By KRISTEL SATUMBAGA
Ruelle Canino and Mark Jay Bacojo were held to a draw in their ninth and final round assignments but still emerged the top Filipino performers in their respective divisions in the 6th ASEAN Individual Chess Championships-Gov. Henry Oaminal Cup at the Asenso Misamis Occidental Resort and Aquamarine Park in Ozamiz over the weekend.
The 17-year-old Canino halved the point with Mongolia’s Batpelden Buyankhishig in 56 moves of a Queen’s Gambit to finish second in the women’s section with 6.5 points, half a point behind eventual champion, Russian International Master Evgenija Ovod.
Bacojo, 19, for his part, pulled off an escape act, turning a losing position into a marathon 71-move standoff of a Sicilian with Mongolian IM Munkhdalai Amilal to finish third with six points in the open class.
Indian IM V S Raahul topped the category with seven points while Vietnamese IM Nguyen Quoc Hy ended up second with 6.5 points.
For their feats, Canino earned an outright WIM title and a Woman Grandmaster norm while Bacojo secured an automatic IM title.
Canino, rated 2110, also earned 99.6 rating points to breach the 2200-plateau for the very first time.
Canino, the reigning national champion and Olympiad veteran from Cagayan de Oro, actually finished in a three-way tie for second with top seed Woman FIDE Master Anna Zhurova of Russia and WIM Laysa Latifah of Indonesia but won on tiebreaks.
Same with Bacojo, who ended up in a three-player logjam at No. 3 with Amilal and Indian IM Kamotra Soham but took No. 3 due to superior quotients.
