Tuesday, November 19, 2013

2k13 Lapu-Lapu Chess Championships: THE FULL REPORT

The Lapu-Lapu Fiesta Tournament was held on November 16-17, at the newly opened Super Metro Opon. This time, the sponsor was the chess association, MICSA. The tournament format was a 5 round-Swiss in the Open Category, while a grueling 7 round-Swiss was assigned to the Kiddies Category. Time controls given were 15 minutes for each player.

OPEN CATEGORY
Negros chess talent, Brylle John Arellano dominated the recent "Lapu Lapu Chess Fiesta" held at Super Metro  Opon, Lapu-Lapu City. Arellano crushed the rising teenage chess star, Allan Pason in the last round, garnering a total of 5/5 points to take the championship crown. He was a clear point ahead of Henry Infante and Guy Chessman. Infante took the second place as he had the better tiebreaks over Chessman. So, Guy Chessman was third. Allan Pason only managed to gain 4th place as he was beaten by Arellano and was held to a draw by a strong yet unknown player. Meanwhile Mark "The Big Mouth" Cimafranca took 5th. Cimafranca is famously known in our chess club for his very talkative mouth but most importantly, his crushing victory over NM Rustum Tolentino in a 25-move brilliancy miniature, a long time ago.


Brylle John Arellano,  the newly crowned Lapu-Lapu city champion

Lapu-Lapu's teenage chess talent, Allan Pason took part in the Open category (!)
Sadly, he was beaten by Arellano and had to settle for 4th place.
Allan Pason is also notoriously known as Kyle Sevillano's
immortal nemesis.

Cebu's "Chinese GM", Peterson Sia, watches closely a game
between Lapu-Lapu players...
                       
Last year's champion, Ademar Toledo, was not able to regain his title,
as he was severely beaten and demoralised by...
Henry Infante, who ultimately clinched 2nd place in the event.
Chess patron, Jun Olis, visits the event and plays a game with one of
Lapu-Lapu's famous local hustlers...
Rolando "Lando" Torres
(1 d4 c5!?)
Asides from the cash prizes, trophies were given to the 1st to 3rd placers in the Open category.
Trophies were also given in the Kiddies Category bu t unfortunately,
I forgot to take some photos out of them :(
And well, behind these trophies was the arbiter of the event.
He also is one of the most famous arbiters in the Visayas...
Felix Poloyapoy
A.K.A. "NM Polyapov"
Best friend Edgar Tampus with official sponsor, Cobra. Hehe...

KIDDIES CATEGORY
The virtually unknown, Sidi Linus Abugan swept the kiddies category with a phenomenal 7/7 points! His closest rivals, the Velarde brothers  (Jerish and Jerele), only managed to collect 5.5 points each, since their dreams to become Lapu-Lapu Kiddies Champ was disrupted by Lyan Portes and John Lester Belano. Unfortunately, Belano was not able to continue his winning streak (5 points since rounds 1 to 5), as he faltered in the 6th and 7th round.
Here's the list of the kids who made it to the top 5:

  1. ABUGAN, Sidi Linus
  2. VELARDE, Jerele
  3. PICONDO, Grant Daniel
  4. VELARDE, Jerish
  5. PORTES, Lyan
Sidi  Linus Abugan, the new Lapu-Lapu Kiddies Open Champion.

Here are some pics from the Kiddies category:






"Hmmm... I guess I'll just have to distract the opponent with my mole!"
The phenomenal Jerish  Dalde Velarde, fresh from his victory  from Thailand,
had to settle for 4th place as he was beaten by...

One of the surprise of the tournament, John Lester Belano,
who is supported by his gracious and loving father...

Ramil Belano



                             

 Brgy. Councilor, Galileo Roma, the man behind all of this and of 
course, to our local government of Lapu Lapu ;)

Saturday, November 16, 2013

CARLSEN SCORES! /LAPU-LAPU TEAM TOURNAMENT TOMMOROW

World #1 Magnus Carlsen before the start of Game 5 at the ongoing World Chess Championship

The World Chess Championship is nearly halfway over, with the World's number one chess player snatching a full point in Game 5 from Vishy Anand, the reigning World Champion. 


UP-FRONT NOTICE: For the sake of necessary accuracy, I will be a little technical in the words I use today to give a complete and unbiased review of Game 5 of the World Chess Championship. Don't worry, this will be very quick.

In what seemed to be a drawish rook ending, the World Champion, Vishy Anand made a seemingly innocent and subtle error on move 45. In the actual game, Anand (Black), opted for 45...Rc1, giving Carlsen (White) the chance to play the easy 46 Kb2!, which forces Black to obey White's King and play 46...Rg1 instead. 

After 46...Rg1, the position was still drawable, but not anymore easy! Let's just say that a dead drawn game is easier to play than a drawish game with a slight advantage on one side

After the move 46...Rg1, Anand must have started to feel that frustrating and sinking feeling when it seemed to him that his position was slowly crumbling. I'm not saying that Anand was losing outright after that move, I'm just saying that it's already hard to play such position after such move

Looking back on move 45, in light of Black's difficulties, Black's "only" response was to play the "wais" 45... Ra1. This has the merit of making White's tempo gainer, 46 Kb2 impossible to play owing to 46...Ra2+, skewering the White king and his important g-pawn. When I checked the computer to make sure that 45...Ra1 was really a draw, a staggering eval of =0.00 was screaming throughout my monitor.

Anyways, a good game for Carlsen and good luck to Anand on the next game! 


LAPU-LAPU FIESTA TEAM TOURNAMENT

Good news for the locals of my club in Lapu Lapu! The annual Chess festival in Lapu-Lapu will kick off tomorrow! :) It will be a team tournament, with members of each team from Lapu-Lapu City only. The event starts at 10am, at the newly opened Gaisano Opon. The tournament is sponsored by the Lapu-Lapu City Government and Hon. Harry Radaza. Special thanks to one of our local chess patrons, Galileo Roma for the efforts! :)