3 Pinoy GMs gear up for World Cup

GRANDMASTER Rogelio “Joey” Antonio Jr. said he isn’t too confident of his chances when he joins the World Chess Cup slated on Nov. 20 to Dec. 15 in Russia.

“Thirty percent chance lang na manalo kay (Gata) Kamsky, pero lalaban tayo,” said Antonio.

Kamsky is the reigning world champion.

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The 12-time National Open champion Antonio is fresh from an impressive eight-win and one-draw performance in the 3rd Asian Indoor Games blitz chess competition in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Antonio first joined the World Chess Championships in 1999 in the US, where he lost in the second round of the playoff against eventual runner-up GM Vladimir Akopian of Armenia.

The first meeting between Antonio and Kamsky was in the 2005 HB Global Challenge in the US.

The game ended in a fighting draw after Antonio employed his pet line Caro-Khan defense with the black pieces.

Antonio is rated 2574,while Kamsky is 2695.

If Antonio pulls an upset against Kamsky, his second round opponent in this Fide knockout tournament will be the winner between GM Emil Sutovsky of Israel and GM Zhou Weiqi of China.

If Antonio wins his second round assignment, he could meet compatriot GM Wesley So in the third round if the latter also wins his first two matches.

So, rated 2640, will face GM Gadir Guseinov of Azerbaijan, rated 2625. A victory will pit him with either GM Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and GM Alexei Bezgodov of Russia in the second round.

GM Darwin Laylo, the other member of the RP chess team, will face GM David Navara of the Czech Republic. (PR)

Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on November 13, 2009.

Pestaño: Family feud over Fischer’s inheritance

Frank “Boy” Pestaño
Chessmoso

CHESS legend Bobby Fischer died in Iceland on Jan. 17, 2008 of renal failure. In death, as in life, he left a legacy full of controversies. This time, it’s mainly the battle over his estate, estimated at $1.12 million cash deposited at an Icelandic bank. In addition, there are allegedly some gold deposits and a possible fortune in royalties from the making of the movie “Bobby Fischer goes to war.”

There are three claimants to this fortune, or four if you include the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The three are his nephews Alexander and Nicholas Targ who are the children of his late sister Joan; his Japanese wife Miyoko Wataihi; and his Filipina daughter, Jinky Young, who is now eight years old.

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Here is a short background of where this money came from and why it is controversial.

After disappearing from public view for 20 years, Fischer returned to play a chess match with Boris Spassky in 1992.

It was held in Sveti Stefan, a resort in Montenegro, and Bobby was warned not to join since Yugoslavia was being sanctioned by the United Nations for the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The prize fund was $5 million with $3.65 million going to the winner.

The sponsor was Jezdimir Vasiljevic, the President of Jugoskandic Bank. Eugene Torre served as Fischer’s second, while Cebuano Eric Gloria was also part of the team of Fischer, who won the match.

The other day, the Supreme Court in Iceland rejected the claims of the Targ brothers and awarded the inheritance to Miyoko Watai, recognizing his marriage to Fischer as legal.

I have been following this drama since the very start thru an Icelandic contact, Alfred Gudmundsson, who is married to a Cebuana, Mae, and Samuel Estimo, Jinky’s lawyer.

Unfortunately, Alfred, who was a very good man, passed away.

I immediately sent an e-mail to NM Samuel Estimo, and he informed me that Jinky’s claim is still valid.

Jinky, her mom Marilyn Torre and Sammy will be joining a shoot for a documentary by BBC HBO on the life of Bobby on either Dec. 6 or 7 in London, and then will proceed to Iceland.

In Iceland, Jinky is sure to be DNA-tested and Marilyn has agreed as she is sure of Bobby’s paternity. I have a picture of Marilyn and Jinky, together with Bobby.

Under Icelandic law, the child gets two-thirds of the estate, while the legal wife gets one third.

