Pestaño: Wesley So out of World Cup

THE World Cup, an integral part of the World Championship Cycle 2014-2016, is currently on-going in Baku, Azerbaijan and is now in the quarterfinal stage.

The format is six rounds of matches comprising two games per round plus tiebreaks, with the winners progressing to the next round and the final seventh round will have four (4) games.

This is a an extremely strong tournament as of the top 100 players, only Magnus Carlsen and Vishy Anand are absent.

Wesley So is out of the competition after being booted out by his nemesis Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France in the rapid tiebreaks in the Round-of-16. Although rated lower than Wesley, Maxime has won two of their classical games with seven draws. Wesley goes home though with $25,000.

Also out are top 10 players and Sinquefield 2014 and 2015 winners Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian, perennial candidates qualifier Boris Gelfand, previous World Cup winner Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Veselin Topalov and Ding Liren.

Those who made the quarterfinalists are Anish Giri, Pavel Eljanov, Sergey Karyakin, Wei Yi, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Hikaru Nakamura, Peter Svidler and Lagrave.

The losers in the quarterfinals will receive $35,000, while those who make the semis get $50,000. The runner-up gets $80,000 while the champion gets $120,000. In major tournaments Fide usually gets 20 percent of the prize money. In this case however, the organizers have been generous by assuming the Fide tax and the players will receive the full amount.

Round 5 pairings are Giri vs. Lagrave; Mamedyarov vs. Karjakin; Nakamura vs. Eljanov; and Svidler vs. Wei Yi. Incidentally, Chinese sensation Wei is the youngest player ever to reach the quarterfinal stage.

Cepca. Rommel Ganzon was crowned king of the recently concluded Cepca Silver Open tournament at SM City, while Felix Shaun Balbona was a close runner-up with the same score but lower tiebreak points.

For his feat, Ganzon earned P10,000, a beautiful championship trophy and a DGT chess clock from Boojie Lim of Rose Pharmacy. Balbona received P7,000, a runner-up trophy and a brand new chess clock from Raymond Garcia, the club’s guest of honor. All other winners, up to the 20th placer, received cash prizes as well.

Other special winners are: Top Cepca A--Arnold Cadiz, Jimmy Ty Jr., Ross Yamyamin; Top Cepca B--Gabby Misterio, Mario Bustillo, Romy Pialan; Top Ladies--Charry Jacobs, KC Morala, Belinda Baguio; Top Kiddies--Jeremy Pepito, Jerish Velarde, Marc Bryan Villarojo; and Top Senior--Jun Kidlat.

The club, through president Engr. Jerryboy Maratas, is very thankful to all the sponsors and donors for the successful holding of the tournament.

Thank you so much to the following major sponsors—Jemar Engineering Services, Celgem Construction and Development Corp., Handuraw Pizza, SM City-Cebu. The minor sponsors are Prime Parts Fabricators and Development Corp. and San Narciso Builders Corp.

The donors are Rose Pharmacy, Model Rent-A-Car, Ecotherm Water Heater Co., Gonzalodo Enterprises, JJ & J Construction and General Supply, Biao Builders, Ritebuild System Corp., Reliabuild Corp., Federal North Hardware, Inc., Steeltech Colored Roofing, MGM Financial Services, Heinar Traders Corp., Kawashima and Dalawampu Families, Rhaffy Bensi, SSGT Amado A Jr Olea, Capt. Mercurion Fernandez, Engr. Marvyne Guardiana and Mayor Aljun Diamante.

Also personal contributions were received from Rosendo Yamyamin, Silverstein Torres, Felix Balbona, Denster Abella, Ben Dimaano and Elmer Odango. Special thanks to honorary members Kelly Uy and Andrew Aznar for the trophies; honorary member Boojie Lim and Raymond Garcia for the chess clocks.

