Concio, Bersamina stay in Bangkok Chess Club Open title race

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines’ Michael Concio Jr. and Pau Bersamina hurdled their respective assignments in the eight and penultimate round to remain in title contention in the Bangkok Chess Club Open in Thailand Sunday night.

Both the Filipino International Masters relied on their superb endgame technique to eke wins — one by Concio over Australian IM James Morris in 66 moves of a Bogo Indian encounter and the other by Bersamina in a marathon 83-move triumph over Latvian Arsens Batashevs of an English clash.

Their wins catapulted them straight to a three-player logjam at third with 6.5 points each that included Indian Grandmaster Babu Lalit.

They were also half a point behind the pace-setting Macedonian GM Evgeny Romanov and Malaysian FIDE Master Ang Ern Jie Anderson, both owning seven points apiece.

For them to have a chance for the title they would need to win their final round assignment by all cost and hope Romanov and Ang drew theirs.

Concio was battling Lalit while Bersamina Ukrainian GM Vitaliy Bernardskiy.

Another Filipino, FM Christian Gian Carlo Arca, for his part, went for the win but ended up splitting the point with Indian GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly via perpetual check.

The standoff, however, sealed the 16-year-old Panabo, Davao del Norte pride, the third of three required IM norms to become an IM.

All Arca, who has six points, needed to do now is to reach the 2400-rating plateau to become a full-pledge IM.

His current live rating is 2311.2.

Arca is also in contention of claiming his first GM norm if he beats former world challenger GM Nigel Short of England in the last round.