Pasig trounces San Juan, Negros upsets Davao to book PCAP finals slots

MANILA, Philippines – The Northern and Southern Division finals of the Open Conference of the Professional Chess Association of the Philippines was explosive in its confirmation.

The Pasig King Pirates are officially the top dogs of the North, having ousted the erstwhile defending champions, San Juan Predators, 15-6 and 12-9. The Negros Kingsmen, ever coming so closer to the top after having booted deposed southern power Iloilo in the semis, also sent the top-rated Davao Chess Eagles packing.

Pasig was dominant with their twin-GM attack of Mark Paragua and former Predator Oliver Barbosa as they held off IMs Paulo Bersamina and Jem Garcia. The rest of the boards, Pasig was solid.

Only San Juan’s Archie Reyes was the consistent point getter but for naught.

The win by Pasig was its second straight Northern Division finals win over San Juan and now, the King Pirates are poised to duplicate the Predators’ feat of winning consecutive PCAP conference titles.

Pasig won the recent Wesley So Cup, while San Juan ruled last year’s Open Conference and this year’s All-Filipino. 

The consolation for San Juan is they will have an opportunity to pick up a trophy and become the only squad to bring one home for all six of PCAP’s conference titles so far. Iloilo previously had that distinction with five but due to their ouster by Negros, they are out of any trophy contention.

Negros took the first set, 12-9, behind NM Edmundo Gatus and IM Joel Pimentel. The Kingsmen rallied from a 3-4 deficit after blitz to take rapid play, 9-5, for the win.

Davao convincingly bounced back in the second set, 17-4 (5-2 in rapid and 12-2 in rapid) to send the encounter into Armageddon with strong games from WNM Rowelyn Joy Acedo, NM Jonathan Tan and FM AJ Literatus. 

In the extra boards, Pimentel shocked Armageddon king Literatus while FM David Elorta, who struggled all matches long, defeated NM Dale Bernardo for a 2-1 win that sent Negros to the Grand Finals.

Only FM Sander Severino was able to pick up a point for Davao.

The Open Conference Grand Finals as well as the Battle for Third Place will be held Saturday, December 10.