Villamayor pulls 2nd draw in world chess

New Filipino Grandmaster Buenaventura "Bong" Villamayor showed he could hold his own against the Soviet Union’s last national champion, Artashes Minasian.

The 33-year-old Filipino drew anew with the Armenian Super-GM in the second of two games in Round 1 of the World Chess Championships in New Delhi, India to force a tiebreaker, a 30-minute active chess in the resumption of their first round duel Wednesday.

It was apparent that Villamayor did not want to give his opponent the advantage of the white pieces as he defended well with the Advance Variation of the French Defense.

With their first round duel even at 1-all, the two players will play it out in a series of tiebreak games with a rapid time control scheduled Wednesday night.

The winner in this encounter will advance to the second round and battle Mikhail Gurevich, a Ukrainian now playing for Belgium. The loser, on the other hand, gets $6,000 prize. —Joey Villar