Arca shocks English GM, remains at the help in Bangkok chess tourney

Teen chess sensation Christian Gian Karlo Arca caught another big fish in English Grandmaster Stephen Gordon on Wednesday, April 16, to stay unscathed and in a share of the lead with two others after four rounds of the Bangkok Chess Club Open in Thailand. Teen chess sensation Christian Gian Karlo Arca caught another big fish in English Grandmaster Stephen Gordon on Wednesday, April 16, to stay unscathed and in a share of the lead with two others after four rounds of the Bangkok Chess Club Open in Thailand. The 16-year-old Panabo, Davao del Norte native pulled off a shock 40-move victory over the seventh-seeded Gordon in a Queen’s Gambit Declined duel to keep himself at the helm alongside Indian GM Babu Lalit and Indonesian International Master Arif Abdul Hafiz on perfect outputs of four points.

It also came just a day after he brought down another GM in top seed Jan Gustafsson of Germany. Arca will get another chance of enlisting another one in his growing collection of GM scalps as he was battling third pick Evgeny Romanov of Macedonia in the fifth round that was still being played as of this writing. It was one of the many upsets that occurred in the round as Filipino IMs Pau Bersamina and Michael Concio Jr.



both escaped with draws against GM rivals. Bersamina split the point with Romanov in 39 moves of a Sicilian duel via repetition while Concio halved the point with Indian Surya Shekhar Ganguly in 48 moves of a Two Knights Defense. Concio was tackling GM Tomas Kraus of the Czech Republic while Bersamina Wei Yuyang of China also in the fifth round.

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