OZAMIZ CITY — Ruelle Canino caught another big fish while Janelle Mae Frayna opted for a quick draw to remain in the title race after the sixth round of the 6th ASEAN Individual Chess Championships-Gov. Henry Oaminal Cup at the Asenso Misamis Occidental Resort and Aquamarine Park here.

Canino, a 17-year-old Woman FIDE Master and an Olympiad veteran who is the reigning national women’s champion, sustained her giant-slaying spree after she slew fifth seed Woman International Master Laysa Latifah of Indonesia in 36 moves of a Sicilian duel.

Frayna, the country’s first and only Woman Grandmaster to date, couldn’t find anything out of their Reti encounter and decided for a truce with WGM Hoang Thi Bao Tram in 26 moves.

Those results sent the two Filipinas in a five-player logjam at second spot with 4.5 points each, or just half a point behind solo leader IM Evgenija Ovod of Russia.

Also in that chase group were Hoang, Vietnamese WGM Nguyen Thi Mai Hung and another Russian in WIM Ekaterina Smirnova.

The eighth-seeded Ovod split the point with Vietnamese WGM Nguyen Thi Mai in 30 moves of a Queen’s Gambit Declined to hold sway at the helm in this nine-round meet sponsored by Misamis Occidental, backed by the Philippine Sports Commission and sanctioned by the National Chess Federation of the Philippines.

It was Canino’s masterful victory over the sixth-seeded Latifah that emerged the biggest of the round as she, playing black, pounced on an early blunder by the latter to go an exchange up and defended well enough in the end to preserve the win.

The Cagayan de Oro lass ended Latifah’s agony with a rook sacrifice on an empty space that will lead, if captured, into losing more materials including the 19-year-old Indonesian’s last strong piece — the queen.

In the open section, Filipino IMs Pau Bersamina and Christian Gian Karlo Arca preserved their energy and halved the point in just 18 moves of a Catalan to stay in a five-man jam at No. 3 with four points each.