AND now there’s only April Joy Claros of Far Eastern University-Diliman.
Claros became the lone Filipino player left in 2020 FIDE World Cadets and Youth Rapid Chess Championships when she barged into the quarterfinal round of the girls 14 years old and under category on Sunday.
Claros, a prized find from Angeles City, toppled No. 3 seed WCM Martyna Starosa of Poland in their Armageddon tiebreak match to advance to the next phase in this five-day online competition organized by FIDE.
Claros’ quarterfinal opponent will be Laysa Latifah, of Indonesia, who shocked WFM Varshini M Sahithi of India, 1.5-.5, in their round-of-16 showdown.
The 13-year-old Claros, who earned the right to represent the country after being given one of six wildcards seats for the Philippines, dropped her first game to the higher-rated Starosa (ELO 2094).
But Claros, seeded only 14th out of the 16 qualifiers with an ELO of 1459 , came back strong to beat her Polish opponent and force a sudden death match.
Claros, who was nominated by FEU coach GM Jayson Gonzales to take one of the six wildcards berths for the Filipinos, then repeated over Starosa in their playoff.
Not as fortunate was Michael Concio, Jr., who lost both games to Renjie Huang of China in the Open 16-under category.
The 14 other Filipino campaigners, including Open 12-under champion King Whisley Puso, failed to make it past the Asian Continental qualifying tournament.
Puso topped the Open 12 years old and under competition, but was disqualified by FIDE for “alleged fair play violation.”
Supervising arbiter Marco Biagioli handed out the disqualification notice on the 11-year-old Filipino player upon the recommendation of the Fair Play Panel which based its findings from “results of elements, they deemed sufficient evidence to establish a cheating incident.”
No appeal was allowed during the tournament., according to National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) executive director Atty. Cliburn Anthony Orbe.
“We stand by our player’s innocence,” said Orbe. “There were two cameras monitoring him as required by the organizers and the arbiters never said anything during the games.”
Orbe, however, admitted there is nothing the NCFP can do.
“There is no appeal. We accepted it as a condition before joining the tournament,” explained Orbe.
