tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18400203846498914292024-02-21T03:49:29.674+08:00ChessmosoThe online chess blog of Francisco "Boy" Pestano that contains chess articles also submitted to Cebu's daily newspaper, Sun Star.Tourism Cebu - See You in Cebu!http://www.blogger.com/profile/12373002256440601350noreply@blogger.comBlogger591125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-87970265274072637052016-07-08T18:42:00.000+08:002016-07-10T18:42:33.309+08:00Pestaño: Prelude to the world championship<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
THE Bilbao Chess Grand Slam Masters Final 2016 will be held on July 13 to 20, a week earlier than usual to assure the participation of the world’s current best players, especially the world champion , Magnus Carlsen.</div>
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The tournament is a double round robin featuring six players. The tournament regulations use the Sofia Chess Rules, which forbids agreed draws before 30 moves, and the “Bilbao” scoring system of 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss (though for ratings purposes, the traditional scoring method is used). A soundproofed and air-conditioned glass “cube” was constructed in Bilbao, Spain to house the tournament, allowing spectators to watch closely the players inside.</div>
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Aside from Carlsen, Wesley So, Sergey Karjakin, Anish Giri and Hikaru Nakamura have been invited by the organizers. The surprise sixth player is 16-year-old Chinese teenager, Wei Yei, though still far from the most select elite, he is considered by highly renowned chess specialists as the strongest candidate in the near future to dispute and even seize the world title from Magnus Carlsen.</div>
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Carlsen, in turn, is planning to become the best chess player in history.</div>
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It will be a major accomplishment though by Wei Yei if he does not finish in the cellar.</div>
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This tournament is unique because in November this year Carlsen and Karjakin will play for the World Championship in New York. So Bilbao can be considered a prelude to their encounter for the world championship as they will play two times. Thanks to this world exclusive encounter, Bilbao and its Grand Slam Masters Final is one of the top events in this year’s international chess calendar, along with the individual World Championship, the Olympiad in Baku and the Grand Chess Tour.</div>
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Wesley is the defending champion in this event and it will be interesting and exciting if he can repeat his performance last year.</div>
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Chess Olympiad. According to Fide President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov everything has been ready and the Baku Olympiad can be held right now. Ilyumzhinov said that the competition, which will be held on Sept. 1-14, will make history for the number of participating countries.</div>
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“Currently, a record number of applications have been received. I believe that all 178 countries will participate in the Olympiad. So, it will be second biggest competition after the Summer Olympic Games.”</div>
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Will Armenia participate? They are considered one of the contenders for the championship.</div>
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The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is an ethnic conflict between the Republic of Armenia and Azerbaijan over the self-declared Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, a region in Azerbaijan populated primarily by ethnic Armenians. The present conflict began in 1988 and escalated into a full-scale war in the early 1990s. Tensions and border skirmishes have continued in the region despite an official cease-fire signed in 1994.</div>
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The Philippines has just finished the 2016 Battle of GMs to determine its lineup both for men and women . Rogelio Antonio, Jayson Gonzales and Paolo Bersamina booked their tickets after finishing 1-2-3 in the elimination. They will be joined by the country’s highest rated player, who is presently based in the USA, Julio Catalino Sadorra. Eugene Torre will probably be the fifth player and maybe also the team captain of both men’s and women’s teams.</div>
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In the women’s division, Janelle Mae Frayna, Jan Jodilyn Fronda and Christy Lamiel Bernales earned their slots. Among those being considered for the final two berths are Bernadette Galas, Mikee Suede and Catherine Perena-Secopito.</div>
boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-63087865399288746792016-07-01T18:44:00.000+08:002016-07-10T20:12:20.217+08:00Pestaño: Chess computers better than humans<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
A LONG time ago I had a dinner date with GMs Eugene Torre and Jaime Sunye–Neto of Brazil. Eugene then was still considered the best player in Asia and Jaime was a mainstay on the Brazilian chess Olympiad team, and was at that time President of the Brazilian Chess Federation.</div>
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Jaime was one of the most influential persons in chess then and later ran for president in 1996. He assembled a powerful team and won the support of almost all of the chess-playing countries of Europe. Fide president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov exerted a lot of influence and pressure on the delegates especially from the Latin-American and African federations with the help of Singapore`s Ignatius Leong who held a lot of proxies. Jaime lost by 87 votes to 44.</div>
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As I recall, our main topic of discussion was chess in general all over the world ,Garry Kasparov and the increasing popularity of chess computers.</div>
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Going back, I was introduced to chess computers in the early 1980s while playing regularly at the Luneta on weekends and the earlier versions were easily beaten. However, sometime in the mid-80s a foreigner brought a portable chess computer to Luneta that was a revelation at that time. He challenged all the strong chess players then to play against the machine with a bet and won most of them.</div>
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In the 1982 North American Computer Chess Championship, Monroe Newborn predicted that a chess program could become world champion within five years; tournament director and International Master Michael Valvo predicted 10 years; Ken Thompson predicted it would take more than 20; and others predicted that it would never happen.</div>
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During our discussion, Eugene had the opinion that a computer will never be able to defeat the world champion, while Jaime said it will happen much sooner than later probably within a decade.</div>
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Garry Kasparov, in a 1996 match with IBM’s Deep Blue, lost his first game at tournament time controls in Deep Blue vs. Kasparov, 1996, Game 1. This game was, in fact, the first time a reigning world champion had lost to a computer using regular time controls. However, Kasparov regrouped to win three and draw two of the remaining five games of the match, for a convincing victory.</div>
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Deep Blue was then heavily upgraded to calculate up to 200 million positions per second , and played Kasparov again in May 1997. Deep Blue won Game six, therefore winning the six-game rematch 3½–2½ and becoming the first computer system to defeat a reigning world champion in a match under standard chess tournament time controls. Kasparov accused IBM of cheating and demanded a rematch. IBM refused and retired Deep Blue.</div>
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While world champion Magnus Carlsen is rated 2835, chess computers are now rated well over 3000. The top five are: 1.) Komodo (3340), the leading commercial program, was the undisputed champ of 2014 before being briefly eclipsed by the new version of Stockfish this year. Its developers then released Komodo 9, which is about 50 rating points better than its predecessor.</div>
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2. Stockfish (3318) and Komodo are easily the two strongest in chess history. The best thing about Stockfish is that it is completely free, open source, and cross-platform.3. Houdini (3277), a commercial engine, used to be the strongest in the world, and remains a very formidable chess program.</div>
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4. Fire ( 3229) In development since 2010 is another fast-riser in the world of computer chess. It gained 16 rating points in the CCRL pure list compared to its normal database rating, the most of any engine in the top 15.</div>
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5. Gull (3214)is the fifth-ranked of the world’s best chess programs.</div>
boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-27350767466984614892016-06-24T18:41:00.000+08:002016-07-10T18:41:16.975+08:00Pestaño: Chess memorial tournaments<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px; margin-bottom: 20px;">
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MEMORIAL tournaments are more common in chess unlike other sports. Almost every country has one and there are probably close to 100 worldwide. Here in Cebu, we have two—the Roger Abella and Loloy Ruelan memorial tournaments.</div>
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I am featuring only the major ones which have bigger prizes and attract mostly the international top players.</div>
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The Capablanca Memorial has been held annually in Cuba since 1962. José Raúl Capablanca (1888–1942) was a famous Cuban chess master who was World Champion from 1921 to 1927. The Capablanca Memorial became at that time the best paid tournament in the world. Since 1974 B and C tournaments have been held. The champion of the 2016 edition, which concluded the other day, s Vassily Ivanchuk .</div>
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The Rubinstein Memorial is held in Polanica-Zdrój, Poland in honor of the chess legend Akiba Rubinstein, who died in 1961 and the tournament had its first edition in 1963. The main tournament is usually a closed round-robin tournament, while the other side events are open Swiss system tournaments.</div>
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The Carl Schlechter Memorial Tournament is a competition initiated to honor the memory of the leading Austrian chess master Carl Schlechter (1874–1918), who died as a result of injuries suffered in the immediate aftermath of World War I.</div>
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The Torre Memorial commemorates Carlos Torre Repetto (1905–1978) and is played in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico. The first edition was played in 1987, and from a relatively weak tournament, it has now grown into a strong international tournament.</div>
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The Chigorin Memorial is held in honor of Mikhail Chigorin (1850–1908), founder of the Soviet Chess School and one of the leading players of his day. The first and most important edition was the one played in 1909 in St. Petersburg. Later on, the tournament was played in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. From 1993, the venue for the tournament returned to his hometown.</div>
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The Leopold Trebitsch Memorial Tournament was organized by the family of Austrian silk manufacturer Leopold Trebitsch. Twenty tournaments were played inVienna between 1907 and 1938. Leopold Trebitsch’s son, Oskar, made more funds available, enabling 11 additional competitions to be held until 1938, when Germany’s annexation of Austria ended the event.</div>
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The Max Euwe Memorial Tournament was played mainly in Amsterdam. The last edition of the memorial was held in 1996. It ended because the main sponsor Verenigde Spaarbank (VSB) lost interest.</div>
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The Paul Keres Memorial Tournament is played in honour of chess grandmaster Paul Keres (1916–1975) and usually takes place in Vancouver, Canada and Tallinn, Estonia. It is an annual international chess tournament that has been held in Tallinn every other year since 1969. Since 1999, this tournament also had a women’s section.</div>
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The Milan Vidmar Memorial commemorates Milan Vidmar (1885–1962), a leading Slovenian grandmaster. The first Vidmar Memorial was held in June 1969 in Ljubljana. In subsequent years, the tournament has been held in several different Slovenian cities.</div>
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LEUVEN TOUR. Magnus Carlsen was totally dominant in the Leuven Grand Chess Tour last June 17-20. The World Champion won the rapid part and easily overwhelmed the opposition in the blitz part, securing the title a couple of rounds in advance.</div>
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The race to second place was between Wesley So and the Armenian Levon Aronian. So’s “don’t lose any games” strategy seemed to pay off, as he bested the Armenian by half a point, collecting 10 grand chess tour points and $30,000.</div>
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So is now tied for the lead with Hikaru Nakamura in the Grand Chess Tour standings as Carlsen will not be playing in the St.Louis and London legs.</div>
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boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-38125539419879394532016-06-17T18:46:00.000+08:002016-07-10T18:46:53.770+08:00Pestaño: Accolades for Victor Korchnoi in memoriam<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
LAST June 6,Victor Korchnoi--born in Leningrad, Soviet Union on March 23, 1931--died at 85. He is considered the strongest player never to have become world champion.</div>
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Korchnoi was a candidate for the world championship on 10 occasions (1962, 1968, 1971, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1983, 1985, 1988 and 1991). He was also a four-time USSR champion, a five-time member of the Soviet team that won the European championship, and a six-time member of Soviet teams that won the Chess Olympiad.</div>
