The Automatic Grandmaster (GM) and Women Grandmaster (WGM) titles will be at stake when 6th ASEAN+ Individual Chess Championship-Govt. The Henry Ominal Cup was hoisted on Monday at the Misamis Occidental Resort and Aquamarine Park in Ozamiz.
A total of six GMs and several International and FIDE Masters (FMs) are participating in the tournament, which has 40 participants in the Open category, 37 in the Women category and 108 participants in the Challenger category of this tournament sanctioned by the National Chess Federation of the Philippines.
The country's charge is led by GMs Daniel Quizon, John Paul Gomez and Darwin Lello and International Masters (IM) Pau Bersamina, Jaime Garcia, Christian Gian Carlo Arca and Michael Concio, Jr. The final four hope they can win the eight-day event and clinch an automatic GM title.
But winning the event, which is being hosted by the strongest country in recent years, is easier said than done as it faced a strong overseas challenge in the form of Vietnam's GMs Nguyen Duc Hoa, Tran Tuan Minh and Nguyen Van Hue.
Russian IM Miroslav Vlasenko, Vietnam's top seed IM Phan Tran Gia Phuc, Mongolia's second seed IM Munkhdalai Amilal and a group of strong Indian IMs in Kamotra Soham, VS Rahul, Ramesh Avinash are also seeing action.
Other notable entrants in the mix are IM Dang Hoang Son and Nguyen Quoc Hai, Singapore's IM Jenyong Jayden Wong, FIDE Master Fabian Glen, Indonesia's Pitra Adyaka and IM Nayak Buddhirma, Malaysia's FM Wong Yin Long.
The country's own WGM Janelle Mae Fryna will lead the women's division along with fellow WGM Vietnam's Nguyen Thi Mai Hung and Nguyen Thi Thanh An as well as Mongolian Woman FIDE Master Batpelden Bayankhishig, Indonesian Woman International Master (WIM) Kaysa Latifa and two Russians in IM, Evgeniza Ovod and WIM Ekaterina Smirnova. , joey villar
