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New York-based Jan Vincent Paragua, younger brother of Grandmaster (GM) Mark Paragua defeated California ace Edimero Grefiel in the ninth and final round to finish with 8.0 points and tie for 2nd to 3rd spots with Washington's Drayton Harrison in the 36th annual World Open Chess Championships at the Sheraton Philadelphia City Center Hotel in Philadelphia, Pennyslvania, USA over the weekend.
Harrison also won his final match against Michigan's Loyd Gentry to tie the young Paragua.
Jan Vincent finish undefeated in the Under 1800 section with 7 wins, 2 draws in nine outings for 8.0 points, the same output of Harrison. Jan Vincent and Grefiel split the combined second and third place prize of $15,000.
Illinois bet Michael Granata took the title and the champion's purse of $20,000 after beating Puerto Rico's Omar Aneses in the final round to tally 8.5 points.
Another Filipino entry and Florida resident Eddie Briones beat New Jersey star Srinivasan Ramanujam to finish tied for 7th place along with six others with 7.0 points.
Other Filipinos who participated in the event include father and son Hercules (2.5 pts) and Carlo del Mundo (6.0 pts) of Virginia; Rito Ilao (5.5 pts) of New York in the Under 1800 section; Allan Salgado of Maryland (4.0 pts), Jerry Salazar (4.0 pts) and Isaias Soriano (3.5 pts) of New York and Dexter Pacheco of Illinois (4.5 pts) in the Under 2000 section; William Marcelino of Virginia (6 pts), Allan Montalbo of Ontario, Canada (3.5 pts), Rene Glenn Ancheta of Illinois (3.5 pts), Marc Christian Nazario of Quezon City (3.0 pts) in the Under 2200 section and Florencio Zoleta of Philadephia (4.5 pts) in the Under 1600.
Meanwhile, four players - GMs Evgeny Najer of New York, Parmijaran Negi of India, Lubomir Ftacnik of Slovakia and Alexander Moiseenko of Ukraine shared the top honors in the Open section after tallying identical 7.0 points apiece.
