Also competing at the nine-round tourney to be held at the Duty Free Fiesta Mall in Parañaque City are World Under-16 and Olympiad gold medalist GM Wesley So and top seed GM Murtas Kazhgaleyev of Kazakhstan

 

At stake are a finely-crafted top-place trophy and a total cash prize of $30,000 which was put up by the National Chess Federation of the Philippines in cooperation with Duty Free Philippines, Department of Tourism, Pilipinas Shell, Globe and Pagcor.

 

The competition will start after the tournament’s opening ceremony at 10 a.m. 

 

Aside from Torre and So, the other notable local participants are GM Mark Paragua, the second highest-rated Filipino player in the recent PGMA Cup; GMs Jayson Gonzales, Darwin Laylo and Buenaventura "Bong" Villamayor and GM-candidates Julio Catalino Sadorra and John Paul Gomez.

 

Sadorra and Gomez, who both narrowly missed GM norms in the PGMA Cup, will again go for it during the Pichay Cup.

 

Also entered are International masters (IM) Barlo Nadera, Ronald Bancod, Chito Garma, Ronald Dableo, Oliver Dimiking and Richard Bitoon; FM Adrian Pacis, NMs Emmanuel Senador, Mirabeau Maga, Rustum Tolentino; and World Youth campaigners Karl Victor Ochoa, Jan Emmanuel Garcia and Haridas Pascua.

 

Joining Kazhgaleyev are GMs Zhang Zhong of Singapore; Mikheil Mchdesvili of Georgia; Ehsan Ghaem Maghami of Iran; Konstantin Shanana and Marat Dzumaev of Uzbekistan; Zhou Weiqi and Wen Yang of China; Susanto Megaranto of Indonesia; Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, Dao Thien Hi and Nguyen Van Huy  of Vietnam.

 

Only GM Li Chao of China, who finished in a three-way tie for first place with Torre and Zhang in the PGMA Cup, is not participating. The highly-rated Chinese GM left for Beijing Saturday due to previous commitments.