Bobby, in an interview, claims that he was never married to Watai (Bobby was in jail in Japan then and the marriage would have set him free). Also Eugene Torre claims that Bobby never wished to marry Watai but only wanted her as a companion.

Bobby preferred young and beautiful women.

Let us wish them good luck when they go to Iceland. As Sammy says “Bobby will turn in his grave if Marilyn and Jinky will not be given their due.”

MABOLO AND LAPU-LAPU TOURNAMENTS. The first is open to Class B Mabolo residents only. It will be held on Nov. 17 to 19 and format is seven rounds Swiss with 25 minutes time control.

Venue is at Kawayan Grill, in front of Persimmon. Games start at 5:30 p.m.

Registration is P150 with the following prizes: Champion (P1,500), second (P1,000), third (P500), and fourth P(300.) The fifth to eight placers will receive P200 each. For details call 4129283 and 4129018.

The Lapu-Lapu Fiesta competition will start on Nov. 14, at the Auditorium and will have two divisions-- Kiddies and Juniors/Seniors. The Kiddies division begins at 8:30 a.m. and the seniors will be at 1:30 p.m.

Format for kiddies is five rounds Swiss and 30 minutes time control. Confirmed players are the Balbona brothers, boy wonder Rhenzi Kyle Sevillano and Lapu-Lapu’s Allan Pason, Raffy Bensi and Gil Gelig.

The Juniors/Seniors section is open to Lapu-Lapu residents and people who work there. The sponsor is the Lapu-Lapu City Government through Mayor Arturo Radaza. For details contact Jun Olis at 09103476907.

(frankpestano@yahoo.com,www.chessmoso.blogspot.com)

Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on November 13, 2009.

Pestaño: Chess-playing murderers and assassins

Frank “Boy” Pestaño
Chessmoso

THIS article is about persons known to be avid chess players but at the same time, were assassins or murderers.

Generally, a person who murders restricts his or her act to one victim. A mass murderer or serial killer, however, slays three or more victims over a short period of time.

The most notorious serial killer is Alexander Pichushkin of Russia, 32, who has been nicknamed “Crazy Chess Player” as he had initially planned to commit 64 murders, one for each square of the chessboard . He boasted of killing 63 people--one short of filling up the chessboard--but prosecutors were able to find evidence only for 48. The killings were from 1996-2006.

He has been sentenced to life imprisonment as Russia has imposed a moratorium on the death sentence.

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John Christie was an English serial killer active in the 1940s and 1950s. He murdered at least six women—including his wife, Ethel—by strangling them in his flat in London. He was arrested, tried, and hanged in 1953 for his wife’s murder and those of the other women.

John Wayne Gacy, Jr. was an American serial killer. Between 1972 and 1978, the year he was arrested, convicted, and later executed, Gacy raped and murdered at least 33 young men and boys. Although some of his victims’ bodies were found in the Des Plaines River, he buried 29 of them in the small crawl space underneath the basement of his home. He became known as “Killer Clown” because he entertained children in a clown suit and makeup under the alias “Pogo the Clown”.

The Soham murder was a high profile murder case in August 2002 of two 10-year-old girls in Soham, Cambridgeshire, England. The victims were Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. The convicted killer was a local school caretaker, Ian Huntley,who was sentenced to life imprisonment..

Charles Manson founded a hippie cult in the ‘60s known as “the Family” whom he manipulated into brutally killing others on his behalf.

He was convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to death, later commuted to life, for the Tate/LaBianca murders .

Sharon Tate (Valley of the Dolls) was one of the most beautiful actresses at that time, and was married to renowned director Roman Polanski (“Rosemarie’s Baby,” “Chinatown”) and was 8 1/2 months pregnant.

Tate, who was stabbed 16 times, pleaded to be allowed to live long enough to have her baby; she cried, “Mother... mother...” until she was dead.

Polanski is in the news lately with an arrest warrant for sexual assault on a minor in 1977.

Scott Lee Peterson is an American who was convicted of the murder of his wife, Laci Peterson, then eight months pregnant.

