Professional Career

Yap tied for second and third place behind champion Wesley So in the 2007 National Junior Chess Championship.  So, who now plays for the United States and reached as high as number two in the world rankings, has been unsuccessful against Yap, losing their three personal encounters.

His IM title was confirmed during the FIDE Presidential Board meeting in Istanbul, Turkey in March 2009.

Yap won an individual gold medal as the top Board 2 player in the 2014 Asian Club Team Chess League in Al Ain, UAE. His performance helped Tagaytay Chess Club capture the silver medal. He defeated three grandmasters in the tournament, Krishnan Sasikiran (rated 2669), Reefat Bin-Sattar (2449) and Petr Kostenko (2484),^[10] for a 2679 performance rating.

Yap earned his first chess grandmaster norm after placing second in the Berkeley Chess School 2018 Summer IM/GM Norm Tournament in Berkeley, California.