 California state champion and International Master Enrico Sevillano,topped the prestigious US Open held recently in Dallas,Texas. He tied for first place with former U.S. champion Alexander Shabalov of Pennsylvania and IM Rade Milovanovic of Texas by scoring 8 points our of 9 rounds.
Sevillano, who came in first out of a tiebreak, won convincingly in the last round against Chaitanya Vaidya playing black with the Queen's Indian. Vaidya, playing with the white pieces, upset GM Alex Yermolinsky in the penultimate round. In the middle game, Sevillano was able to grab an extra pawn without compensation. He exchanged his pieces to gain a decisive win in the end game with Vaidya resigning because of an unstoppable passed pawn.
GM Shabalov pounced on the inaccuarate continuations of IM Michael Mulyar, a former US Open co-champion who had a chance to draw in a Queen's Pawn opening. IM Rade Milovanovic of University of Texas at Dallas turned a piece sacrifice of IM Joseph Bradford to his advantage when he defended staunchly against a mate in the king side. All co-champions had black as their color, which made their last round victory quite significant.
Originally from the Philippines,Sevillano moved to the United States in 1995 and settled in Tehachapi, a mountainous area one and half hour north of Los Angeles. Sevillano was the Asian Junior Champion in 1986 and became a member of the Philippine Olympiad team in 1992. In preparation for this Olympiad, Sevillano studied two years in Baguio with the team under the supervision of GM Eugene Torre. Sevillano, whose current FIDE rating is 2505, has figured prominently in the United States in many chess tournaments, which included first in the US G-60 championship in Moab, Colorado, the 2007 California state champion title, and second behind GM Alex Yermolinsky in the 2007 American Open. Sevillano is one of the top players of Filipino descent, and is one of those responsible for building a solid reputation for Filipino chess players in the United States. Sevillano admittedly does not study the game by reading widely but prefers to play continuously in the internet and over the board tournaments.
Sevillano considers his game with IM Alvaro Bianco as one of his best games. In the game, Sevillano sacrificed his knight for an attack against Bianco's king. With a piece down, he was able to trap Bianco's king with his other more mobile pieces. Another pawn sacrifice enabled Sevillano's pieces to put Bianco's king in the middle of the board.
Other Filipinos who played in the tournament who showed a strong showing were Californian Joel Banawa and former US Open champ Anton Paolo del Mundo. Banawa tied for 5th with 7 pts. Del Mundo scored 6.5 and was on the top 20 in the field.
It is the third time in the 109 year history of the US Open that a Filipino finished first in the championship. The first Filipino was IM Ruben Rodriguez who was a co-winner in the 1973 edition and the second one was young Anton Paolo del Mundo, a software engineer in Virginia, who tied for first in the 2007 US Open championship.
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