Checkmate

Starting today until Sept. 29, Tagaytay City plays host to this year's National Chess Championships. Aside from competing with each other for the title of National Champion, participants in the men's category will be aiming to finish in the top three to secure their inclusion in the Philippine team that will compete in the 36th Chess Olympiad slated to be held in Majorca, Spain next month.

Actually, there will be six members in the Philippine men's chess team, but the National Chess Federation has already seeded three people to the team. They are Grand Masters (GM) Eugene Torre and Joey Antonio (who have been our country's board one and two players in the Olympiad for more than a decade already), and International Master (IM) Mark Paragua, who is currently chasing the third and final norm needed in order for him to become a GM himself. Incidentally, Torre will be playing in his 18th consecutive Olympiad (which could earn him a spot in the Guinness book of World Records).

Sadly however, two GMs will not participate in the National Championships due to separate reasons. GM Bong Villamayor will not be able to join since he is currently based in Singapore and is probably busy working over there. For GM Nelson Mariano II’s case however, he will not be joining the qualifying tournament by choice. This is in protest to what he calls as unfair treatment by the Federation when they automatically seeded Paragua to the Philippine team.

Personally, I'd really like it if the best possible team will be formed to represent our country in the coming Olympiad. However, without the two GMs mentioned in the preceding paragraph, I doubt it if the team that will be formed will be stronger or at least as strong as one which includes the two.

Still, I am hopeful that however the final line-up of the team eventually turns out, we will be capable of surpassing our best performance in a Chess Olympiad (7th place in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, 1990). No matter how tall this order may seem.