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He was at the very top of world chess for 30 years, winning games against all the world champions from Botvinnik and Fischer, to Kasparov and Carlsen. In 1965 he was rated no.1.</div>
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However, he became convinced he had to leave the Soviet Union after being banned from playing internationally.</div>
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In 1976 Korchnoi sought political asylum in the Netherlands; he later became a citizen of Switzerland. Korchnoi’s wife and son were refused exit visas until the mid-1980s, and his son was jailed shortly before the 1981 match with Karpov after attempting to emigrate.</div>
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In terms of chess longevity, he has few rivals. In January 2007, at 75, he was ranked No. 85 in the world — by far the oldest person to be ranked in the top 100 and taught a lesson to the rising star Fabiano Caruana at age 79. He was a winner of more than 220 tournaments, matches and team events.</div>
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He is famous for the quote “No chess grandmaster is normal; they only differ in the extent of their madness.”</div>
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The world championship match of 1978 against Anatoly Karpov was held in Baguio and I went there for a few days. There was enormous controversy off the board, ranging from the X-raying of chairs, protests about the flags used on the board, hypnotism complaints and the mirror glasses used by Korchnoi. When Karpov’s team sent him a bilberry yogurt during a game without any request for one by Karpov, the Korchnoi team protested, claiming it could be some kind of code.</div>
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Before the title match, Korchnoi indicated that if he could not play under the Swiss flag, he wanted a white flag marked “Stateless.” FIDE indicated that this would not violate any law. The Soviets also objected to the Swiss flag, but agreed to a white flag marked “Stateless.”</div>
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Korchnoi wore mirror sunglasses during the match. In an earlier match he had been bothered by Karpov’s habit of staring at his opponent, so in Baguio he wore the glasses to hide his eyes. Karpov also refused to shake with him -- ‘Never! Never will I shake hands with you!”</div>
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The winner was the first player to win six games, draws not counting. Karpov won the the match 6–5 with 21 draws.</div>
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Wesley So finished fourth overall in the prestigious 2016 Paris Grand Chess Tour rapid and blitz competition. He had a combined score of 19.5 points behind champion Hikaru Nakamura of US (25.5), runner-up Magnus Carlen of Norway (24.5) and third placer Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France (22). Nakamura bagged the $37,500 top purse; Carlsen got $30,000, while Vachier-Lagrave and So settled for $15,000 consolation prize.</div>
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In rapid, So had three wins and five draws with wins against against Carlsen in the first round, against Aronian in the fourth round and against Fressinet in the ninth round.</div>
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He posted three wins and 11 draws in the double-round robin blitz competition.He defeated Giri in the 11th round; Caruana in 12th and Kramnik in 18th then drew with Carlsen (first), Giri (second), Topalov (fourth and 13th), Vachier-Lagrave (fifth and 14th), Fressinet (sixth and 15th) and Aronian (seventh and 16th).</div>
boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-90091231861332562242016-06-10T18:48:00.000+08:002016-07-10T18:48:28.877+08:00Pestaño: Grand chess tour and Gashimov memorial Thursday, June 09, 2016<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
THE Grand Chess Tour is a series of four events where players earn grand tour points in accordance with their final rank in each event. At the conclusion of the tour, the top two players based on the standings shall be awarded tour prizes worth $1 million.</div>
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Nine of the current top 10 grandmasters will compete in the Tour, since Magnus Carlsen will only participate in the two blitz and rapid events in Paris and Leuven.</div>
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“It’s great news that the grand chess tour have expanded with two new tournaments in Paris and Brussels,” said Carlsen. “I’m looking forward to playing both. Unfortunately, due to a very busy schedule, I won’t be able to play in Saint Louis or London this year. Hopefully I will get a new chance to fight for the GCT title again next year.”</div>
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It’s understandable that he is not playing in the classical events as he is scheduled to play Sergey Karjakin, who is also not playing in the tour, in the World championship in New York in November. They will be observing each other moves as part of their preparation.</div>
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Like last year, the 10th player will be added as a wildcard each time. For the Sinquefield Cup in St Louis, that would be world No. 9 Ding Liren of China; the London Chess Classic hasn’t chosen a player yet.</div>
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The first leg is set to take place from June 9-12 at La Maison de la Chimie in Paris, France. The total prize fund is $150,000.</div>
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The Participants are Levon Aronian, Fabiano Caruana, Anish Giri, Vladimir Kramnik, Hikaru Nakamura, Wesley So, Veselin Topalov, Maxime-Vachier Lagrave, Magnus Carlsen, Laurent Fressinet.</div>
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One of the strongest tournaments this year was theThe Vugar Gashimov Memorial held in Shamkir, Azerbaijan from May 26 to June 4, 2016. It was held in memory of the great Vugar Gashimov, who passed away on Jan. 10, 2014.</div>
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The tournament featured 10 world-class players: Fabiano Caruana (2795), Anish Giri (2790), Sergey Karjakin (2779), Pavel Eljanov (2750), Pentala Harikrishna (2763), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (2750), Teimour Radjabov (2726), Eltaj Safarli (2664), Hou Yifan (2663) and Rauf Mamedov (2650).</div>
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Mamedyarv won the biggest strongest tournament of his career by defeating Giri in a superb rook endgame he played to perfection, right after beating Caruana in the previous round. In the playoff, he defeated Caruana and snatched the title.</div>
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Our lady journalist KC Morala sent in thie report.</div>
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“Check and mate: Richard Natividad came out on top in the 4th VMA Power Open Chess Tournament held at Robinsons Galleria Cebu last June 1-2. After overcoming Kim Yap in the last game of the seven-round tournament, Natividad finished with 6.5 points.</div>
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Second place Edsel Montoya also fought to a win against Kyle Sevillano and racked 6.5 points. A superior tiebreak output secured the champion trophy for Natividad.</div>
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Merben Roque and Ronald Ganzon both posted 6 points and took third and fourth places respectively.</div>
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Meanwhile, Airene Robillos claimed the top lady title with 4.5 points.</div>
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Battle of the brains: Yves Fiel held Richard Natividad to a draw and both finished even with 4.5 points in the 5-round Barangay Kalunasan Open Chess Tournament held at Kalunasan Barangay Hall last June.</div>
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Edsel Montoya and Merben Roque shared the third spot with 4 points.</div>
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Kyle Sevillano, a 17-year old Far Eastern University student, was the co-champion in a separate Juniors Category after sealing a draw with Ryan Pacres in the last round.Airene Robillos of the USJR Jaguars and USC Warrior Shaira Monsalud shared the top spot for the Ladies category.”</div>
boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-86556613170657432492016-06-03T18:49:00.000+08:002016-07-10T18:49:27.289+08:00Pestaño: Yifan gives up title due to disagreement with Fide<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
IT'S rather surprising that despite being in the limelight now for more than a decade, I have not written extensively about Hou Yifan, the current women champion. She is planning to give up her title because of disagreements with Fide.</div>
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Hou (born Feb. 27 1994) became the youngest player ever to participate in the FIDE women’s world championship (Yekaterinburg 2006) and the Chess Olympiad (Torino, 2006) at the age of 12.</div>
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At 14, she was the youngest female player ever to gain the title of grandmaster, beating Judit Polgar’s record in August 2008. In 2010, she became the youngest women’s world chess champion in history by winning the 2010 world championship in Hatay, Turkey at age 16.</div>
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She has won the title four times and is the reigning champion. They say that she will still be champion for the next 10 years. Now Hou Yifan, 100 points stronger than any of her colleagues, has abandoned the women’s championship cycle.</div>
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Hou says “I decided to drop out from WGP (Women Grand Prix) cycle after I received an unclear answer from Fide regarding the possibility of a change in the current women’s world championship system. I participated in all previous cycles since 2009, and the main reason in recent years was that the overall winner got the right to play the women’s world championship match. I didn’t think this was actually reasonable, but it was the only option I had. Now the situation is different. I do not see any point in taking part in the different stages only to be able to play in the WWCC, especially when the opponents usually are at least 100 points below me. For years now, I have expressed my deep dissatisfaction to FIDE about this, but they didn’t accept anything I said. So I won’t consider staying in a system with which I completely disagree.”</div>
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Hou is the third woman to be rated among the world’s top 100 players, after Judit Polgár and Maia Chiburdanidze. She is widely regarded as the best female chess player now, “leaps and bounds” ahead of her rivals.</div>
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The 2016 Asian Continental Chess Championships--Open and Women’s – is on-going from May 25 to June 5th at the Uzbekistan Hotel in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.</div>
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The top five players qualify for the 2017 World Cup, an integral part of the World Championship Cycle. The women’s champion qualifies for the Women’s World Championship.</div>
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I am mentioning this as there is no Filipino player entered both for men and women in this major tournament! There are 91 entered in the Open category and 35 for Women. I understand that hotel accommodation is free for at least one representative from each country. So what is going on? I was informed that the NCFP has a lot of problems.</div>
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Our lady journalist KC Morala sent in this report.</div>
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“Rogelio Enriquez, Jr. and Percival Fiel won last Sunday’s Cebu Executives and Professionals Chess Association (Cepca) monthly tournament held at Robinsons Galleria Cebu.</div>
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Enriquez tied with Yves Fiel for the top spot with 7.5 points in the 8-round Class A category, but a superior tiebreak score granted Enriquez the champion title.</div>
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Since both Enriquez and Fiel has qualified to the grand finals in December, third place Rosendo Yamyamin was named the month of May’s winning player for Class A.</div>
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Meanwhile, in Class B , Percival Fiel and Jerry Maratas tied at 4.5 points in the 5-round tournament for first and second places respectively, due to a better tiebreak.</div>
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Airene Robillos held Maratas to a draw and finished with 4 points, for a tie with Manuel Abucay, Richard Ouano and KC Morala.”</div>
boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-2480241661138755512016-05-27T18:51:00.000+08:002016-07-10T18:51:34.235+08:00Pestaño: Busy month for Cebu chess<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
IN a previous article, I reminded Cebuano players that they are quite lucky as there are plenty of tournaments here because of chess patrons Boojie Lim, Marvynne Guardiana and of course, Cepca. There are other sponsors as well.</div>
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We have three coming tournaments in just a week after the just concluded tournaments in Mabolo and Apas this month.</div>
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On May 29, Cepca will have a tournament for members, ladies as well as Kiddies at the Robinson’s Galleria at 1:30 p.m. Registration is P200 for members and P100 for ladies and kiddies.</div>
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The five-round tournament will have two categories--A and B. Class A players are selected members of Cepca and some of their children, while all ladies and kiddies will be playing in the B category with the other members. Prizes for Class A are P2,000, P1,000, and P500 for the top three and P2,500, P1,500 and P1,000, for the Class B.</div>
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This month’s sponsor is Cepca president Engr. Jerry Maratas.</div>
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On June 1 and 2, there will be the open 4th VBMA Power tournament also at Robinson sponsored by Cepca vice president Engr. Marvynne Guardiana. It will be a seven-round tournament and it will start at 1 p.m. On-site registration starts at 1030 a.m. on Wednesday. There will be P20,000 in prizes for the winners. Registration is P250.</div>
