By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
The Iloilo Kisela Knights had a 1-1 game day split after falling to the Caloocan Loadmanna Knights and bounced back later against the Rizal Batch Towers during the 2021 Professional Chess Association of the Philippines (PCAP) San Miguel Corporation-Ayala Land Premier Association Cup playoffs.
Iloilo’s back-to-back match day winning streak was put to an end after facing a laser-focused Caloocan chess squad who defeated them, 13.5-7.5.
It was a tightly-contested blitz category as Iloilo and Caloocan figured in a 3.5 deadlock score with three winning boards and one draw apiece given to each team.
The Loadmanna Knights then began to pull away in the rapid category as the Kisela Knights managed to win only one playing board and two coming via way of draw to end their score with four and a total of 7.5 overall.
Eager to bounce back and avenge their loss, the Kisela Knights had a better performance against Rizal, 16-5.
The Kisela Knights finally broke out of their sluggish start and immediately took a commanding 6-1 lead in the first seven playing boards.
It was the same dominating result in the rapid category as Iloilo never lost a single playing board and moved on to crush the Batch Towers.
With the 1-1 split, the Kisela Knights are still at the no. 2 spot of the Southern division with 101.5 points.