Peterson’s case dominated the American media for many months.

In 2005, Peterson was sentenced to death by lethal injection.

He remains on death row in San Quentin State Prison while his case is on appeal to the Supreme Court of California.

We now have the assassins--Lee Harvey Oswald ,Sirhan Sirhan and John Hinckley.

Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin of US President John F. Kennedy who was fatally shot on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. He was a Marine who defected to the Soviet Union and later returned. Oswald was shot and mortally wounded by Jack Ruby on live television.

Sirhan Sirhan is the convicted assassin of United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy who was killed on June 5,1968. He was sentenced to death but later commuted to life imprisonment. You would be surprised to know that Sirhan is not a Muslim but a Palestinian Christian.

John Hinckley, Jr., attempted to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan in Washington, D.C, on March 30, 1981, in an effort to impress actress Jodie Foster. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and has remained under institutional psychiatric care since then.

(frankpestano@yahoo.com,www.chessmoso.blogspot.com)


Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on November 6, 2009.

November 2009 FIDE Rating List

FIDE publishes 1st November 2009 Rating List.

World Chess Cup 2009 Pairings of Round 1

FIDE is publishing the pairings of the 1st round of the World Cup 2009.


World Cup 2009 Round 1
Table White Fed Black Fed

1 1 GM Gelfand, Boris ISR - 128 IM Obodchuk, Andrei RUS
2 2 GM Gashimov, Vugar AZE - 127 IM Sarwat, Walaa EGY
3 3 GM Svidler, Peter RUS - 126 IM Hebert, Jean CAN
4 4 GM Morozevich, Alexander RUS - 125 IM Abdel Razik, Khaled EGY
5 5 GM Radjabov, Teimour AZE - 124 IM Ezat, Mohamed EGY
6 6 GM Ivanchuk, Vassily UKR - 123 GM Bezgodov, Alexei RUS
7 7 GM Ponomariov, Ruslan UKR - 122 GM El Gindy, Essam EGY
8 8 GM Grischuk, Alexander RUS - 121 IM Sriram, Jha IND
9 9 GM Jakovenko, Dmitry RUS - 120 GM Rizouk, Aimen ALG
10 10 GM Wang, Yue CHN - 119 GM Kabanov, Nikolai RUS
11 11 GM Eljanov, Pavel UKR - 118 GM Al Sayed, Mohamad N. QAT
12 12 GM Karjakin, Sergey UKR - 117 GM Rodriguez Vila, Andres URU
13 13 GM Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar AZE - 116 GM Kosteniuk, Alexandra RUS
14 14 GM Shirov, Alexei ESP - 115 GM Kunte, Abhijit IND
15 15 GM Dominguez Perez, Leinier CUB - 114 GM Smerdon, David AUS
16 16 GM Movsesian, Sergei SVK - 113 GM Yu, Yangyi CHN
17 17 GM Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime FRA - 112 GM Yu, Shaoteng CHN
18 18 GM Alekseev, Evgeny RUS - 111 IM Pridorozhni, Aleksei RUS
19 19 GM Tomashevsky, Evgeny RUS - 110 GM Ivanov, Alexander USA
20 20 GM Wang, Hao CHN - 109 GM Friedel, Joshua E USA
