The WR Bughouse Chess Open unfurls today at the MICE Center in Quezon City with over 100 foreign and local participants seeing action in the reprise of the inaugural event staged last June at the Grand Hyatt.

Known as transfer chess using a group of two to play, the one-day event will have a qualifying stage with the top 16 advancing to the knockout rounds where the eventual champion pockets P100,000 from the P620,000 total pot.

The second to third placers will go home with P70,000 and P50,000, respectively.

Aside from the podium finishers, the top 20 will also go home with a prize, the lowest at P5,000 with winners in the following categories — junior (U20), youth (U16), kiddie (U14), senior (50+), mixed, female, school and NCFP affiliated club — each pocketing P5,250.

Supporting the event are the NCFP, host city Mayor Joy Belmonte and Vice Mayor Gian Carlo Sotto and the city’s Sports Development Office and the Philippine Sports Commission.

Isaac Chiu and Janak Awwatramani of Deep Waters beat Grandmaster Andrew Tang and FIDE Master Richard Zheng of The Angry Birds to rule the first staging of the event that was also participated in by World No. 3 Hikaru Nakamura and organizing WR Chess founder Wadim Rosenstein.

Interestingly, Rosenstein, a multi-million organizer and sponsor of top notch players in chess, is one of the three who is running for president of FIDE, the sport’s world governing body, in polls set in September.