Dream team? (part 2)

BY: BOBBY ANG

(As published in Chess Piece, 20 December 2010)

The die was cast -- the "Dream Team" was to be captained by the president of the Philippine Chess Federation and also Southwestern University head Matias "Bombi" Aznar III, with Mr. Florencio Campomanes as head of the delegation.

Remember the 5 P’s -- Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance. In 1974, our federation was very responsive to our needs.

Through the connections of Mr. Campomanes, the philanthropist Potenciano "Nanoy" Ilusorio, president of the Baguio Country Club, made available to the team his mansion near Mines View Park in Baguio City for a period of one month as training center. He also footed the bill for our expenses, even hiring a chef to properly attend to our culinary tastes. It was a beautiful place and afforded us an ideal venue for mental and physical preparation. Then the federation leased a cottage in La Union for one week to complete our conditioning.

IM Renato Naranja (in this 2008 photo, sourced from Flickr account of Ed Gaillard) had not played internationally since a good showing in the 1974 Palma de Mallorca Interzonal. Yes, this was the tournament which Bobby Fischer won 3.5 points ahead of second-placers Larsen and Geller, but it was also here when Nats took on the American Team single-handedly -- he defeated Reshevsky and Addison as well as had Fischer against the ropes.

Naranja, Renato -- Fischer, Robert James
[A35] Palma de Mallorca Interzonal (8), 19.11.1970 English Opening
REQUIRES JAVA




Flashback to the future -- Nats reminded me of the 1990 Manila Interzonals where I did not play well but against the Americans somehow I manage to defeat their delegation 2.5-0.5: wins against the reigning US Champion Stuart Rachels and Gata Kamsky, and a draw with Boris Gulko.

Anyway, Campo felt that Nat’s long absence from the board gave him the tendency of experimenting over the board and second-guessing his own moves, so Nats was sent to an international tournament in Nethanya to sharpen his reflexes.

One week before the start of the Olympiad the trio of Rudy Cardoso, Ramon Lontoc and Balinas went to Solingen, West Germany, to play double-round matches against a redoubtable team of grandmasters that included Robert Huebner, Ludek Pachmann, Hans Joachim Hecht and Alberic O’Kelly de Galway. After all, Lontoc, despite his long tournament chess career, had never played internationally and it was hoped that the event will throw off some of the stage fright that comes with the territory.

Glenn Bordonada and I went straight to the tournament site in Nice. As Campo later on recounted to me, he should have included Glenn in the warm-ups, as his opening round jitters cost us some valuable points later on. Once he warmed up though, Glenn became a madman with his queen sacrifices.

The Philippines was billeted at the Hotel Vendome on the corner of Rue Pastorelli and Rue Alberti. With us were the teams from Hong Kong, Singapore and Indonesia. Campo had something to say about the Asians being segregated from the other teams, but this was no problem for me. Indonesia and Hong Kong were captained by H.M. Hasan (an Indonesian with residence in Hong Kong), while Dr. Lim Kok Ann called the shots for Singapore, all of whom were no strangers to the Philippines. The Vendome therefore had a friendly and chummy atmosphere not present in the Hotel Frantel where most of the elite teams were quartered.

This sort of thing was important for a long-drawn tournament. You wouldn’t want to retire at night from an exhausting fight to a dark, unfriendly hotel. The two Meralco boys Naranja (Systems) and Bali (Legal) were also fellow-Negrenses, so they happily shared a room on the second floor. Rudy and Lontoc had their separate rooms, while Glenn and I bunked together on the ground floor, which also doubled as our conference and analysis rooms. Bombi Aznar was on the second floor, and Campo stayed in the fourth floor with Mr. Campomanes.

The games were played in the huge Palais des Expositions which had a synthetic floor called mateflex specially installed for players to pace around while waiting for their opponents to move. It was originally designed for all-year-round tennis but I found it to be easy on the feet. Don’t ask Nats or Bali about it, though -- I don’t think they even noticed the special flooring! Because of their habitual time pressure the two hardly ever got up from their seats in their games.

In the preliminaries we were assigned to Group 7, a rather hard one since there were five countries vying for the Finals Group A -- Bulgaria, Israel, France, Philippine and Indonesia. First place was conceded to Bulgaria, the other four will have to scramble for the remaining slot. There was no time for us to rest -- even though we were still jet-lagged and groggy from our respective long trips to the venue the quirks of the pairing system had assigned us against our three main rivals (France, then Indonesia, followed by Israel) for the second qualifying spot in the first three rounds!

Captain Aznar gave our "Dream Team" their marching orders -- top priority for the preliminary phase was to qualify for Group A. All title and norm aspirations have to be put on hold until we have fulfilled this goal, including fielding our "full force" team against unrateds.

The French team was an unknown quantity. Because they were the hosts much was expected of them, but when I asked Campo for some pointers he remarked that he did not know any of the players. This was a surprise for me -- for those of you who don’t know Campo, let me tell you that not knowing a player for him is rare, and not knowing all players from a certain team is unheard of. Even at this very early stage it was generally known that he was soon to become someone very important in FIDE -- he most certainly had all of the needed political skills.

Eight years later during the 1982 General Assembly Campo was elected President of FIDE. I would believe that a major factor for that was the campaign speech he made on the floor -- he actively courted the support of everybody of consequence in the General Assembly -- made eye contact with them, pronounced their names correctly, and addressed everybody in his own language. Really an awesome performance!

But I digress. I asked Campo why is it that he did not know anybody, and he replied that it seems the French had revamped their lineup and included young players for their team. Gone were the veterans Huguenot, Rossolimo, Bouteville and Muffang, and in their stead it was Macles, Todorcevic, Seret and Puhm who sat down to face the Philippines. We came away with a 2.5-1.5 victory, but it was not without some anxious moments.

The next day it was the Indonesians. After their long adjournments against the French, Nats and Bali were rested in favor of the two "rookies", Lontoc and Glenn. Both of them did not do so well, Lontoc ruined a winning game by moving at skittles pace. In the final position where they agreed a draw his opponent Suwuh was probably winning. Glenn lost badly due to his unfamiliarity with a new opening. He was previously a student of the Sicilian, but took up the Caro-Kann to solidify his style. This did not work against the razzle-dazzle of Monang Sinulingga. Rudy Cardoso and myself won and the Philippines had another 2.5-1.5 victory over a tough opponent.

Then it was the turn of the Israelis, and for me to face my first GM opponent, Vladimir Liberzon. Before Nice 1974 the Israeli colors were usually carried by Moshe Czerniak, Yosef Porath, Yair Kraidman and Shimon Kagan. However, 1974 saw a new trend, Soviet emigres started beefing up their team -- GM Vladimir Liberzon and IM Itchak Radashkovich were two very powerful additions. I knew I had my work cut out for me and indeed emerged from the opening with an inferior position, but with all the concentration I could muster managed to draw it.

Rudy Cardoso defeated Shimon Kagan on board 2, but Glenn Bordonada lost his second straight game, this time to Radashkovich who was in brilliant form. With 0/2 Glenn was benched for the remainder of the preliminaries, but anyway this gave him time to relax, do a bit of shopping and, a few days later, be fielded in the Finals with devastating effect.

We knew that Israel was disappointed to be held to a tie. However, 10 days later, when we started our giant-killing run, Shaul Hon, a Tel-Aviv journalist, had this to say in the Ma’Ariv daily: "the Philippine chess team is really a very strong team which deserves its place in Group A, and the Israel team is proud to have played a 2-all game encounter with them in the qualifying round."

Hey guys, would you like to read more about the Nice Olympiad? Let me know.