GMs Wesley So and John Paul Gomez banner the Philippine squad competing against the best teams in the region in the Asian Chess Club Championship set to fire off Thursday in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates.
Joining So, 15, and Gomez in the team are fellow GMs Darwin Laylo and Mark Paragua with the youthful squad hoping to contend for the crown in the inaugural staging of the event which offers $20,000 to the champion.
“The morale of the players are high right now with Gomez raring to go in his first tournament as a full-fledged GM,” said NCFP executive/events director Willie Abalos.
The eight-day tournament is organized by the Al Ain Chess Club in cooperation with the Abu Dhabi Sports Council and the UAE Chess Federation.
“This is a good opportunity for me to show my worth and help lead the team in a big tournament like this,” said Gomez, the 22-year-old mechanical engineering student of De la Salle, who obtained his GM title in the recent Olympiad in Germany.
So, the country’s highest-rated player with an ELO of 2610, will man the top board for the team.
The Philippines is among the 30 teams competing in the event, including title contenders India and China. Others seeing action are Afghanistan, Bahrain, Brunei, Iran, Iraq, Singapore, Syria, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Jordan, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Yemen.
The players competing in the tournament will include 22 GMs, including five from Vietnam and four each from Uzbekistan, Iran and the Philippines, three from China and one from Mongolia and Russia.