NOTABLE GAMES: Eugene Torre

Eugenio Torre (born November 4, 1951) is a chess Grandmaster (GM). He is considered the strongest chess player the Philippines has ever produced during the 1980s and 1990s period, following the heels of Fischer-era Filipino chess champions National Master (NM) Ramon Lontoc, International Master (IM) Renato Naranja, IM Rodolfo Tan Cardoso and GM Rosendo Balinas, Jr. Super GM Wesley So is currently the top Philippine chess player.
1976-1983
GM Torre shot to prominence in 1976 as a possible future title challenger after winning a strong four-man tournament in Manila ahead of world champion Anatoly Karpov – thus becoming the first player to finish ahead of Karpov in a tournament since the latter became world champion. The high-point of his career came in the early 1980s when he was ranked world No.17; successfully going on to qualify to be a candidate for the world championship after tying for first with Lajos Portisch during the 1982 Toluca Interzonal.
Torre has the distinction of being the first Asian player to earn the title of International Grandmaster. He qualified for the Candidates Matches for the 1984 World Championship. In that preliminary stage, the contenders play matches against each other to determine who will challenge the world champion. Torre was eliminated when he lost his match against Zoltán Ribli by a score of 6-4.
After losing his quarter-final candidates match to Zoltan Ribli in 1983, Torre became disillusioned with chess and more or less went into semi-retirement. He went on to become a minor celebrity due to his daily one hour TV programme “Chess Today”
From 1970 to 2006, the former business administration undergraduate from Mapúa Institute of Technology donned the national colors 19 consecutive times in the World Chess Olympiad, breaking the old record of 18 consecutive held by Heikki Westerinen although still a shy of the record 20 non-consecutive appearances made by Hungary's Lajos Portisch. He had manned the top board for Team Philippines for a record 17 times already except in the 1970 and 2006 editions. He also has taken part in six Asian Chess Team Championships (1977, 1979, 1981, 1983, 1986, 1993) and once in the World Student Chess Team Championships (1969). During that 36-year stretch, Torre played on Board 1 a total of 17 times, a world record. He played a lower boar only twice: in 1970 in Siegen, Germany and in 2006 in Turin, Italy.

In 1988, Torre captained the Philippine team to its best-ever seventh-place finish in the Chess Olympiad in Thessaloniki, Greece.
In 2010, He made his 20th Olympiad Appearance equaling the same appearance with Lajos Portisch. In the 16th Asian Games, Torre helped the Philippines finished with the second place behind China, beating the Indian Team. n 2006, Torre participated in the second San Marino International Chess Open where he tied for fourth through eleventh places with 6½ points in nine rounds where he eventually placed seventh after the tie-breaks becoming the highest-placed Filipino in the said tournament. He had a performance rating of 2612 at the said tournament and won €1,000 for his seventh-place finish.

Torre was a friend of Bobby Fischer. He worked on Fischer's team in his 1992 rematch with Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia. Much later, Torre conducted interviews on Filipino radio with Bobby Fischer. Those interviews gained notoriety for Fischer and despair for his fans. Torre was involved in 1996 when Fischer Random Chess was launched. One anecdote during this period has it that when Torre and Fischer boarded a taxi in Buenos Aires, the driver immediately recognized Torre as a chess player. As both were about to leave the taxi, the driver, not knowing who the other distinguished passenger was, asked Torre: “Whatever happened to that crazy guy Fischer?”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenio_Torre

Clash of the Titans Carlsen vs Nakamura 2011

Play the Semi-Slav by IM David Vigorito

Play the Semi-Slav
by IM David Vigorito

Quality Chess, 2008
ISBN: 9185779016 softcover, 277 pages
Figurine Algebraic Notation

The Slav defense has always been a popular opening for Black, dating back to the Alekhine-Bogoljubow and Alekhine-Euwe matches. However, over the last several years the Semi-Slav has replaced it as the opening of choice amongst the world’s top players.

