I don't know why

I don’t know why I love chess so much, even if chess doesn’t love me back.

I don’t know why I love chess pieces, even if the King orders the imprisonment of my passion, even if the Queen betrays my expectations, even if the Rook becomes the tower of my defeat, even if the Bishop leads me to sin, even if the Knight thrusts my heart to disillusion, and even if the Pawn doesn’t promote my stature.

I don’t know why I see checkered squares of dark and light colors whenever I thread my way to work and home, whenever I stare at the ceiling when in bed, whenever I walk on tiled floors, whenever I glance at tiled walls.

I don’t know why I see chess moves whenever I watch war movies, whenever Pacquiao wields his power, might and grace in the ring, whenever I watch political tactics in the country, whenever I plan my work in the office and even the chores at home.

I don’t know why I want to say “Sicilian Dragon” whenever I buy medicine in a drugstore.

I don’t know why I think of “en passant” whenever I jostle my way in a heavily populated place.

I don’t know why I think of capturing chess pieces whenever I consume my food on the table, and say “checkmate” after consuming all what’s on the plate.

I don’t know why I say “checkmate” whenever I am going to be summoned by my wife for going home late at night because of playing chess outside.

Ah, the Queen. I don’t know why I think of its power whenever my wife wields her power over me, a lowly pawn.

I really don’t know why I love chess so much. How I wish for the moment when chess would learn to love me back . . .

1st Edang Rapid Chess Tournament (Additional photos)

(TOP PHOTO): The future in chess of Pasay City, Renn Eldriege A. Villar receives the champion's trophy after winning the kiddies category of the 1st Edang Rapid Chess Tournament.)

(MIDDLE PHOTO): John Paul A. Peña receives the 4th runner-up trophy from Pastor Larry for the juniors category.

1st Edang Rapid Chess Tournament

(TOP PHOTO): Rev. Larry S. Teodoro, or simply "Pastor Larry" to his friends and constituents (in white shirt without a cap), eagerly administers the 1st Edang Chess Rapid Tournament held beside the barangay hall of Brgy. 154 Zone 16 in Pasay City last May 24. Notably, young participants, who attend Pastor Larry's free chess clinics using GM Susan Polgar's chess lessons, outnumbered adult participants. Being the culmination of Pastor Larry's chess clinics for the summer vacation, the event was staged in coordination with members of the Malibay Chess Club.

(MIDDLE PHOTO): Sammy Canapit receives the champion's trophy after topping the adult's category. Sammy scored 6 points out of possible 7 to capture the title.

(BOTTOM PHOTO): Winners in the junioor category show off their trophies (with Pastor Larry). They are Ivan F. Porteza (champion), Bryan C. Nofies (1st runner-up), Bryan L. Cornelio (2nd runner-up), Gerald Belarmino (3rd runner-up), and Manerl Estiller (4th runner-up).

The Bible and Chess

Today I was able to read a passage in the Holy Scripture which says: “I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.”- 1 Corinthians 1:10

Although this particular passage is about “Divisions in the Church,” a moment of serene reflection will lead us to thinking of its application in any organization such as a chess club.

All I want to say is that let us be guided by a true spirit of kindness and understanding in fostering enlightened brotherhood among us.

Peace . . .

The Lawyer and The Pastor

Some members of the Malibay Chess Club (MCC) pose with the two kind souls - the one being a lawyer and the other being a pastor - who selflessly lend a helping hand in pushing the MCC forward.

One is "Attorney" ( the eldest one in blue shirt) and the other one is "Pastor" (in green shirt). Believe it or not, most of the club members do not now the first names, last names, or even nicknames of these two benefactors. But they are always there to support MCC members.

Their assistance is no small time. Imagine, they have sponsored MCC members' participation in several chess tournaments in different parts of Metro Manila. They shoulder for the transportation expenses, meals, and tournament fees - without expecting something in return!!! Where in the world can you find people like them?

To "Attorney" and "Pastor," THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!! We hope you don't fade in your desire to help us . . . God Bless!!!

Wizard chess

As they say, life and chess have a lot of similarities. The main point is that chess can be applied in understanding life complexities. With this point of view, I would like to share an article that came out in the Youngblood section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Although written by a very young lady, the article provides interesting ideas to ponder on. Please read . . .


Youngblood
"Wizard chess"
By Miraflor CastorPhilippine Daily InquirerFirst Posted 01:54:00 05/17/2008


If you’re familiar with Harry Potter, you would know wizard chess. It is actually the plain old chess game, with a twist: The pieces are destroyed once they’re “eaten” by the opponent.

