Youth Chess: Camacho stalks leaders by half point

Philippine Star, Philippines
Nov 9 2004

Camacho stalks leaders by half point

The Philippine Star 11/09/2004

Unbeaten Cheradee Camacho continued to dish out awesome form as she
crushed Diana Baciu of Moldova Sunday to gain a share of third place
after five rounds of the World Youth Chess Championships at the Creta
Maris Hotel in Heraklio, Crete, Greece.

Ranked 20th in the girls’ 10-and-under category, Camacho marshaled
her white pieces to key squares, engaged her 12th seed rival to a
brief exchange in the middle game before essaying the big victory
that hiked her total to 4.5 points.

That was half-a-point behind third seed Mohana Priya of India and No.
4 Mary Arabidze of Georgia, who streaked to their fifth straight win
with victories over Melissa Greeff of South Africa and Nino Anakidze
of Georgia, respectively.

Chinese Xu Huahua, ranked 84th here, upended second seed Veronica
Foisor-Mihaela of Romania to share third place with Camacho.

Christy Bernales, meanwhile, disposed of Cubillos Ramirez of Colombia
to move to joint 20th with three points in the girls’ 12-and-under
division. She stood 1.5 points adrift of Irina Bulmaga of Moldova,
Zoi Iordanidou of Greece and Klaudia Kulon (ELO 1918) of Poland, who
tote identical 4.5 points.

Five other Filipino players drew their respective matches.

Jesus Alfonso Datu and Leo Daylo Jr. halved the point with Jure
Plaskan of Slovakia and Andrew Green of Scotland, respectively, in
the boys’ 14-and-under division but were too far behind the leaders
with only 1.5 points to show. IM Ildar Khairullin of Russia, Daniel
Ludwig of the USA and Lopez Ivan Salgado of Spain shared the lead
with identical 4.5 points.

Also settling for draws were Kimberly Jane Cunanan and Geneline De
Ramos in the 14-and-under and 18-and-under classes, respectively, and
Jayveelyn Fronda in the 18-and-under category.

Wesley So suffered his second straight setback, losing to FM Eltaj
Safarli of Azerbaijan in the boys’ 12-and-under class while Prince
Mark Aquino bowed to Davit Shahinyan of Armenia in the boys’
10-and-under category. Julius Joseph De Ramos also succumbed to FM
Tiberiu Manescu of Romania in the 18-and-under division.