Magdalaga is the man

Lone Filipino bet Luffe Magdalaga (2050) dominated the recently concluded AmBank Chess Challenge 2010 which was held at Cititel Midvalley Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at the sideline of the 7th IGB Dato Arthur Tan Malaysia Open (DATMO) 2010.

Magdalaga scored 7.5 points after nine rounds to tie with No.3 seed Rupesh Kant (2159) of India but clinched the title with higher tiebreak points. Notably, he defeated No.2 seed Kumar Ravi (2182) of India in the penultimate round to put himself on top entering the final round.

Congratulations, Luffe! Luffeettttt!!!

By the way, only four Filipino bets participated in DATMO 2010. The country's leading grandmasters and titled players used to frequent DATMO in the previous years. In this year's edition of DATMO, however, the names of Philippine chess big guns were out of sight.

DATMO 2010 coincided with the holding of the 1st Campomanes Memorial Cup where the country's key players opted to join. The term 'opted' might be misplaced. I heard an observation that the leading Filipino players were 'required' to play in the 1st Campo Cup.

The hand of politics could possibly be in the air, too. Re-electionist FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was the prime mover behind the Campomanes Cup. The National Chess Federation of the Philippines supports the candidacy of Ilyumzhinov. The Malaysian Chess Federation, on the other hand, I believe, supports Ilyumzhinov's opponent, GM Anatoly Karpov.

Here are the four Pinoys who participated in DATMO 2010, and their performance:
Castellano Christopher
Udani Ian
Carlos Leonardo
Aquino Jr. Jose