I cannot help but compare wizard chess with today’s politics. Of course, politics requires a lot of strategy like chess. If you don’t strategize, you’ll definitely lose. Politicians think hard before making any move, that’s how it is supposed to be. They think hard how to project themselves in front of people. Say, the looks—should it be “pangmasa” like Erap (Joseph Estrada) and the Guy (Ramon Magsaysay). And there are lots of decisions that have to be made, all about strategy.

One wrong move and you could be checkmated by the opponent, and that’s what every player is waiting for, the other side’s wrong move.

Now, let’s take President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as an example. To be sure, the opposition has been waiting for her to make a wrong move. Let’s admit it, she’s been making a series of wrong moves these past years: Jose Pidal, “Hello, Garci,” Macapagal “Highway” robbery, and the ZTE national broadband network (NBN) deal, to name a few. Now, it appears that she’s prone to always put herself in trouble; this is what we call bad strategy on her part.

On the other hand, every time it looks like the opposition has the upper hand, the President seems to always counter with a Plan B, which enables her to stay in her position—and this has been so for quite a time.

In every set, the players must sacrifice some pieces—the rook so that they can check the opponent’s king, or the bishop so they can get into a position where they can eat the opposing queen. In politics, you’ll have to sacrifice the privacy you yearn for, the friend who doesn’t believe what you believe, the ordinary life you once have, and if worst comes to worst, your dignity and morality.

In chess, sometimes, you have to sacrifice one, two or all eight pawns so that a higher official can penetrate the opponents’ territory. That is very risky, but players do that just the same. In politics, the pawns may be the people rallying in the streets, the village council captains, campaign supporters, and so on. But there are times that higher officials—like the rook, bishop or the knight in chess—will also have to be sacrificed. Like the President did with Virgilio Garcillano, or Jose de Venecia, or Benjamin Abalos. Who knows what the next move is? We might yet be shocked by how this set ends.

The opposition also has made some sacrifices, and a recent major one is the ZTE-NBN deal whistleblower Jun Lozada. The opposition has put Lozada on the front line, a bait in this game. The other side has an option: to destroy Lozada, the opposition loses a knight but gains the upper hand in the game; or to keep on defending, putting up one defense after another until her other officials get to penetrate the opposition’s defenses for a checkmate.

In wizard chess, the contending players destroy each other’s pieces in a very brutal way. That is what makes it so much like today’s politics. Ninoy Aquino was assassinated, and Jonas Burgos and other many activists are still missing, even as some have been found again—but dead. Many other political murders and disappearances have not really made it to the public consciousness.
In wizard chess, once a piece is destroyed, it is irretrievable. That’s worse than the “touch move” rule in chess. All that the players can do is to go on with the game, think a little more ahead than their opponent and strategize even more.

Now comes the exciting part, the twist. It is not the king that we need to trap or to checkmate, it is the queen. It is hard to trap the king because, although he only moves one square or tile at a time, he is surrounded by all the other pieces in the game. But even harder is to catch the queen because she literally has all the moves of the game. And so it is easy for her to escape the opponent’s traps. So it is difficult to checkmate her. And this makes the game a lot more challenging.

In the game of contemporary politics, many doubt if the opposition can win the set currently in play. The game has been playing for eight long years. The king is not really doing much but he is contributing his share of bad moves. But then again, who knows what is in the administration’s mind? Remember, the administration always has a Plan B.

Many pieces have been sacrificed, many bad moves have been made and the set is drawing to an end. Only few pieces are on the chessboard and both contestants are playing cautiously not to lose.

Sadly, there are no “16 moves” rule in this game, so no player can force a draw. It’s a win-or-lose game. It dictates that the game can end only when a winner emerges and the loser falls. So it must be that after blood has been shed and all strategies have been played, the queen either is off her throne (checkmated) or remains standing (winner).

Either way, a new set of wizard chess begins.

(Miraflor Castor, 18, is a graduate of Bachelor of Science in Development Communication, Batch 2007, University of the Philippines, Los Baños.)

Message from the President

(NOTE: To all Malibay Chess Club (MCC) members, what follows is a message from Greg. Please read and spread the message, thanks.)



Pre kung may problem, guys eto contact details ko..

wong.greg.g@gmail.com
greg.wong@yahoo.com

mobile number 090630496621
peso per text...

guys kunin ko sana emails nyo para may communication tayo

thanks...

