18th National Youth Active Chess Championship (Batangas Leg)

BY: ANTHONY NAVARRO (Chess Windows Laguna correspondent)

The 18th National Youth Active Chess Championship, Batangas leg was successfully conducted July 17 to 18 at the SM Batangas City Activity Center. A total of 500 players once again participated in this biggest chess event in the Philippines with 138 boards in the Kiddies / U-14 Division and 112 boards in the Juniors / U-18 Division. Batangas players came in full force mainly from major schools University of Batangas and De La Salle-Lipa.

Laguna and NCR players also went to the event, with varsity players from FEU,San Sebastian, NU,Adamson,UST contesting the 3 qualifying slots in each Division.

In the Kiddies Division, FEU's Paul Robert Evangelista remained unscathed with 8.5 points in 9 rounds to clinch being the solo champion. NU's Felipe Magdalaga and LCBA Calamba's Christian Nanola had 8 points each to clinch the other 2 berths. Zambales' young lad Fortin made a great run having 7.5/8 but faltered in the final round showdown with Evangelista. San Pablo's Carl Angelo Perez didn't make it this time as he was derailed in the 7th round by NU's Fuerte, but bounced back to finish with 7.5 points for 4th place. Calamba's Michelle Yaon achieved a milestone by finishing highest in her young career also with 7.5 points for 5th place, aside from garnering the top female award. She did this by scoring 4/4 on the 2nd day of competition punctuated with a final round win vs Rizal's John Margarito, after a 5th round loss to LCIS' De Mesa.

In the Juniors Division, San Sebastian's Kristian Paulo Cristobal was also unbeaten with 7.5 pts in 8 rounds to become solo champion. Teammate Jayson Mercado completed a 1-2 finish bu garnering the highest tiebreak at 7 pts, followed by FEU's Alfred Rapanot.

Also with 7 points were FEU's Jeremiah Alfonso (4th place) and Tanauan's Gladys Romero (5th place) who also garnered the top female award. John Bongon also finished with 7 points after a final round win vs DLSL's John Zacarias.

Other Laguna hopefuls made a good account of themselves :

KIDDIES

Name	Town	Point	Ranking
Jhoemar Mendiogarin	Calamba	7.0	8th
Vladimir Gonzales	Calamba	6.5	25th
Kenneth Flores	Pagsanjan / NU	6.5	26th
Shania Mae Mendoza	Santa Rosa / IMS	6.0	32nd
Eric Robert Yap	Siniloan	6.0	36th
Jasper Marce	Santa Rosa	6.0	38th
Harold Elago	Calamba	5.5	61st
Christian Michael Navarro	Binan	5.5	64th
Daniel Vincent Navarro	Binan	5.0	93rd
Kimberly Gacusan	Calamba	4.0	161st

JUNIORS

Name	School	Points	Ranking
Bryan Cyril Martinez	Letran Calamba	6.5	9th
Kelly Rancap	Perpetual Binan	6.5	10th
Apollo Agapay	Perptual Binan	6.0	22nd
Chsitian Paul Florin	LCBA Calamba	5.5	29th
John Dick Tambo	Letran Calamba	5.0	66th
Arvie Tombo	Perpetual Binan	4.5	72nd
Emil Jarlego	Letran Calamba	4.5 (4.0)

Calamba also had over 40 entries mainly from LCBA. Major Laguna schools like Letran Calamba and Perpetual Binan also had representatives, this augurs well for Laguna chess to have more exposure vs NCR-based players. May they continue to compete for their further chess development.

Good move!!

There's really the genius in GM Wesley So. Chess as a career is not all about winning games over the board. It's a whole package of sports, business, and entertainment rolled into one.

Wesley's supporters might get worried about his doing a simul exhibition before the start of the 2010 Biel International Chess Tournament in Switzerland where he demolished all the oppositions with a flawless display of 21-0 artistic tapestry. Don't worry, guys. Holding that simul was a winning move!! That simul would surely endear him more to the international chess community. It's one way of "packaging" a commercially bankable sports icon.

Simul results:

Name	Prename	Result
1	Pleiniger	Rudolf	1-0
2	Caracciolo	Jean-Marc	1-0
3	Haug	Siegmund	1-0
4	Achermann	Josef	1-0
5	Leuenberger	Marc	1-0
6	Krumm	Frank	1-0
7	Chervet	Oliver	1-0
8	Bigler	David	1-0
9	Baumann	Walter Senior	1-0
10	Baumann	Walter Junior	1-0
11	Burkhalter	Alfred	1-0
12	Cadetg	Leonhard	1-0
13	Stähli	Bernhard	1-0
14	Castagna	Renzo	1-0
15	Castagna	Rino	1-0
16	Jungo	Dimitri	1-0
17	Schmidt	Pavel	1-0
18	Ugolini	Mario	1-0
19	Zaugg	Paul	1-0
20	Bertola	Georges	1-0
21	Lluder	Walter	1-0

Photos sourced from Biel tournament's facebook page.

