2010 Asian Individual Chess Championships starts today

Almost without a warning, the 2010 Asian Individual Chess Championships starts today, April 21 at the Subic Exhibition and Convention Center. The country will be hosting the event for the second straight year and for the third time in four years. Just as in the past, the championship will serve as one of the qualifying tournament for the 2011 Chess World Cup. Ed Andaya has this report for journal.com.ph

Also included in the highly-rated 63-man foreign delegation are GMs Zhou Jianchao (ELO 2650), Li Chao ( ELO 2613) and Zhou Weiqi (ELO 2584), all of China, Pentala Harikrishna ( ELO 2660) and Narayanan Gopal (ELO 2604) of India, Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son (ELO 2642) and Dao Thien Hai (ELO 2523), Ehsan Ghaemmaghami (ELO 2575) of Iran, Susanto Megaranto (ELO 2527) of Indonesia, Zhang Zhong (ELO 2603) of Singapore and Anton Fillipov (ELO 2598) and Khamrakulov Djubarek (ELO 2509) of Uzbekistan.

Aside from So, the other notable Filipino players in the tournament are GMs Rogelio Antonio, Jr (ELO 2572), Darwin Laylo (ELO 2527), John Paul Gomez (ELO 2507), Eugene Torre (ELO 2506) and Jayson Gonzales (ELO 2441) and IMs Richard Bitoon (ELO 2476), Ronald Dableo (ELO 2464), Oliver Barbosa (ELO 2552), Oliver Dimakiling (ELO 2441) and Barlo Nadera (ELO 2405).