Introducing the man a.k.a. Bragimov

Malibay Chess Club's Alex Imperial (a.k.a Bragimov) drew the respect and admiration of his fellow MCC members after posting a perfect score (3/3) in a friendly mini-chess team tournament held over the weekend in Tanyag, Taguig.

Manning Board 2, he unleashed his intellectual prowess by downing all his opponents in succession and therefore was awarded a medal for his accomplishments.

Well done, Alex! Keep up the good work!

Start 'em young!

This boy is starting to learn the basics of chess. May he fall in love with this sport, learn more, grow, and have fun in the game of kings.

Volunteerism

It’s really a good thing to note that there are people who are more than generous to provide “something special” for the advancement of a good cause.

We have a member who donated a digital chess clock and who promised to shoulder half of the amount of our expenses in our Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) application.

We have a member who committed to chip in P500 for our SEC registration.

The future of the Malibay Chess Club holds promising as long as we have people who are very much willing to help the club, in whatever way, achieve its full potential as an organization of – volunteers.

SEC, here we come!

Angelo Berico, (a.k.a. ELO to his fellow club members) stands in front of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after securing some SEC forms and inquiring about the necessary initial steps on how to register the Malibay Chess Club (MCC) with the commission.

With the selfless efforts from all MCC members, the quest to formally establish a legal and binding organization is within reach.

A step forward

No matter how small, a simple step forward could lay the strong foundation of something grand.

It is very interesting and fulfilling to find out that there are individuals who converge to exchange ideas and come up with a unified view to advance the spirit of brotherhood and camaraderie.

We are proud indeed to announce that we have started to bring together our dreams and expectations by forming a formal organization – no matter how simple and small – that will lead us to better understanding and sticker bonding. More importantly, we have come to a point where we laid a clear vision and direction that we are to take in the future.

We, the MEMBERS of the MALIBAY CHESS CLUB, are taking a little step forward to start a new chapter of our lives. May we succeed in this endeavor that we should all work for . . . God help us.

Chess-alai

Chess world is an ever evolving arena where a lot of changes take place. Not only chess move variations, novelties, star players, and chess technology do change and develop but also the language commonly used and understood only among chess warriors. Chess players have come to develop a world of their own – or more specifically, a word of their own – that makes the chess world more dynamic and interesting.

At the Malibay Chess Club (MCC), the world “chess-alai,” I guess, is the most favorite and commonly used word everyday. And what does “chess-alai” mean?

“Chess-alai” is defined as a format of a chess play where a small group of chess players engage in a winner-takes-all chess mini-tournament, usually using the blitz system. Unlike the round-robin format where all players have a chance to compete against all the other players, the “chess-alai” system is more of, but not exactly, a knock-out system where the player who first accumulates the agreed number of won games wins. For instance, in a group of five players, whoever accumulates 5 victories will win the “chess-alai.” However, if a certain player is able to win 4 games in succession, meaning he beats all the other participating players in a row, then he already wins the “chess-alai.”

As mentioned above, it’s more of, but not exactly, a knock-out system. In a “chess-alai,” the change-the-loser format is used. Once a player loses a match, another player will play, and so on. The winner stays and the loser goes. Turns of who plays next will be in order. Whoever first accumulates the agreed number of wins will take the “prize.”

The prize is the pooled money that each participating player wages. At the MCC, bet is usually Php5.00. So if there are five players who participate in a “chess-alai,” the winner will take home all the pooled Php25.00.

But for most of the MCC players, it’s not really the money that counts. It’s the pleasure, the excitement, the passion, the brotherhood that chess brings into their lives.

"Time Out"

I can't help sharing this column written by Conrado de Quiros in the April 21, 2008 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. This is a must-read for all chess-loving people, and how I wish that this column englighten the minds of our national political leaders. Please read . . .

There's The Rub
"Time out"
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:51:00 04/20/2008

MANILA, Philippines - It’s not really that we don’t have alternatives, it’s simply that for the strangest reasons we somehow cannot see them. This time around though I don’t mean that in the political sense, I mean that in the sports sense.

Case in point is the Dubai Chess Open that ended early last week. That tournament drew a fairly tough field: 131 contestants from 25 countries and a score of grandmasters. For a couple of weeks, the gladiators battled it out on the board—if you’ve ever played the game, you know that isn’t an exaggeration, even if, or precisely because, the gladiatorial combat takes place in the mind. When the smoke cleared, a champion emerged. That champion was a Filipino. His name is Wesley So.

