Torre, Antonio force draw with Romania

GMs Eugene Torre and Joey Antonio, taking the cudgels for an embattled Philippine team, trounced their respective rivals to salvage a 2-2 draw for the RP squad against Romania as top board player GM Mark Paragua suffered another setback in the ninth round of the World Chess Olympiad in Turin, Italy Tuesday.

Torre, the many-time spearhead of the RP team in the biennial event, came out smoking and showed his deep understanding of the Trompovsky Opening to beat GM Andrei Istratescu in 39 moves.

Antonio, handling the black pieces, dragged GM Vladislav Nevednichy into a marathon match then outplayed his rival with sound moves at endgame to pull off a 58-move win of a Caro-Kann and remain as the only undefeated Filipino player.

Those victories actually saved the day for the Filipino bets, who came into the game still smarting from a 0.5-3.5 beating from in-form China Monday, as Paragua continued to sputter on the top board after dropping another match, this time against GM Dieter Liviu Nisipeanu.

The 22-year-old Paragua, who had to assume the lead role for RP by virtue of his high 2617 rating, failed to come up with the right moves that would have thwarted off the attack of Nisipeanu, the 1999 Las Vegas World Championship challenger who sacrificed a rook for a knight in the 18th move to gain positional advantage. The Romanian needed just six more moves to win their Sicilian Defense-Sozin Attack encounter.

Wesley So, the 12-year-old prodigy, also failed to make full use of whatever advantage the white pieces hold as he bowed to GM Levente Vajda after 59 moves of a Modern Defense.

The draw thus gave the Filipinos 20.5 points for a share of 35th place with Spain, Serbia & Montenegro, Bosnia Herzegovina, Romania, FYROM, Egypt, Venezuela, Bangladesh and 10th round opponent Malaysia.

Against the Malaysians, the RP bets hope to dish out their best and score a decisive victory for the momentum they need heading into the last three rounds of this biennial event.

Like its counterpart, the RP ladies team halved its match with Turkey, 1.5-1.5, with Beverly Mendoza providing the full point with a victory over Nilufer Corlulu Cinar and Catherine Perena splitting the point with Kubra Ozfurk.

Sheerie Joy Lomibao, however, dropped her match against Zehra Topel.

The Filipinas now have 14.5 points for joint 37th in the company of Turkey, Ecuador, Argentina, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Switzerland.

The RP Ladies next rival is Albania, which beat Denmark, 2.5-0.5.

Meanwhile, the Chinese chessers proved their readiness to contend for the crown by blanking Georgia, 4-0, and surging to solo second with 25.5 points behind Armenia’s 26.5-point aggregate.

Sharing the limelight is France, the fifth-seeded team which humbled top seed Russia, 2.5-1.5, to hike its output to 24 points for third place. Russia slid to fourth with 23.5 with Ukraine and the United States.

In women’s play, Ukraine continued to show the way with 21 points after thumping the US, 2.5-0.5. Russia halved the point with defending champion China, 1.5-1.5, to remain at solo second place with 20.5 points. — Dante Navarro