Pestaño: Talented Cepca children

VYNNE Mharie Ant is the 16-year-old daughter of Cepca vice president Marvynne Guardiana. At her tender age, Vynne had brought honor to the family by bringing home two bronze medals in the recently concluded World Championship of Performing Arts (WCOPA) held in Long Beach, California last July. WCOPA is the Olympics of performing arts.

Vynne does possess all what it take to become a singing sensation. And with the full support given by her parents, this first year dentistry student of Cebu Doctors’ University would go a long long way.

Original member Bob Inocian invited a select group of fellow members to lunch last Saturday. The occasion was to celebrate his daughter’s passing of the Physician licensure examinations last week of August.

Ellaine, 27, is also a superb athlete. She is a member of World Taekwondo Federation and became a 1st dan black belt at the age of 17.

She was also a badminton varsity player for CIC (Colegio dela Immaculada Concepcion) in 2004 and also a chess varsity player in 2005. CIC was the Inter-Catholic High-School Champion at that time and she was the Board 2 gold medalist. She also played soccer for the College of Nursing in the University of San Carlos (USC) Intramurals in 2008.

She graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing at USC last April 2009.

While taking medicine at the Cebu Institute of Medicine (CIM), she played badminton, soccer and swimming from 2010 to 2014.

She graduated from the Cebu Institute of Medicine (CIM) on April 2014 and passed the Physicians Licensure Board Examinations in August 2015. She is planning to specialize in surgery.

Jessa, 22, daughter of Felix and Juliet, comes from the nationally famous chess-playing family-the Balbonas. She was a consistent honor student in elementary and graduated salutatorian in high school at CIC.

She graduated cum laude from USC with a Bachelor of Science degree in Accountancy and was once a member of the national chess team. She is also the first lady finals qualifier of Cepca in 25 years.

She passed the CPA board exams last June and is now connected with the prestigious Sycip, Gorres and Velayo management and accountancy firm in Makati.

We also have chess prodigies are Jerish 9 and Dwayne 8. Both are chess masters material and recipients of the sports writers award last year.

Jerish is the son of John Velarde and has played in Macau and Singapore representing the Philippines in his age group.

Dwayne was seven-under champion in Scotland last year while his father, Denster Abella, worked there as an OFW

World Cup. The FIDE World Cup, starting with 128 players, started last Sept. 10 and will end on Oct/ 5 in Baku, Azerbaijan, where next year’s Chess Olympiad will be held . The two finalists will qualify directly to the 2016 candidates’ tournament, and the winner of that tournament will challenge Magnus Carlsen for the world title later that year.

Wesley So overpowered an inexperienced Parham Maghsoodloo of Iran in the first round and the dangerous Csaba Balogh in the second to easily enter the third round. He is already assured of winning $16,000.

So’s best performance in this event came six years ago in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia where he made it to the Round-of-16 by stunning Gadir Guseinov, 4-1, Vassily Ivanchuk, 1.5-.5 and Gata Kamsky, 1.5-.5, one after the other before falling to Vladimir Malakhov, 1-4.

Tournament. This is to inform all chess players of the Cepca Silver Open tournament at SM City tomorrow Saturday and Sunday. Onsite registration is at 1030 a.m. and the tournament starts at 1 pm.

Pestaño: Cepca silver jubilee tournament

THE Cebu Executives and Professionals Chess Association (Cepca), the longest-running chess club in Cebu, will celebrate its silver anniversary this month with an open tournament in SM City on Sept. 19 and 20.

The club is not also known nationally but also, to some extent, internationally due to our grand masters tournaments and simul exhibitions with foreign players. I have already written a previous article two months ago about its beginning and accomplishments.

The club is not open to just any player, but is exclusive to executives, businessmen or entrepreneurs and professionals. Its primary purposes is to meet the chess needs of its members and to promote the game in Cebu.

The champion will take home P10,000 plus a magnificent trophy, while the second placer will get P7,000 and also a trophy. I have seen dozens of trophies in the past and these are the best of them. The winners will treasure these trophies throughout their life. The third placer will pocket P5,000 and the fourth and fifth placers will get P3,000 and P2,000, respectively. The sixth to 20th placers will also get cash prizes.