At first blush his feat might not rank along with Eugene Torre becoming the first-ever Asian grandmaster in 1973 or Torre beating then reigning world champion Anatoly Karpov in a game when he came here in 1976. But that is only at first blush. At second blush, it is an astonishing accomplishment. That’s so because Wesley So is 14 years old! He is the seventh youngest person in the world to have earned a GM norm. He is currently the world’s youngest grandmaster.
So why aren’t we jumping for joy? Why aren’t we dancing in the streets? You tell me.

We have in our midst a chess phenomenon, someone who doesn’t just have world-class potential—that potential has already unraveled—but vast possibilities. What So can do over the next few years with a little help from his friends, well, the world is there for the taking. It’s the little help from his friends that’s problematic.

I read and saw the item about his Dubai victory in the papers and TV last week, but it was only one of several sports stories. For the next couple of days after that, I looked for follow-up stories, for some sidelights about the tournament, for some interviews from him, for some peeks into his personal life, but ... nothing.

When Manny Pacquiao wins over even obscure opponents, it gets front-page treatment in newspapers or lands among the top stories on TV. It gets to run for days, the public regaled with every detail from the ads on his shorts to what he ate before the fight. On the occasion that he fights abroad, he comes home to a welcoming parade and confetti. Legislators propose to add to his already fat purse and even cite him for heroism. The youngest GM in the world wins a major international tournament and he comes home only to the welcoming embrace of his family and friends.

There are only three sports we have achieved world-class status in. Those are boxing, billiards and chess. We have Pacquaio and Flash Elorde in boxing, Pacquiao being arguably the more illustrious. As a friend said, he must be the most hated person in all of Mexico. We have Bata Reyes and Django Bustamante in billiards. Though Reyes’ game has dipped over the last several years, he still commands awe and fondness when he plays. And we have Torre and now So in chess. Unfortunately for chess, only boxing and billiards have gotten the attention and support they deserve.

Public officials troop all the way to Las Vegas to boost Pacquiao’s morale (and income). Several private groups and individuals are backing our billiards bets and provide them if not with kingly accommodations at least with commodious ones when they compete abroad. Chess players have to beg for their fare money and make do with barely livable lodgings. Half the time they’re freezing their butts off while pushing wood in the cold countries where chess as much as football sets people afire.

Surely we can throw some help their way? Just divert a portion of the money given to basketball to chess and it’ll go a long way. Hell, forget a portion, give it all to chess. It’s the better investment. We have not, and we will never, get anywhere in basketball, we will only offer the spectacle of self-flagellation. But we have managed to secure a niche in world chess, and can enlarge it. In basketball, height is might, in chess brain is grain, even if that sounds pilit. We do not have the height, but we have the brain. Or at least some of us do.

It’s simply not true that chess is far too esoteric a game to turn into a national pastime, which is the only way we can develop a pool from which to draw future talents. It did become so, or nearly so, in the 1970s as a result of the exploits of Bobby Fischer, who captured our imagination, and later Torre. And it got some support from government, Marcos being anxious to limn the rust of his tin-pot rule with the glitter of the Royal Game. We even had TV shows that featured analyses of tournaments. By the end of the decade, however, both government and the private sector turned their attention to basketball, which had become exceedingly popular. And chess fell back into obscurity.

That our chess players have risen to these heights amid the greatest adversity, it’s a lesson in heroism. Life will never checkmate them. But it’s a shame for us to allow this to continue. Surely we can give them the attention they deserve? Surely we can give them the accolade they’ve earned? Surely we can give them the support they need?

Between boxing, billiards and chess, it’s a no-brainer which sport can give this country more prestige. As one grandmaster said, evaluating the importance of chess: There are only two kinds of games—chess and all others. I doubt anyone will ever be remembered for saying, “There are only two kinds of Filipino passions—basketball and all others.”

The title of this column is “Time out,” but it should really be “Time in.” The shabby way we treat chess and chess players in this country says something more than our low sports IQ. Which is: Truly, we do not lack for accomplishments and alternatives, we just can’t seem to see them.

Start 'em young!

These two young kids try hands-on how it is like to play chess. Their chessmaniac father brought them to the Malibay Plaza gym (where this photo was taken) during a chess caravan held by the National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) not a long time ago, in an attempt to expose and eventually influence these two innocent minds to immerse, live and enjoy the exciting world of chess later in their lives.