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On June 4 and 5, Barangay Kalunasan will hold an open tournament at the 4th floor of the Barangay hall starting at 9:30 a.m. for the open, ladies and kiddies division.</div>
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The results of the following tournaments, just concluded this month, was sent lady journalist and my favorite player, Keith Claire Morala.</div>
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“Mabolo. Chess players from all over Barangay Mabolo showed off their skills in the 2016 Barangay Mabolo Annual fiesta chess tournament at the Mabolo Elementary School Cultural Center last May 15.</div>
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Justin Misa and Alex Bayubay tied for top spot at six points apiece in the 7-round Swiss system competition. Misa brought home the champion trophy courtesy of a superior tiebreak.</div>
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Hector Villamora, Norvil Tagnipis, Duane Borgonia, and Edsel Vosotros finished in a four-way tie at 5.5 points respectively. Those who made the top 12 with 5.0 points each were Rodolfo Ang, Bonjoe Lanorias, Laila Nadera, Reshie Rolan, Christian Pondoyo and Alberto Rivera.</div>
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Rhenzi Kyle Sevillano was unmatched in the 2016 Barangay Apas Junior Chess Tournament held at the Brgy Apas Sports Complex last May 18. Sevillano racked six straight wins before settling for a draw in his last round with Aldritz Pondoyo, securing his solo top spot in the 7-round tournament.</div>
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Meanwhile, Edsel Vosotros posted five victories and a draw to seize second place. Ryan Pacres and Kirk Morala both wound up with five points but Pacrestook third place with a superior tiebreak score.</div>
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Reishi Polan and Pondoyo finished tied with 4.5, but Polan made top 5 since he won against Pondoyo in the fourth round.</div>
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Jeremy Bajo scored four points to nab the Top Female’s crown for the 17-under category, while Jasia Dorog took the 12-under Top Female title.</div>
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The top three finishers for 12-under category were Rolfred Lacanaria (4 points), Gyles Derotas (4), and Jave Peteros (3.5 ). Derotas was also hailed as the Top Apas Player.”</div>
boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-59093765312639074542016-05-20T18:52:00.000+08:002016-07-10T18:52:22.762+08:00Pestaño: No generation gap in chess<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
THE generation gap is common in all societies between one generation to another. It can be differences in customs, attitudes, beliefs ,opinions or sense of values between younger people and their parents or grandparents.</div>
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The sociological theory of a generation gap first came to light in the 1960s, when the younger generation (later known as Baby Boomers) seemed to go against everything their parents had previously believed in terms of music, values, governmental and political views. Usually, when any of these age groups is engaged in its primary activity, the individual members are physically isolated from people of other generations, with little interaction across age barriers except at the family level.</div>
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The gap is even more apparent now with the advent of technology such as cell phones and the internet.</div>
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There is only one activity I know that has no generation gap--the game of chess. Old people can play with younger people, even children and children can play with much older people and enjoy and interact with no sense of conflict and with no apparent advantage over the other.</div>
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This week, a grandparent was featured in my favorite website--an 89-year-old chess fanatic desperate for opponents who is now taking on student volunteers at the nursing home where he stays.</div>
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Here’s what <a href="http://www.abcnews.go.com/" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #e96e00; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;">www.abcnews.go.com</a> wrote: “Bill, who’s been an avid chess player for almost 70 years, posted a cardboard sign on the door to his room at Creasy Springs Health Campus in Lafayette, where he’s lived for three years. It read: “Anybody want to play chess?”</div>
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The plea broke the hearts of all who saw it, his daughter Trish said.</div>
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“It was just so sad,” she recalled. “I said, ‘Oh my gosh, how can I get him some chess players?’ I knew some schools have chess players or chess clubs.…”</div>
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Trish contacted Gloria Grigsby, the assistant principal at McCutcheon High School, from which Trish’s own kids graduated.</div>
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Grigsby told ABC News that six students were willing to play chess with Bill. Some of the teens belonged to the school’s board game club, some were from the National Honor Society.</div>
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Paige Vester, life enrichment director of the nursing home, said Bill had been having trouble finding chess opponents until the seniors at McCutcheon came along.</div>
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“It’s tough to find someone, especially in a long-term care facility, who has the ability to do those kinds of things,” Vester said. “I think these kids are really special and the fact that they get to visit with Bill ... it’s a special connection. [Bill’s] very talkative, very personable ... he’s hilarious.”</div>
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Now, every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the kids challenge Bill to games of chess.</div>
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“Not only do these students have high academic standing, but they’re involved in multiple activities,” Grigsby said. “To then continue to give up more of their time to volunteer, to me, is very heartwarming. We are very proud of them.”</div>
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Ryan Howard, 18, said he’s learning a thing or two from his new opponent.”I enjoy interacting with Bill,” Ryan said. “I have elderly grandparents that I don’t get to see much. Interacting with that generation is very meaningful for me. Bill enjoys the experience very much.”</div>
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Joshua Stalbaum, 18, also plays chess against Bill. “I feel like Bill really is very passionate about the game of chess and at the place where he lives, he doesn’t feel there’s anyone who’s is good enough competition to give him a fair opponent,” Joshua said.</div>
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Bill’s daughter Trish said she’s extremely grateful for the kids spending time with her dad, and hopes it inspires more good deeds.</div>
boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-69550832260733076002016-05-16T18:53:00.000+08:002016-07-10T18:54:06.059+08:00Pestaño: Philippines in arrears with Fide<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
AS OF of April 14 last month the Philippines is one of those listed that has pending arrears with FIDE. This has become a habit in the past several years and there is a clear and present danger that we may not be able to play in the coming Olympiad. There are no current news that this has been paid. More on this later.</div>
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The 42nd Chess Olympiad, will take place in Baku, Azerbaijan on Sept. 1-14.There were two other interested cities—Albena in Bulgaria and Tallinn in Estonia but were not approved.</div>
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This was a controversial decision as many countries know that Armenia will not participate. The delegation of Armenia declared that participation of the Armenian chess players would be in that case impossible.</div>
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With the breakup of the Soviet Union, ethnic Armenians in Azerbaijan fought a brief conflict, backed by Armenia proper, that resulted in the de facto independence of Nagorno-Karabak (NKR) alongside a 1994 ceasefire agreement.</div>
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Some clashes occurred in the years following the 1994 ceasefire. Although no exact casualty figures exist, by 2009, as many as 3,000 people, mostly soldiers, had been killed. In 2008, the fighting became more intense and frequent. With 72 deaths recorded throughout the year, 2014 became the bloodiest since the war ended.</div>
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Since the country's independence, the Armenian men's chess team has won the European Team Championship(1999), the World Team Championship (2011) and the Chess Olympiad (2006, 2008, 2012). The women's team had its crowning victory at the 2003 European Championship. As of February 2016, Armenia ranks seventh in the world by the average rating of its top players. Levon Aronian, Armenia's best chess player, is currently world No. 4 in the FIDE rankings. Aronian was a World Champion candidate several times.</div>
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Since the 2011–12 school year, Armenia is the first country in the world to make chess mandatory in schools.</div>
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Garry Kasparov has compared the popularity of chess in Armenia with the popularity of football (soccer) in Brazil and Argentina.</div>
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Another problem before was Ukraine. It is also a major power in Chess. Fide suspended Ukraine last March 25 as it failed within the set deadline, to pay the full amount of the fee for the Women's World Championship match in Lviv has not been paid within the set deadline.</div>
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The Ukrainian debt is estimated at EUR 60,000. It can be recalled that the women’s championship between Mariya Muzychuk and Hou Yifan was played in Lyiv last March and normally Fide gets 20% of the prize money.</div>
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Andriy Sadovy, Mayor of Lyiv, announced that the problems between FIDE and the Ukrainian Chess Federation have been smoothed out last April 18 as the city’s pride and reputation was at stake.</div>
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As approved by the Presidential Board in Sochi, there will be a new procedure regarding Federations more than six months in arrears. The new policy, which comes into immediate effect, is that on December 31, the treasurer will list on the FIDE website those countries that are deemed to be over six months in arrears. Until the arrears have been paid off, players from these Federations cannot participate in any FIDE events that are under the aegis of a.) the World Championship & Olympiad Commission or Events Commission, b.) Continental competitions that provide qualifiers to any of the aforesaid competitions.</div>
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Wesley So recently won $35,000 for placing second in the US Championship and earning $15,000 in the Blitz match yhat followed. This week, he got another $10,000 in his losing match (2.5-1.5) with Ding Liren in Shanghai,China as part of the US-China Summit. Making good money</div>
boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-56125945717816931112016-05-06T18:54:00.000+08:002016-07-10T18:54:59.243+08:00Pestaño: Wesley in ultimate blitz game vs. Kasparov<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
THE entire world was looking forward to this blitz event where Garry Kasparov was going to lock horns against three of the best players in the world--Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura and Wesley So.</div>
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This was part of the US Championship and format was a four-player sextuple round robin. Each player would play against the other six times or 8 rounds of chess divided equally over two days. The time control was five minutes plus 3-second delays (not increment).</div>
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This was the strongest tournament of Kasparov since he retired and he performed quite well though he was at the receiving end of what commentators claimed as an immortal blitz game.</div>
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Wesley played a spectacular game against Kasparov in his 10th game. It was power chess with hard to see threats and surprising sacrifices. He was immediately compared to two of the 19th century chess legends: the American Paul Morphy and the brilliant German attacker Adolf Anderssen.</div>
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Wesley’s game was showered with superlatives all around the globe.</div>
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Kasparov took the defeat in stride, praised Wesley and even donated his winnings to the US chess olympiad team. But Kasparov will now be called the Kieseritzky of Blitz chess. Lionel Adalbert Bagration Felix Kieseritzky was known not only for his long name, but for his loss of the original Immortal Game as well. It was won by Anderssen in London in 1851. This friendly encounter later became the subject of many books.</div>
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This is what the commentators had to say about the game:</div>
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Maurice Ashley: “The day started with a thunderbolt: Wesley So playing one of the finest attacking game since Morphy!”</div>
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Yasser Seirawan: “Wesley’s game against Kasparov will go down in history as one of the greatest blitz games ever played. I will remember that game for the rest of my life.”</div>
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Nakamura ($20,000) had a strong second day and won the event with 11/18 a point clear of Wesley ($15,000) on 10 points. Kasparov ($10,000) acquitted himself very well and finished on 9.5 points, a plus score. Caruana ($5,000) got cut adrift and collapsed to only 5.5 points.</div>
