DANAO City’s pride, Alphecca Gonzales, clinched the gold medal in the under-18 category of the women’s junior division of the recently concluded Asian Universities Chess Championships held in Tagaytay City, over the week.
The 14-year-old Gonzales capped off her campaign with a total of 5.5 points to place sixth overall in the women’s division against 27 other participants from Philippines, India, Malaysia and China.
The eighth-grader of Ramon M. Durano Sr. Foundation-Science and Technology Education Center of Danao City, north Cebu, initially ranked as the 21st seed in the under-18 category of the women’s division but the Cebuana chess phenom put on a superb performance by beating five other players and managing to draw one after nine rounds.
She emerged as the highest scoring player in the under-18 category which earned her the gold medal.
According to her father, Gamaliel Gonzales, this was his daughter’s highest achievement in her blossoming career in chess. “This is by far the best performance in her career. She played very well in an open division compared to playing in her age group,” the older Gonzales said.
Gonzales beat fellow Filipino competitor, 28th seed Angel Sayaman, in the second round, upsets Women’s Fide Master (WFM) and 11th seed Nur Najiha Azman Hisham of Malaysia in the fourth round, then followed with another win against 24th seed Kishey Ibañez of the Philippines before clinching another upset by beating 10th seed A. Hu Yu of China in the sixth round.
She settled for a draw against second seed Mengjie Qui of China in the seventh round and capped off her campaign with another victory against the Chinese competitors with Rui Liao as her victim in the ninth and final round.
Top seed Women’s Grandmaster (WGM) Jue Wang of China topped the tournament with 7.5 points followed by second seed and Women’s International Master (WIM) Mengjie Qui, who is also from China, with 7.0 points and another Chinese, third seed Xin Nie rounded off the top three with 6.5 points.
Fourth seed Manli Liu (6.0) placed fourth followed by WIM Bernadette Galas (6.0) and Gonzales at sixth.
Gonzales won gold in the Palarong Pambansa 2016 in Legaspi City, Albay after she paired with fellow Cebuana Marianne Calimbo.
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