Legends Reunion of Chess Masters of Yesteryears tourney this Saturday at SM Seaside

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu’s finest woodpushers will clash in a rare tournament dubbed “Legends Reunion of Chess Masters of Yesteryears” at the Cebu Chess Hub in SM Seaside City Cebu this Saturday, August 20.

The one-day tournament features a nine-round Swiss system format featuring 10 of Cebu’s well-known chess players.

They include International Master (IM) Rico Mascariñas, National Master (NM) Mario Mangubat, International Arbiter (IA) Lincoln Yap, National NM Cyril Ortega, NM Leonardo Alidani, NM Joselito Dondon, Carlos Moreno, Allerito Somosot, Mario Bustillo, and Joyce Lagrosas.

The tournament will serve as a mini-reunion of sorts for these woodpushers who are still active in the local chess scene with Dondon sponsoring the cash prizes.

A brief background of some of the woodpushers playing tomorrow: IM Mascariñas is one of the top-performing players in the Professional Chess Association of the Philippines (PCAP) from the Toledo City Trojans.

He was one of the country’s top woodpushers back in the day, just behind Grand Master (GM) Eugene Torre. He bagged a gold medal on Board 2 during the Lucerne Chess Olympics in 1982. He also campaigned for the Philippines eight times in the Chess Olympiad.

Meanwhile, FA Yap is a former Cebu City champion in the 1980s and one of the founding members of the Cebu City Chess Club. Moreno and Mangubat are multi-titled chess players in Cebu while NM Ortega was the 1986 Cebu Chess King champion.

The tournament champion takes home P3,000, while the second and third placers pocket P2,000, and P1,000, respectively.

The rest of the top 10 placers will also receive cash courtesy of NM Dondon who is based in the United States and came back to Cebu to help organize the tournament.   /rcg

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