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Chess in Schools. There will be an international conference this month on Chess in Schools in Poland on May 20.The project “Education through Chess in Schools” is organized by the Polish Chess Federation in cooperation with Ministry of National Education and Ministry of Sport and Tourism.</div>
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The direct stimulus for the start of implementation came from the European Parliament in 2012 calling on all member states of the European Union to introduce Chess in Schools.</div>
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Playing chess improves logical and analytical thinking, problem solving skills, development of spatial orientation, concentration and many others. Through chess we try to support the intellectual, social and emotional development of children.</div>
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Another conference is in Armenia, organized by the ministry of Education and Chess Academy of Armenia, in cooperation with Fide, the International Conference entitled “Theoritical and practical issues of Chess in Schools” will be held in Tsaghkadzor on Sept. 30 to Oct. 3.</div>
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The main topics of the conference are the following: Chess education and personality development, socio-psychological issues of chess education, chess teachers’ training and professional development, technological and methodological aspects of chess education and chess and inclusive education practices.</div>
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Armenia is one of the countries in the world where chess is mandatory in primary schools.</div>
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The Philippines should send some representatives to these conferences to gain some insights on the benefits of chess on children.</div>
boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-49804848476699836182016-04-29T18:55:00.000+08:002016-07-10T18:56:03.645+08:00Pestaño: Only a few black players excel in chess Thursday, April 28, 2016<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">
ON March 14 1999, Maurice Ashley, born in Jamaica (March 6, 1966), beat Adrian Negulescu and became the first African American International Grandmaster. This month, he was inducted into the US Chess Hall of Fame and received his honor as the US Chess Championship got underway, while taking on commentating duties.</div>
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When he got the call in January that he was being inducted for his contributions as a player, coach and commentator, Ashley said tears came to his eyes. “For me to hear that I’m being inducted for everything I’ve given to the game, that I’ve done to promote the game, that I’ve done to help young people play, and for the inspiration I’ve been, has just been absolutely incredible,” Ashley told The Associated Press.</div>
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“Ashley is a great inspiration to younger black players, and to younger players of any race, that they could be a grandmaster too someday,” said Frank Brady, past president of the Marshall Chess Club.</div>
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Although blacks comprised about 15 percent of the world population, very few excel in chess. There have been about 2,000 GMs and WGMs since it was instituted by the World Chess Federation in 1950 but there are only three black GMs and one WGM.</div>
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In 2007, Pontus Carlsson, a black player from Sweden, became a GM. He was born in Cali, Columbia. When he was one year old, his entire family died and he was subsequently adopted by a Swedish couple. His adopted father was the former president of the Swedish Chess Federation who taught him how to play chess.</div>
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In 2007, Amon Simutowe, a black player from Zambia, also became GM. He took second place in the 2000 World Junior Chess Championships in Armenia.</div>
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There is also a WGM. In 2005, Tuduetso Sabure of Botswana became the first black woman grandmaster when she won the African Women’s Championship.</div>
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Aside from chess, there have been about 800 individuals and organizations who have received the Nobel prizes and only 12 have been blacks—nine for peace, two for literature and one for economics and none in the sciences.</div>
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However blacks are also “genetically superior in sports” like basketball, boxing etc.</div>
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US Championship. Wesley So didn’t lose a single game — but that wasn’t good enough to win the national title. He should have won against Chandra, who lost almost all his games. So earned $35,000.</div>
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Caruana played almost perfect chess in the entire tournament. He scored 8.5 points, one more than Wesley and Nakamura who tied for second.</div>
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In a matter of days, So will be flying to Shanghai, China, for a match with Ding Liren, ranked ninth in the world, one spot ahead of him.</div>
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So will also play in the Grand Chess Tour, a series of tournaments in Paris, Brussels, St. Louis and London featuring nine players — all ranked in the top 15 in the world — plus a wild card entry from each country. The tour carries a total prize fund of more than $1 million.</div>
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He’ll also try to defend his title at the Bilbao Masters tournament in Spain. And it’s a certainty he’ll be playing for the US team at the Chess Olympiad in Baku, Azerbaijan, in September.</div>
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Starting today and tomorrow, we will witness 18 rounds of blitz chess featuring the top three finishers of the US Championship 2016 and Garry Kasparov. The tournament has the following format: It will be a four-player sextuple round robin. Each player will play against the other six times. The time control is 5 minutes plus 3-second delay (not increment) and total prize fund is $50,000.</div>
boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-88459677133695086112016-04-22T18:56:00.000+08:002016-07-10T18:56:57.446+08:00Pestaño: SAC fetes USC chess teams in sports awards<header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px;"><div class="node-info" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #7d7d7d; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 35px;">
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Thursday, April 21, 2016</div>
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OUR lady journalist and my favorite player, Keith Claire Morala, sent in this twin reports.</div>
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“The University of San Carlos-BED Chess Team received a special citation in the 34th SAC-SMB Cebu Sports Awards held at Robinsons Galleria Cebu last April 20.</div>
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This award was given in recognition of what the young Warriors Grand Slam victory,” which refers to the back-to-back sweeping success in the 2015 Milo Olympics National Finals held in Pangasinan.</div>
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The Secondary Girls team is made up of Laila Nadera, Glysen Derotas,Jeremy Bajo, Cherry Caballes and Loisa Ranili. Jeffu Dorog, Ryan Pacres, Arvert Cadiz, Jonas Bajo and Kirk Morala represented the Secondary Boys team.</div>
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The elementary girls team was composed of Naureen Bagano, Jasia Dorog,Kirsten Sanchez, and Althea Bagano, while Raniel Perandos, Jave Peteros, Vic Gyles Derotas, Dwayne Abella, Andrei Cadiz completed the list for the elementary boys team.</div>
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All four categories were won by the USC chess teams as they represented the Visayas Team in the said categories.</div>
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The team also earned four Most Outstanding Player Awards--Nadera for the secondary girls division, Dorog for the secondary boys division, Naureen Bagano for the elementary boys division and Perandos in the elementary boys division.</div>
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Nadera also received a special citations award for her achievement in the National Age Group finals, where she seized the champion trophy and claimed a slot in the Philippine Team.</div>
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Whatever the combination of words, excellence was what these young USC Warriors has exemplified, and the result has been nothing short of spectacular.</div>
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Abella Memorial. National Master Merben Roque orchestrated his sweeping success in the 2nd Roger Abella Memorial Open Chess Tournament held at the Robinsons Galleria Cebu last April 17.</div>
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After quashing his opponents in the first six rounds, including International Master Kim Steven Yap in the sixth round, NM Roque drew his last game with Carlos Moreno III.</div>
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At 6.5 points, Roque secured his place as solo champion of the seven-round tournament.</div>
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Those who were tied at six points were Moreno, IM Yap, Rommel Ganzon, Richard Natividad, NM Elwin Retanal, and Edsel Montoya, who finished at the second to the seventh places, respectively, after the tiebreaks.</div>
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Those who made the top 10 with 5.5 points are Rogelio Enriquez, Jr., Anthony Makinano, and Kiddie player stand-out Reishi Polan.</div>
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Polan also received an award for being the Top Kiddies player, followed by Duane Borgonia and Aaron Resma with four points each.</div>
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Airene Robillos took the Top Ladies award, Laila Nadera placed second, while I finished third.</div>
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A total of 129 players took part in the tournament.”</div>
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US Championship. Wesley So is in a two-way tie for first place, reflecting a sharp turnaround from his erratic performance last year because of family problems. An unexpected visit from his estranged mother resulted in an open confrontation with his “foster” mother Lotis Key. He even forfeited a game because of a rules violation.</div>
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So’s aggressive play has been praised by experts as the most scintillating and entertaining of the tournament and after five games, he remains undefeated. He won over Kamsky, Akobian and Chandra and drew with Caruana and Shabalov. So and fellow Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana share first place atop the elite 12-player field, each with three wins and two draws.</div>
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After a rest day, his opponent will be Nakamura, who has a higher rating than him. “He’s one of the best players in the world and I have a lot of respect for him, actually,” So said. “He’a four-time U.S. champion. At the same time, I’m hoping for my first.”</div>
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boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-16534648994902698982016-04-08T18:57:00.000+08:002016-07-10T18:58:02.009+08:00Pestaño: Blondes vs. Brunettes rivalry<header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px;"><div class="node-info" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #7d7d7d; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 35px;">
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ONE of the greatest rivalries since time immemorial is between the blondes and brunettes. They not only compete in real life but also in movies, television, comics and sports like baseball, swimming, football, soccer and most important chess.</div>
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The rivalry is a cultural phenomenon in countries that have a significant blonde population like Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and especially in the United States.</div>
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The existence of the blonde vs. brunette rivalry in the USA dates back To 1875 when the first female professional baseball players were assigned to teams according to their hair color. In 1924 a female swimming meet listed a “blonde vs. brunette” relay race, that was “won by the blondes.”</div>
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Another recent example is the gridiron football game called Blondes vs. Brunettes powderpuff football, which started in 2005 and is now played in 16 cities around the USA to raise money for the Alzheimer’s Association. Anson Dorrance the women’s soccer coach at the University of North Carolina divides his team into blondes and brunettes and then have them compete against each other.</div>
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He claims his “blondes vs. brunettes drill” worked with his female team because it was a “matter of pride.”</div>
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The most popular blonde vs. brunette rivalry in American culture exists in the comic book industry where Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge have been engaged in a mostly friendly competition for more than 70 years now with their high school classmate Archie Andrews, a redhead.</div>
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Three’s Company an ABC itcom that ran from 1977-1984 also featured a blonde and brunette triangle. The blonde, Chrissy Snow, was played by Suzanne Somers and the brunette, Janet Wood, was played by Joyce DeWitt. The man in the middle, Jack Tripper, was played by John Ritter.</div>
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Blondes vs Brunettes is a Hollywood technique that extends back to before the war. Hollywood director Dorothy Arzner stated that lead women in supporting roles must always have different hair color to accentuate the contrasting beauty of each type. Blondes were usually cast as the fickle types while brunettes are cast as the more serious and emotional types.</div>