Asia’s best

BY: BOBBY ANG

(As published in Chess Piece, BusinessWorld, 16 July 2010)

Based on the latest ratings (as of July 1, 2010) released by the World Chess Federation (FIDE), the Philippines’ chess elite is now composed of:

Philippines’ Top 10. 1. GM Wesley So 2674; 2. GM Rogelio Antonio Jr 2575; 3. GM John Paul Gomez 2527; 4. GM Darwin Laylo 2522; 5. IM Rogelio Barcenilla 2518; 6. IM Roland Salvador 2498; 7. GM Eugenio Torre 2489; 8. GM Joseph Sanchez 2479; 9. GM Mark Paragua 2476; and 10. IM Julio Catalino Sadorra 2473

All eyes are on Wesley So, but one should not forget that GM Joey’s 2575 is also the highest rating that he has ever attained. Even in 1999, during his world championship campaign, 2555 was the highest he ever got.

If you compare the list above with the Philippine team to the 2010 Khanty-Mansiysk Olympiad (Wesley So, Rogelio Antonio, John Paul Gomez, Darwin Laylo, Eugenio Torre), you will notice that, save for Barcenilla (who is in the States) and Roland Salvador (in Europe), the composition of the team was derived from the top 5 players in the list.

Why is Barcenilla not yet listed as a GM? As far as I know one of his GM norms was scored in a local tournament with foreign GMs present. Problem is, the Philippine Chess Federation (PCF) which was the governing body of chess then in the country did not bother to send in the tournament crosstables to FIDE, so they are now having difficulty proving that he ever achieved that norm at all. I believe (or, more accurately, I hope) this is just a glitch and he will get the title soon.

Roland Salvador is really getting close to the GM title. He already has two GM norms (out of the three required) and his rating of 2498 is only two shy of the required 2500. Will he be our next GM? IM Ronald Dableo already has all the required GM norms, yet his rating of 2448 is well below the required 2500. Roland Salvador, on the other hand, has already missed the norm by half a point in at least three tournaments, so it appears that the wise money will be on Salvador to be a GM earlier.

Now let us look at the chess elite for Asia:

Asia’s Top 10

1. GM Viswanathan Anand IND 2800

2. GM Wang Hao CHN 2724

3. GM Wang Yue CHN 2716

4. GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov UZB 2699

5. GM Le Quang Liem VIE 2681

6. GM Krishnan Sasikiran IND 2679

7. GM Bu Xiangzhi CHN 2676

8. GM Wesley So PHI 2674

9. GM Zhou Jianchao CHN 2668

10. GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly IND 2655

The first Asian player to hit 2700 (in addition to that, the first and only to reach 2800) is the current world champion Viswanathan Anand. Kasimdzhanov, Sasikiran and Bu have also at one time or another exceeded 2700. The competition for the next Asian to breach the 2700-plateau is therefore between Wesley, Le Quang Liem, Zhou Jianchao and Ganguly.

Many years ago I thought that Vietnam’s Dao Thien Hai would develop to be a powerhouse in Asian chess because of his great tactical vision. I remember one incident during the 2000 Istanbul Olympiad -- Korchnoi and Ye Jiangchuan had just agreed to a draw and they came into the coffee shop, got a chessboard, and started analyzing. Immediately, of course, a crowd developed around the board to kibitz. Korchnoi is amazing in such situations -- every time someone puts in a suggestion he immediately flashes out 3 or 4 mozes to show what he will do against it. Suddenly with the moves flying all over the board a hand reached in, motioning for "stop" and hit the board with a devastating tactical shot. This stopped Korchnoi who, after a few seconds’ reflection, leaned back on his chair to look at the person who made the suggestion. Dao Thien Hai.

I think Dao Thien Hai got lazy, though, and in his place stepped in two of his countrymen, Le Quang Liem and Nguyen Ngoc Truongson. Vietnam placed 9th in the 2008 Dresden Olympiad because of the sterling play of the two, and remember that they also dominated the star-studded Aeroflot 2010 Open before Nguyen faded in the final rounds to allow Le Quang Liem to gain the crown.