There will also be special prizes for the top three Kiddies (14-Under), top three ladies, top three Class A Cepca members, top three Class B Cepca members and the top senior (60-above players).

The format is nine-rounds Swiss and time control is 30 minutes plus five-second increments. Registration fee is P300 for the regular players, P200 for Cepca members and seniors, and P150 for ladies and kiddies.

Registration is on site starting at 10:30 a.m. while the tournament will start at 1 p.m. Four rounds will be played on Saturday and five rounds on Sunday starting 11 am.

Ouir monthly tournament, which will include children of Cepca members, will be this Sunday, at Handuraw Gorordo starting 2 p.m. Ladies are also invited and may register for free. This month`s sponsor is Ellery Berciles.

Pacquiao tournament. This 4-man team tournament was played last Sept. 4 and 5 at SM Mall, General Santos and sponsored by the legendary Manny Pacquiao.

Format was a random seven rounds Swiss with one hour time control. Random chess is a variant advocated by Bobby Fischer. Placement of the major pieces is not the same as standard chess but randomized for every round. This will force the players to rely on their creativity and talent as most masters memorize the first 10 or so starting moves of standard chess..

Cebu’s Rose Pharmacy A (IM Oliver Dimakiling, IM Kim Steven Yap, Edsel Montoya, Rhenzi Kyle Sevillano) finished at a tie for fourth to sixth places with Estomo Bohol (Norman Longjas, Jose Vito Tapulgo, Rommel Ganzon, Allan Salientes) and Acxent Glass A (GM Darwin Laylo, NM David Alorta, Sherwin Tiu, Samson Lim). Each won P35,000.

The big purse of P300,000 was snared by the Mark Yabut Jake Carlos Realty and Finance team composed of International Master Richelieu “Jongjong” Salcedo III, Alfredo Rapanot, National Master Jerad Docena and Kevin Mirano.

Tied for second and third were the Acxent Glass B team of International Masters Ronald Dableo, Jan Emmanuel Garcia, Timothy John Kua So and Christian Arroyo and the Pacman Crusaders team of Joel Pimentel Jr., Roel Abelgas and Recarte Tiauson and Lennon Hart Salgados. Each won P150,000.

Eugene Torre teamed up with Pacquiao, former PBA star Zaldy Realubit, and kiddie sensation Alekhine Nouri for the 11th placer Pacman 2 .Torre won the gold in board one, while Kimkim also won the gold medal in board 2. The board 3 and 4 winners were John So Kua and Allan Salientes.

Twenty-four teams participated in this first random team tournament.

Pestaño: Wesley So’s disappointing stint

THE Grand Chess Tour 2015 was conceptualized by the legendary Garry Kasparov and created for the world’s best players. It is made possible by the partnership among the Chess Club, Scholastic Center of Saint Louis (Sinquefield Cup), Tower AS (Norway Chess 2015) and Chess Promotions, Ltd. (London Chess Classic).

Each of the three 2015 Grand Chess Tour events will award individual prize funds of $300,000, with competitors also tallying points toward a tour prize fund of $150,000. The overall tour champion will receive an additional $75,000. The total prize fund for the Tour is $1,050,000.

The events are the Norway Chess 2015 in Stavanger, Norway (June 15- 26), Sinquefield Cup in Saint Louis, USA, (Aug. 21 to Sept. 3) and the London Chess Classic in London, England (Dec. 3 to 14).

The Tour invited the world’s top 10 GMs, eight of whom agreed to appear in all three international events. A ninth GM, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, was added as Wesley declined to play due to conflicting schedules. The 10th and final GM will be selected as a wildcard by each organizing host. Wesley was the wild card entry in Sinquefield.