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The blonde vs. brunette chess matches began in 2011 as part of the World Chess Tournament held in Moscow. The match was hosted by the Botvinnik Central Chess Club and featured two teams of young girls, blondes dressed in light colors and brunettes dressed in dark colors .The 2011 match, which was the first in the series, was won by the brunettes. The 2012 re-match was won by the blondes who defeated the brunettes, 36.5-24.5.</div>
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A third blonde vs. brunette chess match, also held at the Central Chess Club on April 1, 2013, resulted in a tie score The traditional sixth blitz match between “Blondes” and “Brunettes” took place last March 27 in Moscow. The format was Scheveningen with eight players in each team, meaning each player played all of the members of the other team.</div>
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The Brunettes clinched a 34.5-29.5 victory. The players and their individual results are listed below.</div>
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Blondes: 1.) GM Valentina Gunina (7.5), 2.) GM Natalia Zhukova (6), 3.) WGM Irina Zakurdiaeva (3), 4.) IM Irina Vaselivich (2), 5.) WIM Alina Bivol (2), 6.) WIM Maria Fominykh (4), 7.) WFM Viktoria Zarivkina (2), 8.) WFM Yulia Dumcheva (2.5).</div>
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Brunettes: (1) WGM Alexandra Gorvachkina (4), 2.) IM Svetlana Matyeeva (4), 3.) WGM Karina Ambartsumova (7), 4.) WGM Elmira Mirzoeva (3.5), 5.) WGM Evgeniya Chasovnikova (2.5), 6.) FM Daria Pustovoytova (4.5), 7.) WFM Anna Gvanceladze (4), 8.) WFM Alexandra Zherebtsova (5).</div>
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Women with red hair are few but the strongest female of all time is a redhead, GM Judit Polgar.</div>
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boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-47375653540147527852016-04-01T18:58:00.000+08:002016-07-10T18:58:56.965+08:00Pestaño: It’s Karjakin vs. Carlsen<header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px;"><div class="node-info" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #7d7d7d; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 35px;">
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SERGY KARJAKIN and Fabiano Caruana met in the final and 14th round of the Candidates tied for first with 7.5/13. Everyone was looking forward to that one duel, the battle which would decide who the challenger of Magnus Carlsen would be.</div>
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If it had been a draw, there would be several scenarios depending on the results of Anand’s game against Svidler. If Anand didn’t win his game, then Karjakin would be the champion based on his greater number of wins (second tiebreak). However, if Vishy won his battle against Svidler and reached 8.0/14, then there would be a three-way tie for first, and in that case Caruana would be the champion based on a superior head-to-head result (first tiebreak) against the other two.</div>
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After Anand had drawn his game with Peter Svidler, Karjakin only needed a draw in the final round. But he nicely refuted a huge error by Caruana to decide the game in his favor, in less than four hours of play, in a game that was worth roughly half a million dollars.</div>
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Sergey is the youngest player ever to gain the GM title (at 12 years and 7 months) and has fulfilled earlier predictions that someday he will be challenging for the world crown. The sentimental favorite though was Fabiano being based in the USA and had a higher rating.</div>
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To recall, the last American to vie for the crown was Gata Kamsky in 1996 against Karpov. Earlier than that was the famous Fischer vs. Spassky match in Iceland in 1972 dubbed the “Match of the century” at the peak of the cold war. However, now in 2016, we will see the match in the USA, but between a Norwegian and a Russian player. The most popular game in America, by the way, and also for most of the world is chess.</div>
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Celebrity fans of chess include Madonna, Julia Roberts Jay Z, Kevin Spacey, Jude Law, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bill Gates among thousands. Tobey Maguire recently produced and starred in a Hollywood film about the famous 1972 Fischer vs. Spassky Championship match title “Pawn Sacrifice.”</div>
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The Carlsen – Karjakin 2016 World Chess Championship is going to take place in New York this Nov. 11 to 30. The format is 12 rounds and is expected to attract a global online and TV audience of more than one billion fans. They will compete for a prize fund of at least 1 million euros ($1.1m).</div>
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“I and all New Yorkers welcome the world chess championship back to New York City. What better place to be than the city where parks are often populated by chess enthusiasts,” said New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.</div>
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The last world championship match, held in Russia in 2014, enjoyed record-breaking coverage with the total audience topping 1.2 billion people. Carlsen won against ex-world champion Vishy Anand. If Agon, the commercial partner of FIDE, want to keep the popularity momentum of the event, a change of policy is a must after the low visibility of the candidates. Agon prohibited the coverage of the candidates tournament on other websites on a live basis.</div>
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Sergey Karjakin went home richer by €95,000. Fabiano Caruana and Vishy Anand took home €81,500. Anish Giri, Hikaru Nakamura, Levon Aronian and Peter Svidler won € 36,250 and Veselin Topalov got €17,000. (Note: 10 percent of Hikaru Nakamura’s fees will be deducted for his absence in the press conference after his game against Levon Aronian.)</div>
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The closing ceremony of the Candidates 2016 was attended by the president of Russia Igor Levitin, FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, head of Russia’s Olympic committee and first deputy head of the state of Duma, Alexander Zhukov, Russian deputy sports minister Pavel Kolopkov and President of Russian Chess Federation Andrey Filatov.</div>
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boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-17574109380542715462016-03-26T19:01:00.000+08:002016-07-10T19:02:24.678+08:00Pestaño: The subtle religious aspects of chess<header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px;"><div class="node-info" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #7d7d7d; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 35px;">
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THIS article is not to discourage people to play the game but to enlighten why religious leaders banned the game. In the dark ages, the Roman Catholic and Ortodox churches, Islam, Baptist and other evangelical churches had, at one time or another, banned or forbade the game. This was caused by misinterpretation.</div>
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As in life, chess is the ultimate battle between good (white) and evil (black).</div>
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Chess is war in miniature and a battle of the minds. It is about defeating and humiliating your adversary. It is also a waste of precious time which can be used much better in doing something helpful for us, family and society in general.</div>
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Our only competition has to be self, not with our friends and neighbors. They are not our enemies. The devil (black) is our enemy. We should help them and not exploit their weaknesses. What people need is inspiration.</div>
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The game is actually against Christianity and is not about helping others to grow and to win/overcome. We can`t use any tactics to prevent others from winning like you are taught to do in playing chess.</div>
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The King is the secular head of the state with the church at his side (King's Bishop)- liaison between Man and God. But there are two Bishops, one for the Church, one for the Congregation, and between the two of them, they can get anywhere. This shows the transparent myth of Separation of Church and State.</div>
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The Queen is a powerful tool of his administration and starts at his side, to show his dominance. The straight and diagonal movement shows the ability to apply to all problems and situations.</div>
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The Knight is able to attack from unseen angles, and retreat across obstacles. The 90-degree component is seen by many to symbolize the duality of God's might and man's will.</div>
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The Rook is portrayed as a castle and examination of early structures leads many to conclude it is actually a church. Whatever it is, it usually exemplifies a building made of Stone, and "On this stone, I shall build a church."</div>
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All the Pawns represents mankind, serving God best by stepping blindly forward.</div>
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Playing chess, especially on the White Side, is acting out a morality play, attacking the forces of darkness and crushing them under his heel. There lies the trick that ensnares and captivates millions of innocent souls to chess every year.</div>
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Evil has, mathematically, as much of a chance to win as good. The only restriction between the colors is that white moves first. In reality, the good side should have more power than the evil, for the Lord has said, regarding his believers: "Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you." Unfortunately, the 'powers' given to the individual units of a chess set are evenly matched by their direct opponents.</div>
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Anther problem is the power of the Queen. She is clearly portrayed as the King's wife, but granted greater power and maneuverability. She travels and works independently of the King, if nominally at his 'bidding.' This directly conflicts with many biblical verses, like:"...and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."</div>
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A further heresy in chess, is that of returning lost souls to play. If a simple pawn makes it unmolested to the final rank of the enemy's side, he can be transmuted to any other piece of the game. In this manner, lost pieces can be regained. The bible clearly shows that there is only one event of importance and that is the judgment. After that, the soul is sent to heaven or hell . Reincarnation is the devils idea.</div>
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boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-29393514320727812742016-03-18T19:46:00.000+08:002016-07-10T19:47:09.085+08:00Pestaño: Hou Yifan regains women’s crown<header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px;"><div class="node-info" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #7d7d7d; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 35px;">
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THE Women’s championship has alternating formats--one-on-one for even years and a 64-player knockout competition for odd years.</div>
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The women’s world chess championship match 2016 between current world champion Mariya Muzychuk of Ukraine and challenger Hou Yifan of China (former world champion 2010-2012, 2013-2015) took place in Lviv, Ukraine last March 1 to 18. It was scheduled this month, this being International Women month.</div>
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The Ukrainian Muzychuk, who obtained the title by winning the 2015 Women’s World Cup, entered the match at her peak Fide rating of 2563. Her Elo is dwarfed though by Hou Yifan’s monstrous rating of 2667, and she is the heavy 10-3 favorite.There is little doubt that she is the far stronger player. While Mariya has only just surpassed 2560, Hou Yifan’s rating has not fallen below 2660 since August 2014.</div>
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As expected, Hou won three games and the match ,originally scheduled for 10 games was over before the last round. The score was 6-3. Despite having a dream team at her disposal (GMs Pavel Eljanov, Yuriy Kryvoruchko and her sister Anna) and playing rather well, Mariya Muzychuk lost her match with a score that reflected the Elo difference rather accurately.</div>
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The local hero didn’t speak about her play, but graciously noted, “I’m happy that this match took place in my home city Lviv because many chess players had chance to come and visit this match.”</div>
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Of her victory, Hou said, “Of course I’m very happy that I managed to successfully finish the match. My team is supporting me here all the time during the match and before. I would also like to mention that, although there’s a six-hour time difference, there are many people in China watching online, and supporting me. I even received some messages after the game, even though it’s already midnight. Many people and also my friends in the chess world are supporting me.”</div>
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Hou has won all three matches for the world title: against Humpy Koneru, Anna Ushenina and now Mariya Muzychuk. Her lead in the Fide rating list will be almost a hundred points, and so it’s safe to say that she is dominating her rivals and will do so for the next decade as there is no one in sight, being only 22 years old.</div>
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Hou will get 120,000 euros for winning the tournament, while Muzychuk will receive 80,000 euros.</div>
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Candidates matches The candidates tournament is traditionally considered to be the most important part of the FIDE World Chess Championship cycle. It started last March 11 and will end on March 28 with FIDE’s commercial partner Agon as the official organizer, with support from the Russian Chess Federation.</div>
