Paragua, Dableo lose bid in world chess tiff

International masters Mark Paragua and Ronald Dableo succumbed to tough competition right in the opening round and dropped out of the knock-out format of the World Chess Championships Sunday in Tripoli, Libya.

Paragua, who won over former world junior champion Viktor Bologan of Moldova in the first of their best-of-two series Saturday, lost in the second game Sunday.

That evened the series at 1-1, forcing the first tie-breaker, a two-match 15-minute rapid chess.

Paragua lost in both matches.

Grandmaster Joey Antonio, who analyzed Paragua’s second match against Bologan, the 2003 Dortmund Open chess champion, said Paragua should not have chosen the Queen’s Indian Defense against the attack of White.

Dableo, who drew with former world chess finalist Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu in their first match, was completely outclassed by the super-GM (Elo 2692) in their second game. Dableo (Elo 2426) wound up a 0.5-1.5 loser in the opening round.

The FIDE tournament, boycotted by world top players Gary Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand, started with a 128-man field.

The format calls for opposing players to play two regular matches, alternately with the white and black pieces. A draw sends the matchup to a first tie-breaker, a 15-minute active chess. Subsequent tiebreakers – the 10-minute and five-minute blitz – are held in case of ties.

Half of the starting field has been eliminated while the other 64 advance to the next round Monday.

Dableo and Paragua, whoever, won’t go home empty-handed since they each received 4,800 Swiss francs (roughly P80,000) for their losing efforts.