GM Paragua bags Gov. Espino rapid chess title
By Marlon Bernardino
Cebu Daily News First
Posted 07:42:00 10/28/2009
GRANDMASTER Mark Callano Paragua turned back National Master Haridas Pascua in the 7th and final round to bag the top prize of P10,000 in the inaugural Gov. Amado T. Espino Jr. Cup Open Rapid Chess Championship at the Narciso Ramos Sports and Civic Center in Lingayen, Pangasinan, over the weekend.
Paragua, the 2003 Southeast Asian Games most bemedalled athlete, prevailed with the white pieces after 40 moves of Reti Opening to finish undefeated in the two-day tournament with 6.5 points on six wins and a draw.
After winning the first three rounds against local players, Paragua, the first Filipino to reach super grandmaster status, subdued NM Allan Macalla in the fourth, drew with fellow GM Rogelio “Joey”Antonio Jr., in the fifth, then toppled Dick Gicain in the sixth before beating NM Pascua in the seventh.
Paragua is also aiming to break the Guinness simultaneous game world record on Dec. 26 to 27, 2009 at the historic Ninoy Aquino Stadium in Manila.
Dubbed as “1 vs. 600: Beat the MARK” the young grandmaster will face 600 players at the same time as well as 400 reserves for a total of 1,000 opponents.
Here is the full article.
Wasn’t Paragua over 2600? What happened?
What are the criteria to obtain “super Grandmaster” status???
Paragua fell below 2600 because he lost focus. He got married and got out under the wing of a dominant father. I think he is in the midst of a comeback.
For some silly reason, people think that breaking 2600 gives you “super Grandmaster” status. Worse is that some journalists actually think there is even such a thing as a super GM title.