You guys are going to hate me for saying this, but I think the wise money will be on Le Quang Liem to hit 2700 faster than anybody else in the Asian horizon. Le Quang knows his openings and can engage anybody in theoretical debates. The following game from the Vietnamese Championship will illustrate this point.

Le Quang Liem (2689) -- Nguyen Duc Hoa (2324) [D15]
ch-VIE Ho Chi Minh City VIE (8), 30.03.2010
REQUIRES JAVA TO VIEW THE GAME

Asian Youth Games notes

BY: ANTHONY NAVARRO (Chess Windows Laguna Correspondent)

We were in the mood to do some summary via statistics per country as follows :

ELITE
In terms of champions, the performance per country were as follows :

COUNTRY	BOYS	GIRLS	TOTAL	CATEGORIES
China	3	1	4	U18 U16 U12 G8
India	1	2	3	U14 G18 G14
Vietnam	1	2	3	U8 G16 G12
Iran	1	0	1	U10
Mongolia	0	1	1	G10

CONTENDERS
In terms of top 5 finishers, this is a good indication of the volume of quality players that each country is coming up with through their respective programs or set-up:

COUNTRY	BOYS	GIRLS	TOTAL
India	12	11	23
China	7	7	14
Vietnam	1	5	6
Iran	4	2	6
Mongolia	1	2	3
Uzbekistan	3	1	4
Philippines	1	1	2
Kazhakstan	1	0	1
UAE	0	1	1

From the above breakdown, it is no surprise for the top 3 Asian powerhouses that we know to be India, China and Vietnam but we also noted Iran, Mongolia and Uzbekistan have their top players slugging it out too. The top 4 countries including Iran account for 49 out of the 60 contending players.

We already have a sense of it, but if we present it in terms of numbers, then we can realize HOW BIG is the gap, and if we continue to do the things we’re doing, then the gap will even get bigger !

Let’s have this SINK IN first, then I will follow with some ideas even with the current chess calendar we are having.

(NOTE: The 2010 Asian Youth Chess Championships was held in Beijing, China from July 9 to July 14, 2010, participated in by at least 14 countries.)

GM So is No.4 seed in Biel International Chess Festival

The battle has not even started yet, but the seeding alone speaks of an accomplishment already well done.

The country's No.1 player today, 16-year old GM Wesley So, is the No.4 seed in a FIDE Category 17 (2658 Elo points), all-GM, high-profile tournament.

For a politically fucked-up, and economically challenged third-world country whose people source their inspiration mostly from their sports heroes and barely from their political leaders, to see a self-made grandmaster in the company of world-class players already inspires a nation.

GM So is an inspiration, a very young hero who reminds us that indeed the Filipino can be among the world's best.

Over chessgames.com, the home of Barangay Wesley, we supporters of GM Wesley have this kind of fun to make a promise in relation to Wesley's campaign in Biel.

For the sake of fun, I have this forecast: GM Wesley to finish in Top 3. If my forecast does not hit the mark, then I would kill this blog . . . for good.

Ten Grandmasters, FIDE Category 17 (2658 Elo points). First round : 19th July 2010

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave France, 19 yo Elo 2723	Evgeny Tomashevsky Russia, 23 yo Elo 2708	Fabiano Caruana Italy, 17 yo Elo 2697	Wesley So Philippines, 16 yo Elo 2674	Anish Giri Netherlands, 16 yo Elo 2672
Dmitry Andreikin Russia, 20 yo Elo 2650	Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son Vietnam, 20 yo Elo 2617	David Howell England, 19 yo Elo 2616	Parimarjan Negi India, 17 yo Elo 2615	Maxim Rodhstein Israel, 21 yo Elo 2609

Photos from official website

Bersamina, Frayna deliver in 2010 Asian Youth Invitational Chess Championships

The country's youngest ever national junior champion Paulo Bersamina stamped his world-class talent once again in the international chess arena, this time by winning at least a bronze medal in the 2010 Asian Youth Invitational Chess Championships in Beijing China.

Bersamina, RP's back-to-back 12-Under prince, actually tied for second with Ghosh Diptayan of India with identical 7.0 points but slid to third overall in the Boys U12 category due to tie breaks. I'm not sure if Paulo would win a silver medal after tying for second (but he's already assured of a bronze medal anyway). Bersamina and Diptayan were only half a point off the eventual champion Wei Yi of China.

Paulo's admirable display of intelligence earned him the Asian Master title awarded by the Asian Chess Federation.