I myself have been playing various variations of the Slav for the past 19 years. Originally, like a lot of beginners, I started with the mainline Slav. However, for some reason the exchange variation would sometimes give me trouble. After trying the a6 Slav for a brief period, I ended up playing the Semi-Slav a few years ago and have been very pleased with it.

The interesting thing is you would think that with Black playing pawns to both c6 and e6 and blocking in his light squared bishop, there wouldn’t be that much theory to know. I mean, isn’t Black sort of playing a Colle in reverse? The answer is no—the Semi-Slav is nothing like the Colle.

While the Colle is a pretty easy opening to play (I play it), the number of variations in the Semi-Slav is quite large and the lines often run past 20 moves. Additionally, while the Colle is usually a setup to play for a kingside attack, in the Semi-Slav, Black’s play is usually on the queenside (c5 break) or center (e5 break).

Vigorito’s 277 page book is broken into 5 sections:

Part I – The Moscow Variation
Part II – The Botvinnik Variation
Part III – The Meran Variation
Part IV – The 6.Qc2 Variation
Part V – White Avoids the Main Lines

The Semi-Slav appears on the board after the following moves:



We can learn a little here by watching two of the best in the business pick up the position from here (game 9 in the book):

Wesley returns, places 5th in Aeroflot blitz chess

A few days' rest was enough for Wesley So to regain his swagger as he finished a fighting fifth in the Aeroflot Open blitz chess championship at the Hotel Gamma-Delta in Moscow, Russia on Thursday.

The 17-year-old Filipino champion, who withdrew from the tournament proper due to exhaustion, scored six wins to finish in a two-way tie for fifth to sixth places with GM Nikita Vitiugov of Russia with 13 points.

The 23rd-seeded So finished 1.5 points behind eventual champion GM Shakhiyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan, who had 14.5 points, and one point behind runner-up GM Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine, who had 14 points.

He defeated Russians Piort Korobkov, and GMs Vitaly Kunin and Ian Nepomniachtchi, Argentine GM Ruben Felgaer, Spanish GM Francisco Vallejo Pons and Vietnamese GM Le Quang Liem.

He drew his matches against IM Aleksei Pridorozhni of Russia, GM Alexander Grischuk of Russia and Ponomariov.

GM Darwin Laylo, who shared the Group B title with Armenian GM Tigran Kotanjian and Russian GM Nikolai Kabanov last Wednesday, struggled and finished tied for 134th to 150th with three wins (7.5 points).

Two other Filipino campaigners finished in the upper half of the standings in the tournament that attracted 194 players, including 111 GMs and 32 International Maters from 34 countries.

Moscow Open runner-up IM Oliver Barbosa and IM Richard Bitoon finished tied for 55th to 66th places (10 points), while IM Oliver Dimakiling wound up tied for 87th to 98th places (9.0 points).

GM John Paul Gomez and National Master Paulo Bersamina did not compete.

The Filipinos are scheduled to return to Manila on February 20.

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/213376/so-returns-places-5th-in-aeroflot-blitz-chess

Le Quang Liem's successfully defending the Aeroflot Open title 2011

Congratulations to Grandmaster Le Quang Liem for successfully defending the Aeroflot Open title with the winning the Aeroflot Chess Open 2011.
Going into the last round on Wednesday, he was tied with Grandmaster Ivan Cheparinov for the first place with 6 points each. In the final round Liem drew with Rauf Mamedov but Cheparinov went down fighting to GM Nikita Vitiugov.

The 10th Aeroflot Open chess festival takes place February 7-18, 2011 in Moscow, Russia. The organizers are the “Aeroflot-Russian Airlines”, the Association of Chess Federations and the Russian Chess Federation. Three sections play nine rounds Swiss for a a total prizefund of 160,000 Euros, including the prizes for the qualifier for the World Blitz Championship on February 17th.

http://www.vietnamchess.com.vn/

Wesley So withdrawing from the main tournament Aeroflot 2011

MOSCOW, Russia — With Filipino grandmaster Wesley So withdrawing from the main tournament and GM John Paul Gomez losing for the first time in six games, GM Darwin Laylo carried the fight for the Philippines in the 2011 Aeroflot Open chess championship.