It is not reasonable to expect a stellar performance from Wesley, as after all, this tournament is the highest rated in history. But still he could have done better instead of being the cellar-dweller. He had a lone win over Alexander Grischuk and had draws with Anish Giri, Veselin Topalov, Viswanathan Anand and Fabiano Caruana. He lost to Levon Aronian, Magnus Carlsen, lagrave and Hikaru Nakamura. His performance rating is a lowly 2676 compared to the winner Aronian, who had a rating of 2918 and won by a full point.

As a result, Wesley is now down to no.12 in the world from no. 7 at the start of the tournament and lost a massive 13 points in live ratings as of Sept. 2. Last year’s winner Caruana was also off and finished just a half point better than So like Anand.

Aronian increased by 19 points and is now No. 7 in live ratings, improving by four ranks from No.11. He is an Armenian GM and is now back to his old form. In the March 2014 FIDE rating list, he was ranked No. 2 in the world and had an Elo rating of 2830, making him the fourth highest-rated player in history. His popularity in Armenia has led to him being called a hero. He was named the best sportsman of Armenia in 2005 and was awarded the title of Honoured Master of Sport of the Republic of Armenia in 2009.

He is endeared to Filipino fans as he has been in a relationship with Fil- Aussie mestiza Woman International Master Arianne Caoili since 2008.

New GM. Haridas Pascua scored 5.5 points in nine rounds in the Abu Dhabi Masters Open Tournament last week and achieved his third and final GM norm and become the 12th Pinoy Grandmaster.

But Fide regulations say Pascua cannot be awarded the GM title until he hits an Elo rating of 2500. His present rating is 2447. There is no deadline though and it is only a matter of time

Remarkable. John Burke of USA, who was born in 2001, is still untitled but has broken Wei Yi’s record as the youngest player in the world to achieve a 2600 rating.

Ding Liren is now world No.7 as of Aug. 31 beating the record of Wang Yue as the highest-rated Chinese ever.

Battsooj Amina of Mongolia went from beginner to master in four months! This is rather unusual as the 14-year-old girl gained an incredible 850 Elo points from 1458 to 2309, from mid-May up to this month.

Pestaño: Sinquefield Cup 2015 and scrabble in Cebu

THIS tournament, currently ongoing in the Scholastic Chess Center of St. Louis, is billed by journalists as the strongest tournament in history and has eight of the current top 10 players in the world.

The field has World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen, No. 2 Viswanathan Anand, No. 3 Veselin Topalov , No. 4 Hikaru Nakamura, No. 5 Fabiano Caruana, No. 6 Anish Giri, No. 8 Wesley So, No. 9 Alexander Grischuk, No. 11 Levon Aronian and No. 16 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Everybody wins as the winner gets $75,000 and the last placer gets $15,000. They will also be refunded for their expenses.

The previous record holder as the strongest tournament in history is the same event in 2014, which only had six players in a double-round robin format.

The 2014 tournament will long be remembered by the incredible performance of Fabiano Caruana, who had a 7-0 streak and was considered the greatest performance of all time. The history of chess has seen longer streaks, but never against such highly-rated players

St. Louis has rapidly risen as the chess capital of the world thanks to “tyrannosaurus” Rex Senquefield--a financial wizard and a philanthropist. He founded Dimensional fund advisers, which manages more than $310 billion in assets as of 2013.

Strongest tournament? I have checked the past big tournaments and this is rather controversial. By ratings of the players, this is definitely true, but the ratings have inflated by 100 to 150 points since Elo started in 1970. Before this, there were many big tournaments.

According to statistician Jeff Sonas, the best way to determine strong tournaments is by the presence of the world’s top 10 players.

The top five before were Vienna 1882 (with nine of the world’s top 10), Linares 1993 (Also with nine of the top 10), Nottingham 1936 (with eight of the top 10), Avro 1938 (with 8 of the top 10), and Linares 1992 (also 8 of the top 10).

After three rounds in St. Louis, the leader is Topalov with 2.5 points and is followed by Giri, Aronian and Carlsen with two points each. Wesley has 1.5 with a win against Grischuk and draw with Giri, He lost in the first round to Lagrave. Surprisingly, Caruana and Anand are last with only 0.5.