On the distaff side, Janelle Mae Frayna finished strongly in the Girls U14 division with 6.0 points to finish 4th overall. Janelle also win a medal for her notable performance, almost clinching the Asian Master title given only to Top 3 finishers. The event offered medals to Top 5 players of each category.

Here's the overall performance of the 10-player RP contingent that participated in the 2010 Asian Youth Invitational Chess Championships:

GIRLS
Jesca Docena (Girls U10)
29th place (3.0 points)

Shania Mae Mendoza (Girls U12)
20th place (4.0 points)

Janelle Mae Frayna (Girls U14)
4th place (6.0 points)

WFM Christy Lamiel Bernales (Girls U18)
12th place (5.0 points)

BOYS
Julius Gonzales (Boys U8)
8th place (5.0 points)

Haince Patrick de Leon (Boys U10)
18th place (5.0 points)

Paulo Bersamina (Boys U12)
3rd place (7.0 points)

Austin Jacob Literatus (Boys U14)
12th place (5.0 points)

Jan Nigel Galan (Boys U16)
18th place (4.0 points)

FM Haridas Pascua (Boys U18)
10th place (5.0 points)

FM Haridas Pascua, 10th in 2010 Asian Youth Invitational Chess Championships

FM Haridas Pascua (2358) finished 10th overall in the U18 category with 5.0 points after nine rounds of the just conluded 2010 Asian Youth Invitational Chess Championships which ran from July 9 to 14 in Beijing China.

Pascua, who essayed a +2-1=6 peformance, is part of the 10-player (previously reported 11) RP Team which participated in this international tourney.

As of this writing, only the final results in the U18 category were posted over chess-results. More reports to come.

Here's one of the only two (?) games played by Filipino players that were made available online.

Let's watch the Round 3 game played by Pascua against Li Hanbin (2317) of China, the eventual champion with 7.0 points.





FINAL RANKINGS (U18 CATEGORY)

Rk.		Name	FED	Rtg	Pts.
1		Li Hanbin	CHN	2317	7,0
2		Anwesh Upadhyaya	IND	2412	6,5
3	FM	Pour Ramezanali Amirreza	IRI	2314	6,5
4	IM	Debashis Das	IND	2411	6,0
5		Stany G.A.	IND	2334	6,0
6		Koohestani Sh.	IRI	2345	5,5
7	FM	Nguyen Van Hai	VIE	2275	5,0
8		Ohunov Bobur	UZB	2173	5,0
9	IM	Priyadharshan K.	IND	2369	5,0
10	FM	Pascua Haridas	PHI	2358	5,0
11		Faghirnavaz Ali	IRI	2262	5,0
12		Tan Weiliang	SIN	2148	5,0
13	FM	Chua Zheng Yuan Terry	SIN	2294	5,0
14		Zhang Shengyun	CHN	2106	4,5
15		Kazakov Konstantin	KAZ	2245	4,5
16	IM	Shyam Nikil P.	IND	2375	4,5
17		Tan Ken Wei	MAS	2000	4,5
18		Debashish Dutta	IND	2151	4,0
19		Sapaev Maksad	UZB	2166	4,0
20		Jambalnyambuu Purevdorj	MGL	0	4,0
21		Pi Jiamu	CHN	0	4,0
22		Peiris T.S.S.	SRI	2007	3,5
23		Saifuddin Muhd Izz	MAS	2017	3,5
24		Amarasena Kaveesha	SRI	1916	3,0
25		LI HUI	MAC	1972	3,0
26		Taalaybekov T	KGZ	0	3,0
27		Darambazar Barsaa	MGL	0	2,5
28		Lai Chaoji	CHN	0	1,0

Big chess events

There's still hope that the big chess events in the country previously scheduled by the National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) would still push through.

Based on the most recently released calendar of events by the NCFP, the 6th Prospero Pichay Jr. International Open will take place next month (August 20-28) at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium. Notice the venue? It's no longer the perennial Duty Free Shop. The new venue has the name "Ninoy Aquino."

Right after the 6th Pichay Cup, the 1st Florencio Campones Memorial International Open will be next (August 28 to September 5), as promised by FIDE presidential re-electionist Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, at the same venue. It's the Ninoy Aquino stadium, right.

Goodbye, PGMA Cup. I guess P-Noy Chess Cup is imperative, which is very much suited to the Ninoy Aquino stadium as its venue.

And who said the 1st Asian Battle of Grandmasters is gone? The NCFP included that much awaited event in the calendar (October 25 to November 3). But no longer at the Ninoy Aquino stadium this time. It will be held in Zambales.

