BY KRISTEL SATUMBAGA
United States-based Filipino Grandmaster Mark Paragua continued his build up for the grand finals of the 1stPhilippine Bullet Chess Championship by topping the United Queen’s charity event dubbed “SPEC and CA’s Life Arena” which has held online Wednesday.
Paragua, 36, proved too smart and ended up with 88 points to book his third title in less than a week after ruling the national bullet tilt Saturday and the 10th leg of the National Blitz Club Arena the next day.
Paragua, who currently lives and works in New York, finished ahead of 11 GMs including Armenian Zaven Andrasian, who took second spot with 75 points.
Another Filipino, International Master Joel Pimentel, took third with 73 points.
He capped his strong effort by drawing his last three games including against 15-year-old Uzbek prodigy GMNodirbek Abdusattorov in a game where the Filipino was a pawn up.
The feat came a couple of days before Paragua goes for nothing less than a crown against 15 other competitors in the National Chess Federation of the Philippines-organized event set at 10 a.m. tomorrow (Saturday).
“These tournaments will be good for my confidence because I’m really preparing for the Philippine bullet tournament,” said Paragua.