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The tournament will be contested as a double round-robin over 14 games. The winner of this eight-player candidates tournament will be the challenger for the 2016 World Chess Championship against Magnus Carlsen scheduled in November this year in New York.</div>
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There are five different qualification paths to the candidates tournament. In order of priority, these are the world chess championship 2014 losing finalist (Viishy Anand 2762), the top two finishers in the chess world cup 2015 (Sergey Karjakin 2760 and Peter Svidler 2757), the top two finishers in the FIDE Grand Prix 2014–5 (Fabiano Caruana 2794 and Hikaru Nakamura 2790), the next two highest-rated players (Veselin Topalov 2780 and Anish Giri 2793) and one player nominated by the organizers (Levon Aronian 2786)</div>
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After four rounds, here are the results: Karjakin 3; Aronian 2.5; Anand,Giri, Caruana Svidler-2; Nakamura 1.5; Topalov 1.</div>
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boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-44978623898104346532016-03-11T19:48:00.000+08:002016-07-10T19:49:06.353+08:00Pestaño: Manny Pacquiao joins elite group<header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px;"><div class="node-info" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #7d7d7d; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 35px;">
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MOST of the big sponsors are countries, corporations and organizations. Individuals are a rare breed.</div>
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In modern times, there have been only three--Luis Rentero, Joop van Oosterom and Rex Siquenfield. Manny Pacquiao is about to join them if he continues his tournaments in Gen. Santos City.</div>
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Rentero was a brilliant businessman who ran a chain of supermarkets and owned two hotels. He died last year at the age of 83.The Linares International Chess Tournament began in 1978 and was held annually up until 2010.</div>
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He succeeded in making Linares the best chess tournament in the world with the attendance of the main top players fighting for the honor to be the winners of this “Wimbledon” of Chess.</div>
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All the elite chess players of his era attended the famous tournament. He did not like “grand master draws” and his policy was not only to invite the best players but also the more combative ones. A quick draw usually leads to both players not invited for the next edition!</div>
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Joop van Oosterom is a Dutch billionaire. For many years he has staged the annual Melody Amber tournaments in Monaco, where world class grandmasters play rapid and blindfold games. It is named after his first daughter Melody Amber.</div>
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Van Oosterom was a strong correspondence chess player, but suffered a severe stroke some years ago. Nevertheless, he became the 18th world champion in Correspondence Chess.</div>
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The Amber chess tournament was an annual invitation-only event for some of the world’s best players from 1992 to 2011. Since the second edition, the event uniquely combined blindfold chess and speed chess, and has been held in Monte Carlo. Invited players considered this like an invitation to the White House and the players were treated like royalty.</div>
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Rex Sinquefield is an American financial wizard. In 1973, he helped create the first Standard & Poor’s index funds and in 1981, co-founded Dimensional Fund Advisors, which manages more than $310 billion in assets as of Sept. 30, 2013.</div>
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In 2007 Rex opened the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, a non-profit organization. Its mission is to “maintain a formal program of instruction to teach the game of chess and to promote and support its educational program through community outreach and local and national partnerships to increase the awareness of the educational value of chess.”</div>
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The Sinquefield Cup is an annual, invite-only chess tournament in St. Louis, Missouri first held in 2013. The event in 2013 was the strongest chess tournament ever held in the US up until that time. The 2014 edition, however, is the strongest in the history of chess, as measured by actual average Elo ratings of 2802 for the six participants, who are all in the top 10 of FIDE’s Elo rating list. The third edition was held last Aug. 22 and the particpants had an average FIDE Rating of 2795.</div>
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Over P2 million in cash and prizes was given in the Pacquiao Random Chess Festival 2016 held last Feb. 20 to 23 at SM Mall in Gen. Santos City. This is the fourth time that Manny has sponsored a big tournament. The first was the Manny Pacquiao Cup Asian Continental Chess Championships (Open, Women’s and Blitz) from May 17 to 27 2013 at the Midas Hotel in Pasay City.</div>
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The Elegant Houses in Pampanga, led by GM Darwin Laylo, emerged as champion in the team tournament via a superior tiebreak after it ended up tied with NICA Team Ilonggo and Pacman Team A with 12 points. Individual winners in the Rapid and Blitz events were IM Joel Pimentel and Jenrich Cajeras.</div>
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boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-86519155968930484032016-03-04T19:53:00.000+08:002016-07-10T19:53:50.726+08:00Pestaño: Astronomy at Handuraw<header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px;"><div class="node-info" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #7d7d7d; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 35px;">
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THERE will be an exhibit tomorrow at Handuraw Mango (beside National bookstore) featuring the works of Christopher Go from 6-10 p.m.</div>
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Christopher is a Cebuano Astro- photographer since 1990. His detailed images of the eclipses of the Galilean moons of Jupiter attest to the excellent quality of his work using a 0.28m telescope and discovered the red spot jr. of Jupiter in 2006. He has a minor planet named after him ( 30100 Christophergo).</div>
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Christopher was also given the Presidential Order of Lakandula for his contribution to astronomy. He also received the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers (ALPO) Walter Haas Award.</div>
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Astronomy is a favorite study and subject among chess players and grandmasters. I became a member of the Philippine Astronomical Society in the 70s and still remember Fr. Victor Badillo of the Ateneo Observatory and Hans Arber.</div>
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Top chess players, who are astronomy buffs have been honored by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) by naming minor planets after them. The latest is former world champion Vishy Anand (4538 Vishyanand).</div>
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Grandmasters with minor planes named after them are Alexander Alekhine (1909 Alekhin), Vassily Smyslov (5413 Smyslov), Anatoly Karpov(90174 Karpov), Mikhail Chigorin (7268 Chigorin) and Kirsan Ilyumzhinov(5570 Kirsan). There is also 17612 Whiteknight, named after a chess piece, and 26661 Kempelen, named after the maker of the Turk, a chess automation.</div>
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Other chess players, who are amateurs astronomers are Hans Moritz Bruehl , Paul Morphy, Dr. John Nunn, David Levy, Wolfgang Pauly (1876-1934 – chess problemist and credited with the discovery of a comet), Fred Reinfeld (wrote a book on astronomy).</div>
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The universe is almost beyond comprehension. Astronomers estimate that the observable universe has more than 100 billion galaxies. A recent German super-computer simulation estimates that the number may be as high as 500 billion. Our own Milky Way is home to around 300 billion stars.</div>
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According to the “Bubble Theory” our universe is just one bubble in a frothy sea of bubbles.</div>
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Common observational wisdom among astronomers is that there are 17 billion Earth-sized planets in our galaxy alone.</div>
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The implicatons of this discovery are astounding. Simply put: If there are 17 billion Earth-sized worlds in our galaxy, it’s clear that the Universe has the potential to be teeming with life, some of whom maybe billions of years more advanced.</div>
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On Aug. 15, 1977, Jerry Ehman witnessed a startlingly strong radio signal from an artificial, extraterrestrial source, but it has not been detected again.</div>
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In 2015, “remains of biotic life” were found in 4.1 billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia, when the young Earth was about 400 million years old. “If life arose relatively quickly on Earth ... then it could be common in the universe.”</div>
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Last year , Stephen Hawking and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner announced a well-funded effort, called the Breakthrough Initiatives to expand efforts to search for extraterrestrial life.</div>
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According to scientists such as Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking, it would be improbable for life not to exist somewhere other than Earth.</div>
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There are two incredible events in the future that are fraught with dangers. The first would be contact with extra terrestrial intelligence that might be hostile and artificial robotic intelligence (AI). The short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all. Both are expected to happen in 100 years.</div>
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If you want to scan the universe using top of the line telescopes, you can do so using the internet. Contact Global -Rent-A-Scope Network.</div>
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boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-67714776258799066002016-02-26T19:55:00.000+08:002016-07-10T19:55:45.684+08:00Pestaño: World women’s championship<header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px;"><div class="node-info" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #7d7d7d; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 35px;">
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THE 2016 World Championship match between current champion Maria Muzychuk of Ukraine and her challenger Hou Yifan of China, who is a former World Champion from 2010 to 2012 and from 2013 to 2015, will take place in Ukraine, starting March 1. It was originally scheduled last Oct. 11 to 31 but was postponed because no host could be found.</div>
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There is also a FIDE-scheduled World Championship in October 2016, which will be played as a 64 player knock-out tournament.</div>
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The 2015 Championship was a 64-player knockout tournament in Sochi, Russia, last March 15. Hou Yifan did not enter the tournament and so relinquished the title. The highest-rated player was Humpy Koneru, but she lost in the quarterfinal. The final was won by Mariya Muzychuk, who beat Natalia Pogonina, 2.5–1.5.</div>
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Hou Yifan earned the right to challenge her after she finished first in the Grand Prix Series 2013-2014.</div>
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Hou is heavily favored in this tournament as she has a rating of 2673 compared to Mariya’s 2554. The two have played in only three classical games against each other. One game ended in a draw, while the other two were won by Hou Yifan with the black pieces</div>
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The winner of the ten-game match is the first player to reach 5.5 points or more. Time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from move one.</div>
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If the scores are level after the regular 10 games, there will be a new drawing of colors and four tie-break games will be played with 25 minutes for each player. There will be an increment of 10 seconds after each move.</div>
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If the scores are level after the four rapid games, there will be another drawing of colors, then two games will be played with a time control of five minutes plus three seconds’ increment after each move. In case of a level score, another two-game match will be played to determine a winner. If there is still no winner after five such matches, one sudden-death game will be played.</div>
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The prize fund for this match is 200,000 Euros, with 60 percent going to the winner if the match ends within the 10 regular games. If it goes to the tiebreak, the winner will get 55 percent.</div>
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In openings, Muzychuk usually plays Sicilian Defence with both white and black, followed by French Defence with white and Dutch Defence with black. Hou Yifan primarily plays 1.e4 as white. With black, she usually plays the Sicilian Defence as well as the French Defence. She also plays the Bogo-Indian and Queen’s Indian against 1.d4.</div>
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MCDONALDS. Our Lady journalist Keith Claire Morala and my favorite player sent in this report . “Ten-year old John Belano wrapped up his outstanding performance with a perfect score in the third monthly elimination of the McDonalds Jones Cup Chess Championships last Feb. 21 at the McDonalds Jones Branch.</div>
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The young champion outsmarted all six of his opponents in the 6-round Swiss System tournament, including second placer Edsel Vosotros. Vosotros tied with Jervy Villarin, Hardeil Salmeron and Angel Naureen Bagano, who was awarded the best female performer, at 5 points.</div>