Laylo, ever so eager to step out of the shadows of his younger and equally talented countrymen, overwhelmed upset-conscious Bayarsiakhan Gundavaa of Mongolia to forge a four-way tie for the top spot after the sixth round Sunday.

The 30-year-old campaigner from Lipa City, who earned his GM title in 2007, moved into a tie with GM Dorian Rogozenco of Romania, GM Tigran Kotanjian of Armenia and GM Wen Yang of China with five points out of a possible six.

Rogozenco caught the Filipinos’ attention when he pulled the rug from under Gomez, snapping a two-game winning streak and dealing the pride of Biñan, Laguna his first setback.

Kotanjian whipped GM Zhao Xue of China and Wen outplayed GM Alexei Gavrilov of Russia in other featured sixth-round matches to join Laylo and Rogozenco in the lead.

Gomez dropped to a tie for fifth to 10th places with 4.5 points.

Moscow Open runner-up IM Oliver Barbosa also made his presence felt by humbling Mikhail Antipov of Russia in 78 moves of the Slav to raise his record to 3.5 points on three wins, one draw and two losses.

Also with the same score is IM Oliver Dimakiling, who crushed Dmitry Kurukin of Russia for his third win against one draw and two losses.

Aside from Gomez, the only other casualty for the five-man Filipino delegation in Group B is IM Richard Bitoon, who bowed to Vitaly Kunin of Germany.

Bitoon had three points on two wins, two draws and two losses.

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/213003/gm-laylo-steps-up-carries-fight-for-pinoys-in-aeroflot-open

Best Games of Chess Informant 108

The proceedings at the outset of the World Championship match between Anand and Topalov, played in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, were reminiscent of the duel between Fischer and Spassky in Reykjavik in 1972. Despite the enormous distance that separates the venues of the two matches, their common denominator is Iceland. In 1972, the entire world awaited the stormy Cold War confrontation of East and West awakened by the match. In 2010, the eruption was the awakening of the volcano Eujafjallajökull. The tumultuous atmosphere caused by Anand's delayed arrival, the resulting one-day postponement of the match, Topalov's excellent victory in the first (and most beautiful) game of the match, and Anand's quick recovery in the second game, were all evocative of the events in 1972.

Chess Theory

Two Knights Defense (Ulvestad Variation)

Nat'l Inter-Province chessfest set April 1-5 in Aklan

Nat'l Inter-Province chessfest set April 1-5 in Aklan
THE National Inter-Province chess team championship, an annual event n the National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) calendar, will be held on April 1-5 at the Cabagnot Training Center in Kalibo, Aklan.

This was announced by NCFP president/chairman Prospero “Butch” Pichay and Aklan Gov. Carlito Marquez, who finalized the agreement for the staging of the prestigious five-day competition pitting top players from different provinces in the country.

A guaranteed cash prize of P100,000 and trophy await the winning team in this annual competition open to all titled and untitled players.

The runner-up and the third placer will receive P70,000 and P50,000, respectively.

NCFP executive director Willie Abalos said the participating team can field field four regular players and one alternate. Teams, however, can only field one titled player – GM, IM, FM or NM -- who will play on top board.

The other cash prizes are: P30,000 to the fourth placer, P20,000 to the fifth placer; P10,000 to the sixth placer; P9,000 to the seventh placer; P8,000 to the eighth placer; P7,000 to the ninth placer; and P6,000 to the 10th placer.

The top individual performers from boards one to five will also get P2,000 each and medals.

For details and request for formal invitation, call the NCFP secretariat at tel. 02-3817224, or cell 0949-1760889 and 0929-2266210, or email at NCFPsecretariat@yahoo.com/ hambalosin@yahoo.com,

Interested participants can also get in touch to NCFP regional director and Aklan sports coordinator Willie Neri at 0920-5636732.

Meanwhile, the NCFP also announces the staging pof the National age-group on April 15-18, National Juniors on April 20-26, Asian Youth on May 14-22 in Subic, ASEAN Zonals on May 24-30 in Tagaytay City and the Pichay Cup on June 1-9 in Subic.