Philippine Chess

[cjeagle]

Unfortunately we lost to Romania 1-3. It seems our lack of depth and rotation has resulted in a deterioration in their performance in the last few rounds. We are still going to have a better performance than the last time but we are now out of the top ten.

[benzgm]

we finished at 21st... still a respectable, if not good, result for our team ranked 35th coming into the competition.

Agree about the deterioration of their performance, add to that our playing against tougher opponents. still, happy I'm with the results.

[jimsar]

Sept 8, 2012 5:34:31 GMT 8 cjeagle said:

...
NM Glenn Bordanada is still pretty active in the pinoy chess forums and in the US chess scene. I am not sure but believed I met him awhile ago when I competed in a Chicago chess tournament when I was still an active player. Obviously I played in one of the non master group categories while he was competing in the Open category for masters but Filipinos tend to congregate in this type of tournaments and i believed we met. He was helping Wesley So train here when Wesley visited the US last time I encountered him on the forums. He can always be depended upon to make a thorough and incisive analysis of a game when one of our players is playing.

Not sure if any of our players are in the running for an individual medal, but I doubt it, as you normally need to win most of your games if you want to be considered for one and none of them seem to have done that. The strength of this team is in
its team play where one player would pick up for another and not on brilliant individual performance even though it is still impressive that Wesley So has been able to hold the fort at board 1 against all those hydra GMs he was facing and remaining unbeaten so far. I am not sure if any other player won the Gold in the past except for Glenn.

Glenn is an upstanding individual, one of the true "good guys". One of his quotes that I'll never forget is "Don't let your education interfere with your chess". That was in reference to my missing a chess match because I had an exam. Narra Residence Hall had a pretty strong chess team during that era. One of the more famous members was Heber Bartolome of Banyuhay fame. Glenn told me a couple of years ago that Heber still visits him from time to time for casual games. Back then Glenn and I were evenly matched with a 5 minutes to 1 handicap playing blitz. At 25 centavos per game, we had many binges that lasted to the wee hours. Fond memories!

cjeagle: I too, played competitively in the US, but only for a brief period of 2 1/2 years. My highest rating was 2020, but it went down to 1898 after a few bad results. (I just checked the USCF website, 1898 still stands.) Then I completely stopped, cold turkey. The reason? "Fresh off the boat" with pressures of raising a young family. My wife never got used to tournaments that started Fridays and ended Sunday afternoons. I remember one time I told her I'd be a master in 2 years, she responded with "divorced master". That pretty much sealed the deal. And finding my framed "Candidate Master" certificate in the junk pile one day.

[cjeagle]

jimsar,

Nice rejoinder by your wife. ;D No wonder you had to give it up. Same story here. Between
chess, soccer and ice hockey I had to give up a lot of my interests when I went to grad school as well as later on when
I was raising a family. I was around 1900 pushing to surpass 2000 USCF rating when I decided to quit. I am just a patzer nowadays.

BTW, if you want to contact Glenn, you might want to post on his
page on chessgames.com or on Wesley So's page where most Filipinos congregate.

[cjeagle]

GM Wesley So finally broke through the 2700 barrier today in the Reyjavik Open, with a live rating of 2701.4 making him the 51st highest ranked chess player in the world at the moment.

www.2700chess.com/

Interestingly enough he achieved the feat via a queen sacrifice, that gave him an opportunity to weave a mating net against his opponent's king. Way to go Wesley.

Here is his coach GM Susan Polgar's comments after he achieved his rating today on chessgames.com:

Susan Polgar: Hard work has paid off so far. I can't get new chess books fast enough for Wesley and Ray. They basically read everything I get for the SPICE chess library Wesley sets one goal at a time and so far has achieved all of them.
He also worked very hard to improve on his weaknesses and mental toughness. I believe the loss against Vachier-Lagrave at the SPICE Cup helped him get over the hump. It was painful but served as a great lesson.

Congrats to the Philippines for producing the 1st ever 2700 player!

Susan Polgar: BTW, not only Wesley became the 1st Filipino to achieve a 2700+ rating, he is also the 1st American collegiate player to achieve this feat. It is a double achievement.