A tale of two cities

By Frank “Boy” Pestaño
Chessmoso

TAGAYTAY and Khanty-Mansyisk is the site of two major chess events this week. Tagaytay is the venue of the chess event in the Southeast Asian Games and Khanty-Mansyisk of the World Cup. The first was a major disaster for the Philippines while the latter had some consolation.

As I expected all along, Vietnam dominated all the events in both men and women, winning all the gold medals. It won the gold in the Men’s and Women’s standard team event and The Rapid team event for men. It also won all the Standard individual events in both men and women, Rapid and Blitz. In all formats, the Philippines was relegated to second place.

Individual gold winners were Nguyen Anh Dung in Men’s Blitz, Nguyen Quyn Anh in Women’s Blitz, Nguyen Ngoc Troungson in both Men’s Rapid and Standard.

Eugene Torre won the bronze in the Rapid Singles event, Oliver Dimakiling and Joey Antonio the silver and bronze in the Blitz event and Catherine Perena also the bronze in the Blitz event for women.

In the other side of the world in Siberia, our Mark Paragua had a respectable result in the World Cup.He won over Sergei Movsesian of Slovakia in the first round which was not expected as the Slovak had a higher rating of 50 Elo points. Eliminated in the first round were Dao Thein Hai of Vietnam and Utut Adianto of Indonesia.

To give you an idea of how strong this tournament is, Hikaru Nakamura, the reigning US champion and Andrei Volokitin, the top Junior player for this year, were eliminated in the first round.

In the second round, Mark was paired against Alexei Dreev of Russia, who is ranked almost 100 Elo points higher and the match went the full route before Mark lost in the tiebreak blitz.

Certainly it is a showing that Mark should not be ashamed of.

CEPCA GRAND FINALS. This Sunday, the Cebu Executives and Professionals Chess Association will hold its final tournament for this year as all the monthly winners will slug it out to determine the club’s champion for 2005. Venue is at the Stella Maris Seafarer’s Center and starts at 1 p.m.

This year’s finalists are Dante Arguelles (January), Jerry Rallos (February), Renato Casia (March),Richard Abangan (April), Fred Sandalo (May). Jongjong Melendes (June), Fabio Abucejo (July), Jun Olis (August), Ramon Pangilinan (September), Manny Manzanares ( October), and Vic Sepulveda (November).

The club’s adviser NM Bombi Aznar is seeded to the finals .

After the tournament, the Club will hold its induction of new officers for 2006 and Christmas party with Vice-Mayor Michael Rama as guest of honor and inducting officer.

CHESS PUZZLE. Solution to last week’s puzzle: Rxg3. There were 27 correct entries and after a raffle, the five winners are: Eduardo Sanchez, Felix Poloyapoy Jr., Irene Sia, Lim Chee Li and Florencio Ceniza.

Claim your P100 prepaid Globe cards each from Handuraw Café in Mabolo anytime in the afternoon up to 11 p.m.

Solve the following puzzle and win a P100 prepaid card from my sponsor, the Corporate and Regulatory of Globe Telecom through Jerome Yntig. There will be five winners. Text your name and key move to cell 0915-507-0286. Only Globe users can participate.