Scrabble. This distant cousin of chess had a big tournament last Aug. 21 at the City Social Hall. Organized by Marilyn Abella the event attracted about 200 “word-pushers” (my third contribution to the English language. The first was “xylothism” -look for its meaning by Googling it. Another is “Grandmartyrs” or those who died while playing chess. I guess very few have contributed a new word and get recognized).

It was sponsored by the City through the Philippine Sports Commission in coordination with the Department of Education.

Here are the list of winners.

Professional and College Category: Renante Dela Cerna, Jowar Ayuno, Joel Toroy.

High School Category: Emyrose Avise, Julifer Tuba, Russel Sartagoda.

Elementary Category: Jonspeed Eslao, Chairylle Bucao, Anne Rallos.

Renante and I go a long way together. He excels in mind games and aside from being a good chess player, he is also one of the top poker players in Cebu. I hate to tangle with him on a one-on-one basis. He is also a very sharp mahjong player.

He was the national scrabble champion in 2004 and 2008 and was he first-runner-up in 1998 and 2002. He placed fifth in the First International Scrabble tournament in Baguio in 2009.

He plans to play in Thailand in July next year to compete with the world’s best in the Crossword brand International Kings Cup.

Pestaño: 165 Grandmasters in one tournament

ASIDE from the chess Olympiad, I have never come across a tournament with this record number of grandmasters. A record 165 GMs, and possibly more , will play in the 22nd Abu Dhabi Chess Festival.

Husain Abdullah Khouri, chairman of the organizing committee, said the event has reached a milestone since it was launched 22 years ago. “We could hardly get a few GMs in those early years but now, we have more than 25 in the waiting list .”

This tournament is a favorite destination as players are treated exceedingly well and are provided with free accommodation in a five-star hotel plus expenses.

The Emiratis are as hospitable as the Filipinos.

The tournament will start this Sunday and will end on Aug. 31. It has three sections--Masters, Open and Juniors Under 16. Total prize money is P3.25 million.

A few columns ago, I featured the 10-year-old prodigy FM Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who made chess headlines last year when he upset the GMs Andrei Zhigalko and Ruslan Khusnutdinov in the Uzbekistan Open.

The kid won the gold medal in the Under-8 age category at the world youth chess championship in Maribor, Slovenia, in 2012 and is the highest-rated Under-12 chess player in the world at over 2400.

“He’s one of the top draws in the competition,” said Ismail Ibrahim Al Khouri, the tournament director.

Masters section. Open for players rated 2000 and above, the event will be a nine-round Swiss system with time control of 90 minutes for each player plus 30-second increments for each move. The organizing committee will provide free accommodation in a five-star hotel for players rated 2500 and above.

Open section. It is open for players rated 2000 ELO and below and will have also be a nine-round Swiss system with 90 minutes for each player and 30-second increments for each move.

The Juniors section is for players born in 1999 or later. The tournament will be a seven-round Swiss system with time control of 60 minutes for each player and 10-second increments for each move. The top four players from each age group--U10, U12, U14, U16--will qualify for the finals, which will be a knockout system tournament.

Pacquiao. The 1st Manny Pacquiao Cup Random Chess Team Tournament will be on Sept. 4 and 5 at the SM City General Santos.

The seven-round Swiss System format competition will offer P300,000 to the champion but the registration fee is only P2,000 per team.

The runner-up will get P200,000, while the third-placer will get P100,000. The next four teams will receive P50,000, P30,000, P20,000 and P10,000, respectively.

A consolation prize of P7,000 will be given to the eighth to 10th placers, while the 11th to 15th placers will each settle for P5,000.

Top board 1 performer will also win P5,000, while top players in Boards 2, 3 and 4 will get P3,000 each.

Rose Pharmacy of chess patron Bodjie Lim will field two teams. Team A will have GM Oliver Dimakiling, IM Kimkim Yap, Edsel Montoya and Kyle Sevillano, while Team B is composed of GM Oliver Barbosa, NM Merben Roque, Michael Pagaran and FM Anthony Makinano.

