Good hopes

I've been detached from the chess world for a couple of days and missed my blogging. Just a lot of personal things to attend to. Anyway, seems like a few good things happened in the past few days.

I was really surprised upon learning that the young Filipino hope Stephen Rome Pangilinan (in photo, who I guess is just 7 years old?) was within the striking distance to win the 12-Under category in the just concluded Angpin Cup Age-Group Chess Championship.

Had we won in the last round against the eventual champion, RP's youngest ever national junior champion and the country's reigning 12-Under prince Paulo Bersamina, he could tie with Paulo and second placer Elijah Maliam for first with six points, and even possibly win the tournament on tiebreak points.

However, winning over Paulo was a tall order. In fact, Paulo demolished the field with an impressive 7/7 performance!! (Will write about Paulo's historic feat in the just concluded 11th ASEAN Age-Group in the next few days.)

But still, it was an impressive showing from Stephen who eventually settled for 6th spot overall with 5.0 points. Just imagine that this kid is only seven years old, and he's already banging heads with 12-year old players!!

I was also looking for another young Filipino hope Julius Gonzales (who is also seven years old?) in the list, only to find out that he didn't participate.

And what about this, a young girl mixing it out against the boys - and finished strongly. Shania Mae Mendoza, the wonder girl of Laguna, scored 5.5 points for solo third place.

Despite the problematic Philippine chess community, good things still abound. And the worst thing to happen is for these good hopes not to be nurtured.