At least, those events are included in the NCFP's new schedule. But with the manner the NCFP is handling its schedules these days, nobody could be sure that any of the events would really take place as scheduled, unless the chief arbiter actually says "Shake hands, time starts" at the venue.

And who knows, there might even be "very-special-events-in-between" those scheduled big tournaments. Watch out!!

Captains and coaches

BY: BOBBY ANG

(As published in Chess Piece, BusinessWorld, 12 July 2010)

Last Friday I wrote about GM Sergey Karjakin taking up Russian citizenship because, among other reasons, he wanted to move to Moscow where he was going to be coached by GM Yuri Dokhoian. Somebody asked me what was the big deal about the coach.

Well, GM Yuri Dokhoian is a big deal, being a highly regarded coach. The Russian Chess Federation recognizes his worth and has tied him into a contract which stipulates that he cannot coach non-Russians. Can you imagine that? Just so that he can train under Dokhoian Karjakin is willing to change his citizenship!

Another question, how does Dokhoian compare with Mark Dvoretsky?
Answer: They are different coaches for different kinds of people. Dvoretsky, whose official title is International Master, is easily GM strength (he quit the tournament circuit to concentrate on coaching) with a highly technical style. He works only with strong players and has a collection of 3, 000 positions arranged by theme that he will bring out for the students’ study and analysis, after which they will compare notes. And these are not easy positions.

Dvoretsky would be perfect for Wesley So, who has great talent and calculating ability but also a few technical defects.

For a player like Garry Kasparov though, Dvoretsky would not be ideal. Garry is a great player in all three phases of the game, and what he needs is an edge, perhaps a slight initiative gained from opening preparation. With this slight plus his energetic style and ability to muster all the dynamism from the position will be sufficient to bombard his opponent with pressure from all sides, forcing capitulation. He needs Dokhoian to study deeply his and his opponent’s opening repertoire and come up with schemes of play which will give full reign to Garry’s strengths.

Both IM Dvoretsky and GM Dokhoian are titled players, but even a non-master like Victor Kart has contributions. His playing ability might not be so high but he prepares his training material well and is credited with creating the Lvov chess school (Ukraine) in 1960. His pupils include famous names like GMs Alexander Beliavsky, Oleg Romanishin and Adrian Mikhalchishin who himself became a famous chess coach.

The value of a coach cannot be overestimated. World champions Tal (Koblents), Petrosian (Suetin), Spassky (Bondarevsky), Karpov (Furman) and Kasparov (at the beginning it was Nikitin) all credit their chess coaches with being pivotal influences in their chess careers.

For a chess team a coach and a captain are two different things, but because of finances the two functions have to be done by one person. This is because the Olympiad organizers will only shoulder the plane fare and accommodation of the players and one coach/captain.

But whereas in the Philippines the designation of captain is usually a junket position (not all the time, of course), in other countries, Russia for example, the position of captain of the team is very important as he has a large say in the composition of the team. In the ’90s up to Istanbul 2000 this role was fulfilled by Boris Postovsky, and although he was not a titled player he obviously knew very much how to run the team, leading it through a very successful decade even though the powerful Soviet Union team had dissolved into 15 smaller countries, and Russia had to compete for the gold against powerhouses like Ukraine, Armenia and Azerbaijan which previously were a part of them. As an official of the federation averred, "We don’t need a man who can teach such players as Svidler or Morozevich to play chess in seven days."

Problem is Postovsky migrated to the United States after 2000 and in his stead a former candidate for the world championship, GM Sergey Dolmatov was named captain/coach. He quarreled with the players and a lot of the blame for the failure of their star-studded teams to win the recent Olympiads was put on his shoulders. Now I see from the published Russian lineup that Dolmatov is no longer with the team and it is GM Evgeny Bareev’s turn as national coach. This is a very interesting development as previously Bareev had refused to work with anyone but children.

For the 2010 Khanty-Mansiysk Olympiad the National Chess Federation of the Phillippines has already announced our lineup:
1. Wesley So 2674
2. Rogelio Antonio, Jr 2575
3. John Paul Gomez 2527
4. Darwin Laylo 2522
5. Eugenio Torre 2489
Captain: Mayor Abraham Tolentino

Let us see how good we will do.

For our game today let me show you another fine Karjakin escape from the Poikovsky Karpov tournament, reported on last Friday. It also gives me a chance to update the reader on the current state of the French Winawer.

Karjakin, Sergey (2739) -- Sutovsky, Emil (2661) [C18]
11th Karpov Poikovsky RUS (11), 13.06.2010
REQUIRES JAVA TO VIEW THE GAME





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