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The rest of the top 10 players are Arje Villarin (4.5), Kirk Patrick Morala (4.0), Luisa Marie Ranili (4.0), Bon Joshua Teves (4.0) and Romeo Jared Rollan (4.0). Belano and Vosotros will advance to the February Monthly Finals. A total of 52 kiddie players took part in the tournament.”</div>
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boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-24812576111995334652016-02-19T19:56:00.000+08:002016-07-10T19:57:08.801+08:00 Pestaño: Big chess festival starts in Gen San<header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px;"><div class="node-info" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #7d7d7d; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 35px;">
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THE Bobby Pacquiao Random Chess Festival will take place tomorrow until Wednesday at the SM Mall of General Santos City with P2 million in cash prizes.</div>
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Bobby is a brother of Manny Pacquiao and is reportedly running for congressman as Manny will be running for senator. He is also a former boxer.</div>
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Organized by the Eugene Torre Chess Foundation, this festival is sanctioned by the National Chess Federation of the Philippines and is open to members of good standing only. Players with ratings of 1799 and below and unrated players will be given a provisional rating of 1800 for calculation purposes only. Ratings will be based as of the Jan. 1 list of NCFP and FIDE.</div>
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There will be three different tournaments all with Random format. The team event has a total prize of P1.6 million and will be held first on Saturday and Sunday. This will be followed by a rapid individual event on Monday and Tuesday and a blitz event on Wednesday with total prizes of P400,000.</div>
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Each team will have four players and their average Elo must not exceed 2100.Each team can have one grandmaster and three non-masters, or one international master with three non-masters.</div>
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Other options for a team is to have two Fide Masters and two non-masters, two National Masters and two non-masters, one Fide Master and one national master and two non-masters and four non-masters.</div>
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Scoring system of the team event is match point, meaning two points for a win, one point for a draw and nil for a loss.</div>
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Prizes for the team event are P500,000 for the champion plus trophy, P280,000 for the second placer and P170,000 for the third placer. Those who make the top 10 will earn at least P10,000, while those who make the top 50 will also get prizes.</div>
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The rapid individual event will follow on Feb. 24 and 25 and a blitz contest on Feb. 26. The Individual Rapid champion will get P60,000 plus trophy, while the second and third placers get P35,000 and P20,000, respectively.</div>
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There will also be prizes for 11th to 50th placers and special prizes for top Gen. San player, top ladies and top seniors.</div>
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The Blitz event will offer P20,000,12,000 and P8,000 to the top players.</div>
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In case of ties there will be pooling of prizes for first to fifth places. For sixth to 50th places, there will be no pooling of prizes and tiebreaks will decide. This will be true for the team event and individual prizes.</div>
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Registration fee is P2,000 per team and P200 for individual competition. Time control is one hour and 50 minutes plus 10 seconds for each player, play to finish, for the team event. Format is nine rounds Swiss.</div>
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WORLD CHESS CYCLE. The Candidates Tournament will determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship against the reigning World Champion Magnus Carlsen in a match scheduled for November 2016.</div>
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FIDE and Agon, its commercial partner, are organizing the Candidates Chess Tournament 2016 in Moscow from March 10 to 30.</div>
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The first round will see an all Russian and all American pairings--Sergey Karjakin (winner of World Cup) vs. Peter Svidler (runner-up World Cup) and Hikaru Nakamura (Grand Prix qualifier) vs. Fabiano Caruana (Grand Prix qualifier). The other two encounters of the day will be Anish Giri (by rating) vs. Levon Aronian (by rating) and a repeat of the 2010 World Chess Championship Viswanathan Anand ( loser of previous championship) vs. Veselin Topalov (Organizers nominee).</div>
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boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-46453480905549209842016-02-12T19:57:00.000+08:002016-07-10T19:59:03.331+08:00Pestaño: PSC eyes Karpov vs. Torre match<header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px;"><div class="node-info" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #7d7d7d; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 35px;">
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THE big news now is the proposed match between Eugene Torre and Anatoly Karpov.</div>
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The Chairman of the Philippine Sports Comission, Richie Garcia, had an interesting meeting recently with Russia’s ambassador to the Philippines Igor Anatolyevich Khovaev. The Russian ambassador suggested having former world champion Anatoly Karpov in an exhibition match with our Eugene Torre. In addition, Russia will also bring in their athletes in basketball, where they excel.</div>
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Although this might be a sensation to this basketball-crazy country, we are more interested in the chess matchup. Most of the current chess players today are not familiar with these two gentlemen as their best achievements were more than 40 years ago. Here are some enlightenment.</div>
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Karpov had over 160 first-place finishes. He had a peak Elo rating of 2780, and taking into consideration that ratings have inflated by 100 to 150 points since the 70s, Karpov now would be rated close to 2900.</div>
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In fact, the late Florencio Campomanes told me that Bobby Fischer was afraid of Karpov and their championship match did not push through in 1975 although the Philippines offered the then unheard prize of $5 million. This is equivalent to probably $20 million today as President Marcos was eager to place the Philippines in the world map.</div>
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Though a world championship match between Karpov and Fischer was highly anticipated, those hopes were never realized. Fischer insisted that the match be the first to 10 wins (draws not counting), but that the champion would retain the crown if the score was tied 9–9. Fide refused to allow this proviso, and after Fischer’s resignation of the championship on June 27, 1975, Fide declared that Fischer forfeited his crown.</div>
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Spassky thought that Fischer would have won in 1975 but Karpov would have qualified again and beaten Fischer in 1978. Garry Kasparov said that Karpov would have had good chances, because he had beaten Spassky convincingly and indeed had higher quality games, while Fischer had been inactive for three years.</div>
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Karpov is on record saying that if he had the opportunity to play Fischer for the crown in his twenties, he could have been a much better player as a result. Karpov’s “boa Constrictor” playing style is solidly positional, taking no risks but reacting mercilessly to any tiny errors made by his opponents.</div>
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Eugene Torre is no pushover in this match. In 1974, then 22 years old, he became Asia’s first Grandmaster by winning the silver medal in the Chess Olympiad held in Nice, France.</div>
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In a tournament in Manila in 1976, Torre beat then reigning world chess champion Anatoly Karpov himself.</div>
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He qualified for the Candidates matches in 1982 but lost to Zoltan Ribli. Had he qualified in the Candidates, he would have played against Karpov, who was the reigning champion then.</div>
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In 1988, Torre captained the Philippine team to its best-ever seventh-place finish in the Chess Olympiad in Greece.</div>
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In June 2014, Torre won the National Chess Championships - Battle of GMs – in Manila. In so doing, Torre became the oldest Filipino chess player to win a national championships at the age of 62. Torre also has a record 22nd appearance in the Olympiad, the most by any player.</div>
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The Philippine Sportswriters Association name him “athlete of the millenium” besting the late Caloy “the Big Difference” Loyzaga, Felicisimo “Mighty Mite” Ampon who wowed the crowd at Wimbledon in the 40s and Gabriel “Flash “Elorde.</div>
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I invited Eugene to dinner in our house a long time ago, to meet my late father, who was utterly delighted being also a chess player himself.</div>
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boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-9674670683203414562016-02-05T19:59:00.000+08:002016-07-10T19:59:50.370+08:00Pestaño: All about Tata Steel<header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px;"><div class="node-info" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #7d7d7d; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 35px;">
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TO be invited to Tata Steel is like getting an invitation to the White House. It is rich in history and is one of the longest running tournament in the international chess calendar as it is now on its 78th edition.</div>
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The tournament took place last Jan. 15 to 31 in the coastal village of Wijk aan Zee, North Holland. The “Wimbledon of Chess” invites only the top grandmasters in the world, along with thousands of players, live event visitors and online visitors from around the world. The tournament has two main groups, each with 14 players. They are known as the Tata Steel Masters and the Tata Steel Challengers.</div>
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I will concentrate only on the Masters group.</div>
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It was called the Hoogovens tournament from its inception in 1938 until 1999, after which the Dutch steel and aluminum producer Koninklijke Hoogovens merged with British Steel to form the Corus Group on Oct. 6 1999 (“Hoogoven” is Dutch for “blast furnace”, literally “high oven”). The Corus Group was acquired by Tata Steel in 2007 and since then, the tournament has been called the Tata Steel Chess Tournament.</div>
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This year, the event was rated Category 20 with an average Elo rating of 2750. Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Anish Giri, Ding Liren, Wesley So, Sergey Karjakin, Pavel Eljanov, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Evgeny Tomashevsky, Michael Adams, David Navara, Wei Yi, Yifan Hou and Loek Van Wely were Group A players of the first top tournament of the year.</div>
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Most top tournaments, like Tata Steel, do not reveal the amount of the prize money and appearance fees of each player. They prefer to negotiate the conditions personally with each player without informing the public about the details. The average figure of the first prize at a super tournament like this is $50,000 to $100,000. The appearance fees for players rated 2700+ are usually in the $10,000 to $20,000 range. The very top stars can negotiate even better rates.</div>
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Magnus once again justified his status as a player apart and world champion. He easily won five games, lost none, edged his rating back over 2850 and finished a full point ahead of the field.</div>
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Caruana beat three (Ding Liren, Eljanov and Wei Yi) and went into the final round with good chances of catching Carlsen but lost to Tomashevsky and still finished second.</div>
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This is the first time Hou Yifan has finished joint last in Wijk aan Zee. She could easily have scored more points, gaining a close to winning position against both Karjakin and So in her first two games, losing a position even Magnus didn’t think he could win in Round 11 and then failing to beat Anish Giri in the final round by a whisker. She looked at home in elite company.</div>
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Sergey had said beforehand that this was going to be a training tournament for him and said he will be satisfied if at the end, he will finish no lower than third. He had a solitary win against Evgeny Tomashevsky and had losses to Ding Liren and Mickey Adams. He had generally lackluster play all round.</div>
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Wei Yi, The 16-year-old Chinese sensation didn’t set the world on fire in Wijk aan Zee, but he defended tenaciously, including against the World Champion, and lost only a single game to Caruana. When you consider Carlsen had lost four games and won none in Wijk aan Zee at the same age, Wei Yi’s 50 percent score for joint seventh place begins to look even more impressive.</div>
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Wesley So had a dynamic win against his nemesis Anish Giri in the first round but somehow drew all his remaining 12 games, the most draws ever in his career in one tournament. He finished at a respectable fourth place duplicating decent places here the last two years.</div>
