5th Prospero Pichay Cup: PGMA titlist Anton Filippov leads foreign cast

As of today, Friday, where the 5th Pospero Pichay Cup begins at 1:00 pm at the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) building in Quezon City, names such as Singapore GM Zhang Zhong and GM Abhijit Gupta of India emerges as among the new top rated players expected to compete and challenge GM Filippov's ambition to become the first ever player to sweep the twin tournament organized by the National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP). Positive News Media and Inquirer.net had just confirmed this. These two grandmasters did not made it to the final cut of participants at the just concluded 4th PGMA cup where they're earlier listed as among the participants. The other foreign players who saw action at the last PGMA cup and expected to stay for one more week here in Manila for the Pichay cup are GM Merab Gagunashvili of Georgia, GM Ehsan Ghaemmaghami of Iran, GM Tigran Kotanjian of Armenia, GMs Anuar Ismagambetov and Pyotr Kostenko of Kazakhstan, GMs Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son and Dao Thien Hai of Vietnam, GM Li Shilong of China, IM Tirto of Indonesia and WGM Krutika Nadig of India.

GM Eugenio Torre who experience one of the worst tournament performance in many years at the PGMA cup is also reported to have confirmed his participation and give another shot to redeem his reputation. Other Filipino grandmasters who competed at the 4th PGMA Cup are also set to compete.

The same rule and system as the 4th PGMA Cup will also be applied at the Pichay Cup. A nine roound Swiss system and the time control of 90 minutes for the whole game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from move 1. And to prevent an early draws, players are not allowed before the completion of Black’s 30th move unless by the repetition of position rule. Pichay Cup offers a total prize of $30,000 and $5,000 goes to the winner(s).