-up in the coming days.
IM Bersamina, IM Concio, IM Quizon and WGM Frayna are currently competing in the Chess World Cup 2021 in Sochi, Russia. They qualified for the world cup after topping the Asian Zonal 3.3 Chess Championships last May.
Also, David Elorta and Sherwin Tiu, well-known blitz contenders have also signed up for the upcoming tournament in Cordova.
The Cordova Dutchess Dagami Warriors, the top team in the south division of the Professional Chess Association of the Philippines (PCAP) Wesley So Cup Conference along with the Lapu-Lapu Naki Warriors and Cebu City Machers will be vying in the tournament as well.
“There will be a lot of participants from the local counterparts.Most of the PCAP players of Cebu Machers, Lapulapu Naki Warriors and Dagami Warriors will participate.”
The champion woodpusher will walk away with P50,000 purse while the first-runner up will pocket P25,000 and second runner-up gets P15,000.
Registration fee is pegged at P3,000 per player and P2,000 for players aged 16 years and below.
For more information about the tournament, visit the RiChessMasters’ official Facebook page.
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