International Masters Roderick Nava and Haridas Pascua came through with strong results to lead the country’s charge after three rounds of the 7th Asian Continental Chess Championships (2nd Manny Pacquiao Cup) at the Tiara Hotel in Makati City Wednesday.
Nava, 33, caught a big fish in IM Novendra Priasmoro of Indonesia, whose rating of 2483 is way higher than the former’s 2392, while Pascua, 25, picked up his third straight draw against 18th seed GM Abhimanyu Puranik of India.
It was the second straight point for Nava, who climbed to an 11-chesser logjam at 13th place, that not only made him the highest scorer among the locals, but also pushed him half a point behind the 12-man lead pack headed by second seed GM Wei Yi of China.
Nava, however, will have to deal with top seed GM Wang Hao of China in the fourth round for him to stay in the hunt in this nine-round tournament bankrolled by Sen. Manny Pacquiao and the Philippine Sports Commission and backed by National Chess Federation of the Philippine president Butch Pichay.
Pascua, for his part, has remained unbeaten after he also split the point with fourth seed GM Santosh Gujrathi Vidit and Priasmoro.
Pascua’s 1.5-point total is good for a share of 24th place with a big group that included GM Joey Antonio, IMs Jan Emmanuel Garcia and Ricky de Guzman, FM Mari Joseph Turqueza and Micahel Concio, Jr.
He will collide with No. 16 Nodirbek Yakubboev of Uzbekistan in the fourth round at press time.