UNIQUE FORMAT. Random Chess is a variant of chess advocated by Bobby Fischer. It employs the same board and pieces as standard chess; however, the starting position of the pieces on the players’ home ranks is randomized, compelling players to rely on their talent and creativity. Most GMs memorize the first 10 or so moves of the current setup

The game is played the same as standard chess in all respects, with the single exception of castling from the different possible starting positions for king and rooks. Black’s pieces are placed equal-and-opposite to White’s pieces.

Pestaño: Wesley So’s busy schedule

AS one of the top 10 players in the world, Wesley So gets invited to a lot of big tournaments.

The French Highest League for Men Top-12 took place from May 30 to June 9, in the seaside resort of Le Grau-du-Roi, and it’s marina Port-Camargue and So was invited. The other participants were Anish Giri, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, David Navara, Laurent Fressinet, Etienne Bacrot, Alexander Ipatov, Tornike Sanikidze, Dmitry Jakovenko, Matthieu Cornette, Sebastien Maze, Pavel Tregubov, Laurent Fressinet.

Wesley played Board 1 for Clichy, which placed second in the team contest.

The traditional EZ Chess Trophy 2015 Festival was held from June Jun 12 to 16 Prague, the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. It is also known as the annual “David Navara versus a very strong GM,” tournament and is organized by the Prague Chess Society.The highlight of the festival was a four-game match between World No. 14 David Navara (2751) and World No. 9 So (2778). Wesley won Games 2 and 4 with the final score at 3-1.

Before the match, Wesley conducted a 22-board simul exhibition match and won 19, drew two and lost 1. They told him later that he played faster than anyone in this event’s history. For the same number of boards, Korchnoi took five hours and Kasparov six.Wesley finished the simul in one and a half hours.

From there and after a few days rest, he went to Germany to play in a very strong tournament, the Dortmund Sparkassen, which took place from June 27 to July 5 at the NRW Orchestra Centre in Dortmund, Germany.

Wesley was the only to defeat the winner Fabiano Caruana, who scored an impressive 5.5/7. Wesley was second and the other players were Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, Vladimir Kramnik, Arkadi Naiditsch, George Meier and Women champion Hou Yifan.

From there, he proceeded to the Metropolitan Chess Camp in Glendale, California to teach chess. Wesley noted in Facebook, “Having a wonderful time in Glendale, California at the 2015 Metropolitan and ACA Summer Chess Camp! These are my students and these wonderful kids take full responsibility for any white hair I may now have!”

He is now playing in the Turkish Isbank Chess Super League 2015, which started last Aug. 4 and will end on Aug. 15 in Kocaeli, Turkey. A total of 14 teams are playing.

The top players of the event are GMs So, Esen Baris, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Eltaj Safarli, Dragan Solak, Pentala Harikrishna, Vladislav Artemiev, Alexander Ipatov, Ivan Cheparinov, Ivan Salgado Lopez, Ferenc Berkes, Anna Ushenina and Boris Grachev.

Wesley will then play in the strongest tournament in his career at the Third Annual Sinquefield Cup, which will be on Aug. 22 to Sept. 3 at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis.

The super tournament will gather some of the strongest players in the world: reigning World champion Magnus Carlsen (2853), World No. 2 2 Viswanathan Anand (2816), World No. 3 Veselin Topalov (2816), World No. 4 Hikaru Nakamura (2814), last year’s winner and World No. 5 Caruana (2797), World No. 6 Anish Giri (2791), World No. 9 Alexander Grischuk (2771), World No. 10 Levon Aronian(2765) and World No. 26 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2731).

Marie Ernestine. The first tournament in their Talamban campus was held last Saturday by coach Therese dela Torre. The top three winners are Kyle Matthew Dizon (Grade 6), Armando Angelo Ybañez (Grade 5), Christian Elijah Ybañez (Grade 4).