Chessers bow to Romanians, miss top 10

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines lost steam and dropped a heart-breaking 1-3 defeat to Romania, finishing outside the Top 10 in the World Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, Turkey last night.

GMs Wesley So and Oliver Barbosa salvaged draws from what appeared to be inferior positions on the top two boards but GMs Eugene Torre and Mark Paragua succumbed to their respective rivals in a pair of slam-bang final round matches.

So forced a draw in a bishop-pawning ending with GM Constantin Lupulescu in 47 moves of their Slav encounter while Barbosa also halved a point with GM Mircea-emilan Parligras via repetition of moves in their Queen’s Indian Defense.

Torre, meanwhile, failed to extricate himself from a double-edged attack by GM Levente Vajda and resigned on the 36th move of their Scotch Potter Variation duel. Paragua gave up after 40 moves of his Pseudo-King’s Indian game against GM Vladislav Nevednichy, who was three pawns up after a kingside skirmish.

From joint ninth at the start of the final round, the Philippines is expected to drop out of the Top 10 after the final standings are determined. Its 14 match points remained unchanged with a number of matches still ongoing at presstime.

Vietnam, which drew with the Phl in the 10th round, finished off Uzbekistan, 2.5-0.5, with one match to go and it expected to make it to Top 10 with 16 points and emerge the top Southeast Asian team.

The 35th-ranked Philippines thus failed to surpass its best finish of seventh place in the 1988 edition of the biennial event in Thessaloniki, Greece, no thanks to a sputtering finish.

Still, it improved from the country’s worst 50th place effort two years ago in Russia with So and company coming up with brilliant wins majority of the tournament.

With So settling for a number of fighting draws, Barbosa emerged the highest scorer for the Phl with seven points on five wins and four draws against two losses in 11 games. So, however, is the only undefeated player in the team with two wins and nine draws for 6.5 points.

Paragua also has six points on three wins, six draws and two losses while Torre has 3.5 points on two victories and three draws against two defeats.

International Master Oliver Dimakiling, the team’s alternate, played the country’s first four games, winning the first three and dropping the fourth, and never get to play again in the face of the current roster’s impressive surge.