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boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-85807431541624747812016-01-29T20:00:00.000+08:002016-07-10T20:00:56.827+08:00Pestaño: Saudi cleric issues ban on chess<header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px;"><div class="node-info" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #7d7d7d; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 35px;">
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ISLAMIC fundamentalism is on the rise, severely affecting civilized society, and it has extended to chess.</div>
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Saudi Arabia’s top cleric Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdullaziz declared chess the “work of Satan” and issued a religious decree, a fatwa, forbidding the “evil” game. Chess is prohibited. It is gambling. He insisted it is a waste of time and money and is a cause for animosity between players.</div>
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Saudi Arabia imposes many restrictions including the segregation between men and women in public and reinforces a ban on women’s driving.</div>
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Throughout history, chess has been banned on political, social, and religious grounds. In the 14th century, Charles V (1337-1380) banned chess in France. In 1061, Roman Catholic Cardinal Petrus Damiani (1007-1072) banned the clergy from playing chess.</div>
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In 1966, chess was banned in China as part of the Cultural Revolution. In 1994, chess was banned in Afghanistan by the Taliban – anyone caught playing chess was beaten or imprisoned.</div>
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“Saudi Arabia trying to ban chess is stupid, but we should be more concerned about their bans on human rights and democracy” says Garry Kasparov.</div>
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Many Islamic scholars also say there is no reason to believe that the game violates the tenets of Islam. The Saudi Chess Association has written a letter to Fide to assuage concerns.</div>
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“We thank our friends all over the world who showed concern regarding chess in Saudi Arabia. It is worth mentioning here that, in general, and for us as Muslims, all sports can fall into being religiously illegal once it involves gambling, directing players away from religious practice (prayers, etc.) and of course if they lead to creating hatred between players.</div>
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The Saudi Chess Association (SCA) is officially recognized by the Saudi Olympic Committee and is a full member of FIDE, the Asian Chess Federation as well as the Arab Chess Federation. Many local events and seminars are being organized and run as scheduled in all the cities of the Kingdom with an increasing number of participants from all ages. Also, the SCA is scheduled to take part, once again, in the next World Chess Olympiad as well as other regional and international FIDE events.</div>
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Moreover, the Saudi Chess Association is currently in the last stages of implementing the Chess in Schools program aiming to widen the grass-roots in exploring local chess talents. Many thanks and best regards, Yaser Al Otaibi,General Secretary”</div>
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McDonald’s. Our lady journalist and my favorite chess player Keith Claire Morala has sent in this report.</div>
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“Aldritz Pondoyo wrapped up the over-all champion trophy in the 1st McDonald’s Jones Cup Chess Championships 2016 last Jan. 23 at the McDonald’s Jones Branch, Cebu City.</div>
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After a series of wins, Pondoyo finally sealed a draw in the last round against Adrian Basilgo and claimed his solo champion spot for the 17-under Boys Category with 5.5 points.</div>
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Nathaniel Berdon and Marc Villarojo finished even at 5 points. Berdon bagged the second place while Villarojo settled for third after the tiebreak.</div>
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In the 13-under Boys Category, Rejel Perandos and Arje Villarin finished tied at 5 points with Perandos winning the tiebreak for first place. Jervy Villarin and Raniel Perandos finished at third and fourth places, respectively.</div>
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Glysen Derotas and Lyan Portes also finished with a tie at four points but a superior tiebreak had Derotas winning the 17-Under Ladies title.</div>
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Naureen Bagano also came up with a sparkling effort as the Top lady player in the 13-under category. The event, which had six rounds, attracted 54 players.</div>
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boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-53175591103862255732016-01-22T20:01:00.000+08:002016-07-10T20:01:57.148+08:00Pestaño: 100th birth anniversary of Paul Keres<header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px;"><div class="node-info" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #7d7d7d; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 35px;">
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THE World Chess Federation has declared 2016 as the year of Paul Keres, the great Estonian grandmaster who would have turned 100 last Jan. 7.</div>
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Keres died in 1975 at the age of 59 from a heart attack. He was given a state funeral and more than 100,000 were in attendance.</div>
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He has long been considered a national hero and was even voted Estonia’s Sportsman of the 20th Century. Though long considered one of the world’s strongest players, Keres never became a world champion.</div>
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Born in the city of Narva, Estonia (then a part of the Russian Empire), Keres was introduced to chess by his father and his older brother, Harald, and had a natural affinity for the game of strategy almost from the start. Keres became a three-time Estonian schoolboy champion, in 1930, 1932, and 1933.</div>
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Keres narrowly missed a chance at a world championship match on five occasions. He won the 1938 AVRO tournament, which led to negotiations for a title match against champion Alexander Alekhine, but the match never took place due to World War II. After the war, Keres was runner-up in the Candidate’s Tournament on four consecutive occasions.</div>
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Due to these and other strong results, many chess historians consider Keres the strongest player never to become world champion. He was nicknamed “Paul the Second”, “The Eternal Second” and “The Crown Prince of Chess.”</div>
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He was one of the very few players who had a plus record against Capablanca. He also had plus records against World Champions Euwe and Tal, and equal records against Smyslov, Petrosian and Anatoly Karpov. In his long career, he played no fewer than 10 world champions. He beat every world champion from Capablanca through Bobby Fischer (his two games with Karpov were drawn), making him the only player ever to beat nine undisputed world champions.</div>
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He wrote a number of chess books, including a well-regarded, deeply annotated collection of his best games, “Grandmaster of Chess”, “The Art of the Middle Game,” and “Practical Chess Endings.” All three books are still considered among the best of their kind for aspiring masters and experts. He also wrote several tournament books, including an important account of the 1948 World Championship Match Tournament.</div>
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He is the only chess player in the world whose portrait has been on a banknote. Also, on the occasion of his 100th birthday the Bank of Estonia issued a 2-Euro-coin showing the image of the Estonian grandmaster. A stamp has also been issued.</div>
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Several Estonian cities have streets named after him. There are monuments to Keres in Pärnu and Tallinn, and in 2016, a monument will be built in his birthplace Narva. Many books have been written about his life and games, there are also several plays and movies about Keres.</div>
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There is a Paul Keres Memorial Tournament played in his honor and usually takes place in Vancouver, Canada and Tallinn, Estonia.</div>
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An annual international chess tournament has been held in Tallinn every other year since 1969. Keres won this tournament in 1971 and 1975. Starting in 1977 after Keres’ death, it has been called the Paul Keres Memorial Tournament. From 1991, the tournament has been held yearly and has changed into a rapid event. From 1999, this tournament also had a women’s section.</div>
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In the past twenty years, apart from this rapid tournament, several other memorial tournaments have been played in honour of Keres.</div>
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In 1975, Keres won a tournament in Vancouver. It was his last tournament he would ever play in, as on his way back to his native Estonia, he died from a heart attack. There has been an annual memorial tournament in Vancouver ever since.</div>
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boyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13897200292361603037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1840020384649891429.post-14645523066539034232016-01-15T20:02:00.000+08:002016-07-10T20:03:02.476+08:00Pestaño: Muslims-Christians Friendship tournament<header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.9px;"><div class="node-info" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #7d7d7d; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 35px;">
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THE most unique tournament in Cebu, or even in the country in a long time, was the Muslim-Christian tournament held last weekend at the Colonnade Mall in Cebu City. In the light of the enmity of these two religions, this comes as a breath of fresh air.</div>
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While talking with some of the organizers, some of them from Marawi City. I was reminded of one of my happier days as I was assigned in Lanao del Norte covering the cities of Iligan and Marawi in the late 60s. This was before Martial Law and there was no trouble between Christians and Muslims then.</div>
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They informed me that our dealers, Hadji Nasser Masorong and Tominaman Gani, have long passed away. However, one of my closest friends, Acmad Tomawis, a dynamic businessman and later a congressman whom I gave a service station and a kerosene outlet in Lake Lanao, is still very much active. Apparently, he is related to some of the organizers in this tournament.</div>
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When you enter Marawi, you can immediately see and feel that this is a unique city unlike other places in the Philippines. It is officially known as the Islamic City of Marawi and the capital of Lanao del Norte and is relatively big with a total population of over 180,000.</div>
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They have a University there with high standards comparable to that of UP. The Maranaos are the most educated minority group in the whole Philippines and there are many Maranaos with Masters or Doctoral degrees.</div>
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I used to stay overnight in the guest room of Maranao Timber, the biggest logging and veneer plant in the country operated by US Plywood. I am also reminded of a close friend, a lady British teacher in chemistry at Mindanao State University. Apparently, there are also British Peace Corps volunteers.</div>
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Our lady guest columnist and my favorite player, Keith Claire Morala sent in this report.</div>
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“International Master Kim Steven Yap claimed the solo champion spot in the 1st Cebu Muslim-Christian Friendship Open Chess Tournament was hosted last January 9-10, 2016 at Colonnade Mall, Cebu City.</div>
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IM Yap ended the Open Category on 6.5 points out of 7 grueling and closely fought rounds, winning six and drawing one. His only half-point round was a third-round draw with eventual second-placer Allan Salientes.</div>
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Salientes played out a final win in the last round against Ronald Ganzon to place second with six points.</div>
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Fide Master Anthony Makinano, Edsel Montoya, and NM Rogelio Enriquez were at joint third to fifth places with 5.5 points apiece.</div>
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Carlos Moreno, Yves Fiel, Fernandito Pialan, Ronald Ganzon, Richard Natividad, and William Retanal, Jr. shared the the 6th to 11th places with 5 points.</div>
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Meanwhile, Aldritz Pondoyo, KC Morala, and Jeremy Pepito ended the Kiddies and Ladies Category in dead heat at 6 points.</div>
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Pondoyo, who won over Pepito in the fifth round but suffered his only loss to Morala in the sixth, bagged the first place courtesy of a better tiebreak score.</div>
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Nicole Gocotano placed fourth with 5.5 points, while John Lester Belano, Aaron Resma, Lyan Portes and KC Belano settled in 5th to 8th at 5 points.</div>
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The tournament was attended by 108 players and was organized by the Association of Cebu Muslim Professionals and Entrepreneurs, Inc. in cooperation with Cebu Executive and Professional Chess Association.”</div>
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Here are the officials and board members of the Association of Cebu Muslim Entrepreneurs and Professionals Inc. : Datu Abubacar S. Gunang – President, Abdul Azis Mayaman – Treasurer, Basleymar Marsangca ,Alimoden Amama,Junaid Amer,Fattah Macayong,Omar Masangca, Masabong Macarampat, Bong Umpar, Samad Rangaig, Samad Solaiman and Elias Matuan.</div>
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