Cebu City eyes record for biggest chessfest

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu will attempt another record-breaking endeavor as the Queen City of the South will try to break the record for the largest board game tournament.

Cebu will try to break the record for the largest board game tournament set by 1,214 participants playing chess in the central city park in Krasnoyarsk, Russia in an event organized by Eugenie Kuznitsov on June 2, 2007.

Cebu City Sports Commission Chairman Edward Hayco said that the said endeavor is consolidated idea from the public and private sectors and they are targeting more than 2,000 participants for this ambitious project which is set on September this year dubbed as the "World's Largest Board Game Tournament."

The tournament would be done by age group and there will be no age limit for the participants.

"This is private and public sector endeavor and an ambitious project to break another record in the sport of chess and anyone can join this historic event," said Hayco, in a meeting during the just-concluded Cebu City Charter Day Chess Open tournament the other day.

He had a meeting with the organizers of the said event headed by SAC-SMB awardee Boojie Lim for the preparations that they will be making before the historic day comes.

Hayco, who was also the man behind breaking the record for the world's largest dance class, said that they already applied and got a claim number from the Guinness.

As part of their preparation to come up with the number of participants that they will try to accumulate, a monthly chess tournament will be conducted and the grassroots program will push the chess participants from 500 to 2,000.

Currently there are four locations providing free chess lesson namely at the Cebu Sports Institute, Hipodromo, Calamba and Talamban every weekend.

"We will be proposing a magic time for chess now, which will be at 4:00-6:00 in the afternoon in public schools and barangay schools and complex every day," said Hayco.

Dr. Librado Macaraya of Parks and Playground also showed support in the preparation as he will provide and construct a chess plaza at the Plaza Indepencia which will have 20 chess tables and will be open to the public.

Hayco is hoping that they will be able to achieve their goals of once again putting the name of Cebu into the world map in the sport of chess.

"We will send a message to the world that Cebu is the chess tournament destination and chess capital of the world," he ended. (FREEMAN)