3 Caritas Don Bosco Chess Bets Advance from Binan's Palarong Pampurok

BY: ANTHONY NAVARRO (Chesswindows Laguna Correspondent)

After revising earlier plans for a 'cluster meet' separately for private and public schools of Binan, DepEd successfully conducted the Binan Palarong Pampurok (also dubbed as Dual Meet) last Sept 18 / Saturday. The opening was done at Binan's 'central' school at Binan Elementary School (BES) then each team proceeded to the assigned venue of their sports spread out in University of Perpetual Help , Collegio de San Agustin and BES.

It was Caritas Don Bosco's first time to fully compete, owing to previous concerns on the meets being conducted on weekdays to conflict with regular school activities, but thankfully the Dual Meet was scheduled on a weekend, and Caritas athletes were able to gauge their abilities versus Binan schools. It is also a prelude to Binan conducting its own qualifiers for next schoolyear, being a newly minted city.

For chess, the Elem Boys and Girls was done at the BES with Tournament Manager (TM) Gerry Morales handling the qualifiers. There were 16 contenders for Board 1 and 8 for Board 2 for the Boys, each player being a champion in his own right by virtue of their school's qualifiers or intramurals. Inspite of the usual challenges posed at the Cluster / District levels, it was conducted under a single knockout format scheme, with the finals being a Best-of-3 affair. After the smoke of battle, Caritas' Christian Michael Navarro emerged unscathed and swept Board 1 with 5 wins, including 2 at the finals. Likewise, teammate Tetsuo Otsuka Jr battled his way to 4 wins, including 2 in the finals vs a bet from South City Academy. It was also an opportunity to see first hand the chess level of Binan's elem boys, and understand what they would need if Binan is to re-emerge in Laguna chess.

In the High School Division, the TM was assisted by Perpetual's Cris Nero and Caritas' Vic Viernes and agreed to have the venue at Perpetual Help campus instead, and ironed out a 5 round format with double knockout. It was a more hotly contested affair as favorites like STCAA veterans South City (SCIA) Culili and Perpetual's Niko Minguez got the early lead. Niko was stalled with a draw from a bet of Binan Natl HS. Caritas' Jolo Lat's debut was surprisingly tough. He was quality up in the 4th round encounter with Culili but gave it up for what he thought to be a winning endgame position, instead it ended with a draw.

In the last round, it was a crucial battle between Caritas' Lat and Perpequal's Minguez. It was even in material but Lat sustained the initiative and ended up with a passed pawn at the queenside which keyed his victory. Jolo was ecstatic and jumped for joy after his victory. Caritas' Lat and SCIA's Culili both ended up with 4.5/5, but Jolo took Board 1 honors due to higher tiebreak.

Next competition will be what is dubbed as 'Triangular Meet', or equivalent of Unit Meet, which pits qualifiers of Binan,San Pedro and Cabuyao. This is expected to be scheduled this October. After this, qualifiers will compete in the Provincial Meet where they will meet the qualifiers from other Districts of Laguna, usually Sta Cruz and Los Banos have competitive bets here. Laguna Cities like Calamba,San Pablo and Santa Rosa have their own city-wide qualifiers, and all the bets will converge for the STCAA (Southern Tagalog Chess) which will be hosted by Rizal sometime in Jan or Feb 2011.