(150) 4 PALAU PLAYERS AMONG TOP 10 OCEANIA OTHER PLAYERS

FIRST TIME IN THE TOP OCEANIA OTHER PLAYERS

Tito Cabuangan, left, and Roberto Hernandez debuted in the Top Oceania Other Players with a rating of 1814 and 1875 respectively.

(Photo by Joselito Marcos)

THE May-June 2012 issue of Australasian Chess magazine is now out. The cover story is the inaugural Guam International chess tournament held in February this year. Guam Chess Federation is the newest member of FIDE and of the Oceania Chess Confederation. The tournament was a FIDE-rated event and six of Guam's chess players obtained their international ratings that was published in the FIDE ratings list published in May 1. The event was jointly won by local player Efren Manuel and Australia's Leon Kempen.

In the meantime, two more Palau players debuted in the Top Oceania Other Players published in the Australasian Magazine. They are Roberto Hernandez and Tito Cabunagan, ranked 9th and 10th respectively.

The list also includes Cyril Tomas Montel Jr (ranked sixth) and Menandro Manuel (seventh). In all there are four out of 10 Palau players in the list.

Joselito Marcos of Papua New Guinea, a recent Palau visitor and joint winner of the 3rd Palau International Invitational is on second spot.

Fiji's Damien Norris is on top. Three of his countrymen, namely Manoj Kumar (fourth), Calvin Prasad (fifth) and Sanmogan Goundar (eighth), together with PNG's Helmut Marko (third) round up the top ten list.

On the distaff side, only Angie Parado and Karen Lee, both from Palau, are listed in Top Oceania Other Women Players.

Australasian Chess magazine is published bimonthly by FIDE master and international organizer Brian Jones who is the current president of Oceania Chess Confederation.

(Report by Joselito Marcos)