Torre sizzles anew as Phl rips England

MANILA, Philippines – Grandmaster Eugene Torre pulled off another scintillating win and GM Oliver Barbosa bounced back from a loss with a resounding victory as Team Philippines continued its amazing surge in the World Chess Olympiad by upending 10th seed England, 3-1, to gain a share of second in Istanbul, Turkey Wednesday.

A day after helping the Filipinos escape with a 2-2 draw with fourth seed Hungary, Torre, 60, was at it again, winning another crucial match on board three against GM Nigel Short in 41 moves in a Classical Variation of the Nimzo-Indian Defense.

Barbosa, hardly showing the effects of a mind-draining loss in the previous round, turned his three-pawn advantage into a marathon 101-move victory over GM Gawain Jones in a super-sharp King’s Indian encounter that helped seal the Filipinos’ win, counting the draws by GMs Wesley So and Mark Paragua on both ends of the table.

With 13 match points, the 35th-ranked Filipinos joined world powers Armenia, the United States, China and Germany in second, two points behind Russia, which edged second pick Ukraine, 2.5-1.5, for 15 points.

With their remarkable streak of victories over higher rated rivals, the over-achieving Filipinos go into their ninth round match with the No. 6 Chinese oozing with confidence with So, holding his ground against players with superior Elo ratings, and Torre handling the white pieces again.

China was held to a 2-2 standoff by Azerbaijan but is expected to go all-out against the Philippines, now eyeing not just an improvement from its worst 50th place finish the last time out but surpassing its best ever seventh place effort in the 1998 edition of the biennial meet in Greece.

So settled for a 51-move draw with GM Michael Adams in the variation of the Caro-Kann Defense while Paragua salvaged a 37-move draw with GM Nicholas Pert in the Symmetrical Variation of their Queen’s Pawn game.

The day, however, belonged to Torre, who completely outplayed Short, using his active knights and a rook against the latter’s rook and a pair of bishops to batter the Englishman’s back rank.

Torre then pounced on his rival’s dubious bishop move on the 41st with a clever rook push, netting him either the black or white bishop without any compensation and forcing Short, who has six points on five wins and two draws going into the round, to resign. – Joey Villar