Thursday, October 24, 2013

Pestaño: Physically-challenged players

Chessmoso
Thursday, October 24, 2013

WHATEVER your status in life, do not be discouraged. Take note of the classic line, “I cried because I had no shoes until I saw one who had no feet.”
Physically challenged chess players fall into three classes--the blind,deaf and those with problems in their musculoskeletal system, some of whom are afflicted with Lou Gehrig disease. It is a disorder where one has difficulty moving and talking ,even breathing.
The International Braille Chess Association (IBCA) is an organization for blind or visually-impaired chess players. The IBCA was formed in 1948 by Reginald Walter Bonham. Today, it has over 50 member nations around the world. The IBCA hosts two major competitions: the Blind Chess Olympiad and the Blind Team World Cup.
The International Committee on Silent Chess (ICSC) was founded in 1949 in Denmark. It organizes the World Individual tournaments for deaf men and women, team and continental championships.
Last Sept. 28, Fide president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov communicated in sign language in his opening remarks to 170 participants in the 15th ICSC Championship in Kazakhstan, which impressed his audience.
In the 2012 in Istanbul the blind placed 44th, the deaf 77th and the Physically disabled (IPCA) 93rd among 157 teams in the men’s division. In the women’s section, IPCA placed 67th, ICSC 85th and IBCA 90th among 127 teams.
A young boy who is making waves is Poland’s Lucasz Novak , who can only move his head
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Indonesia Open. GM Utut Adianto,the best player Indonesia has ever produced was elected senator in 2009, not a mean feat considering that Indonesia is not known as a chess playing country.
This should serve as an inspiration for our Eugene Torre that he is a sure bet to be a senator should he be interested, considering that the Philippines has one of the highest percentage of chess players in the world.
If movie actors and other celebrities, whose intelligence are the butt of jokes, can get elected, then Eugene, who is a legend not only here but worldwide, surely can.
In just its third edition, the Indonesia Open has already established itself as the premier international chess event in Southeast Asia and is one of the top tournaments in Asia with prizes totaling $100,000. I am sure that Adianto is mainly responsible for this.
Despite the presence of most of our top players, except Wesley So, our performance was a disaster. The best placer was Darwin Laylo at 25th and Oliver Barbosa at 28th.
Alexey Dreev snared the first prize of $20,000. Alexander Moiseenko was second and Nigel Short third. Antoaneta Stefanova won the women’s category, taking home $3,000.
One hundred and eight played, including 38 GMs and 21 IMs from Oct. 9-18.
Cepca. Maggi Dionson, Peterson Sia and Romy Pialan tied for first with four points in our monthly tournament at Handuraw Pizza Lahug but Maggi was declared winner via tiebreak.
Since Maggi and Peterson already qualified for the grand finals, Romy became the qualifier for October.
Maggi is a geodetic engineer, real estate broker and appraiser and PRC-accredited real estate reviewer, lecturer and speaker.
New members of the club are Jimmy Te, 27, a civil engineering graduate of Eastern Visayas University in Tacloban and like most Cepca members, started to play at a very young age.
Romy Pialan is a registered electrical engineer and also a chess trainer.
Mark Philip Caburubias is a licensed electronic engineer and a graduate of Eastern Visayas University. He is currently working at Lear Corporation in Mepza II as a Hardware Development Engineer.
Carlo Maraat is a CPA working at the Department of Budget and Management Region 7.
(boypestano@gmail.com,www.chessmoso.blogspot.com)

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