21 21 GM Navara, David CZE - 108 GM Laylo, Darwin PHI
22 22 GM Malakhov, Vladimir RUS - 107 GM Amin, Bassem EGY
23 23 GM Bacrot, Etienne FRA - 106 GM Nijboer, Friso NED
24 24 GM Rublevsky, Sergei RUS - 105 GM Morovic Fernandez, Ivan CHI
25 25 GM Jobava, Baadur GEO - 104 IM Robson, Ray USA
26 26 GM Motylev, Alexander RUS - 103 GM Hess, Robert L USA
27 27 GM Kamsky, Gata USA - 102 GM Antonio, Rogelio Jr PHI
28 28 GM Vitiugov, Nikita RUS - 101 GM Gupta, Abhijeet IND
29 29 GM Bologan, Viktor MDA - 100 GM Adly, Ahmed EGY
30 30 GM Naiditsch, Arkadij GER - 99 GM Hou, Yifan CHN
31 31 GM Bu, Xiangzhi CHN - 98 GM Pelletier, Yannick SUI
32 32 GM Polgar, Judit HUN - 97 GM Pavasovic, Dusko SLO
33 33 GM Nisipeanu, Liviu-Dieter ROU - 96 GM Lupulescu, Constantin ROU
34 34 GM Sargissian, Gabriel ARM - 95 GM Li, Chao b CHN
35 35 GM Onischuk, Alexander USA - 94 GM Flores, Diego ARG
36 36 GM Cheparinov, Ivan BUL - 93 GM Kryvoruchko, Yuriy UKR
37 37 GM Efimenko, Zahar UKR - 92 GM Milos, Gilberto BRA
38 38 GM Sutovsky, Emil ISR - 91 GM Zhou, Weiqi CHN
39 39 GM Najer, Evgeniy RUS - 90 GM Ghaem Maghami, Ehsan IRI
40 40 GM Tiviakov, Sergei NED - 89 GM Iturrizaga, Eduardo VEN
41 41 GM Areshchenko, Alexander UKR - 88 GM Corrales Jimenez, Fidel CUB
42 42 GM Sasikiran, Krishnan IND - 87 GM L'Ami, Erwin NED
43 43 GM Smirin, Ilia ISR - 86 GM Ehlvest, Jaan USA
44 44 GM Baklan, Vladimir UKR - 85 GM Shabalov, Alexander USA
45 45 GM Ganguly, Surya Shekhar IND - 84 GM Filippov, Anton UZB
46 46 GM Fier, Alexandr BRA - 83 GM Khalifman, Alexander RUS
47 47 GM Fressinet, Laurent FRA - 82 GM Sjugirov, Sanan RUS
48 48 GM Meier, Georg GER - 81 GM Petrosian, Tigran L. ARM
49 49 GM Grachev, Boris RUS - 80 GM Bartel, Mateusz POL
50 50 GM Caruana, Fabiano ITA - 79 GM Bruzon Batista, Lazaro CUB
51 51 GM Sokolov, Ivan NED - 78 GM Fedorchuk, Sergey A. UKR
52 52 GM Milov, Vadim SUI - 77 GM Negi, Parimarjan IND
53 53 GM Timofeev, Artyom RUS - 76 GM Leitao, Rafael BRA
54 54 GM Inarkiev, Ernesto RUS - 75 GM Gustafsson, Jan GER
55 55 GM Savchenko, Boris RUS - 74 GM Shulman, Yuri USA
56 56 GM Kobalia, Mikhail RUS - 73 GM Sandipan, Chanda IND
57 57 GM Tkachiev, Vladislav FRA - 72 GM Le, Quang Liem VIE
58 58 GM Tregubov, Pavel V. RUS - 71 GM Akobian, Varuzhan USA
59 59 GM So, Wesley PHI - 70 GM Guseinov, Gadir AZE
60 60 GM Granda Zuniga, Julio E PER - 69 GM Sakaev, Konstantin RUS
61 61 GM Laznicka, Viktor CZE - 68 GM Papaioannou, Ioannis GRE
62 62 GM Andreikin, Dmitry RUS - 67 GM Nyback, Tomi FIN
63 63 GM Mamedov, Rauf AZE - 66 GM Zhou, Jianchao CHN
64 64 GM Amonatov, Farrukh TJK - 65 GM Volkov, Sergey RUS

SALCEDA CUP (Bicol Chess Tournament)

The Governor Joey Salceda Cup scheduled this November 12-18, 2009 has been postponed and will be re schedule according to NCFP Executive and Events Director Wilfredo Abalos. The dates will be announce later.
NCFP Secretariat