The 4th Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo Cup

The 4th edition of Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo Cup unveils today, September 24 and will run til the 29th at Duty Free Fiesta Mall in Paranaque City, Metro Manila, the Philippines.

Defending champion and Asia's first ever chess grandmaster, Eugenio Torre (2535), together with top seed Mikheil Mchedlishvili (2613) of Georgia, Zhang Zhong (2606) of Singapore and newly crowned 2009 Kolkata Open champion, Le Quang Liem of Vietnam will spearhead the strong cast that attracted nearly 100 participants from all over Asia and Europe. This week-long event is being organized by the National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP).

GM Wesley So will miss this year's edition of the PGMA Cup as he is currently competing in 2009 SPICE Cup in Lubbock, Texas.

The champion will received the top prize of $6,000 out of the total prize fund of US$ 40,000.


Top seeded players

GM Mikheil Mchedlishvili (2613) Georgia
GM Zhang Zhong (2606) Singapore
GM Le Quang Liem (2602) Vietnam
GM Gopal Nayanan (2598) India
GM Anton Filippov (2595) Uzbekistan
GM Nguyen Ngoc Turong Son (2589) Vietnam
GM Abhijeet Gupta (2584) India
GM Ehsna Ghaemmaghami (2579) Iran
GM Merab Gagunashvili (2564) Georgia
GM Rogelio Antonio (2557) Philippines
GM Dao Thien Hai (2542) Vietnam
GM Darwin Laylo (2537) Philippines
GM Eugenio Torre (2535) Philippines
GM Li Shilong (2531) China
GM Anuar Ismagambetov (2528) Kazakhstan
GM John Paul Gomez (2521) Philippines
GM Oleg Romanishin (2515) Ukraine
GM Mark Paragua (2501) Philippines
GM Bong Villamayor (2426) Philippines