Manila Bulletin

Torre, So win as PH stuns India

Manila Bulletin - Tuesday, November 23

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GUANGZHOU - Grandmasters Wesley So and Eugene Torre struck on opposite ends Monday, leading the Philippines to a shock 2.5-1.5 victory over defending champion India in the fifth round of the men's standard chess event in the 16th Asian Games. So, playing white on top board, outplayed P. Harikrishna while Torre outlasted P. Adhiban on the fourth board as the Filipinos beat India for the first time since the 1988 Chess Olympiad in Thessaloniki, Greece. GM Joey Antonio held GM Krishnan Sasikiran to a marathon draw with black while GM John Paul Gomez was the lone casualty, losing to GM Surya Ganguly at board three. With two rounds remaining before the knockout semifinals, the Filipinos are well-placed at No. 2 with eight points behind China's front-running 10 points. "We're in a strong position of making it into the semifinals," said team captain Willie Abalos. China, meanwhile, trounced Iran, 3-1, winning the last two boards while Kyrgyztan shocked highly-rated Vietnam, 3.5-0.5, to take third spot with 7 points. In another featured match-up, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan battled to a 2-all deadlock. Fresh from a 2.5-1.5 win over Kazakhstan with Gomez delivering the decisive win, the Filipinos drew another tough assignment in India, a team of GMs with ELO ratings in excess of 2600. But the 17-year-old So, attacking against the Caro-Kann, won a pawn during a complicated middle game which he used to set a winning endgame. Harikrishna resigned after 68 moves. Torre, playing black against the Guioco Piano, steered the game into an endgame where he had two pieces and three pawns against Adhiban's rook and three pawns. With both players under time trouble, Adhiban initiated an exchange in which he gave up his rook for a bishop, leaving Torre with one pawn and a knight against two pawns. An endgame expert, Torre promptly created a situation in which Adhiban had no alternative but to give up the pawns. He resigned after 74 moves.

Asian Games R5

Round 5 on 2010/11/22 at 13:00
Bo.	6	Philippines	Rtg	-	2	India	Rtg	2½:1½
2.1	GM	So Wesley	2669	-	GM	Harikrishna P	2657	1 - 0
2.2	GM	Antonio Rogelio Jr	2573	-	GM	Sasikiran Krishnan	2688	½ - ½
2.3	GM	Gomez John Paul	2522	-	GM	Ganguly Surya Shekhar	2644	0 - 1
2.4	GM	Torre Eugenio	2484	-	GM	Adhiban B	2515	1 - 0

R5 Torre vs Adhiban

R5 So vs Harikrishna

Philippines vs India

Asian Games R4

Round 4 on 2010/11/21 at 15:00

Bo.	6	Philippines	Rtg	-	3	Kazakhstan	Rtg	2½:1½
2.1	GM	So Wesley	2669	-	GM	Kazhgaleyev Murtas	2623	½ - ½
2.2	GM	Antonio Rogelio Jr	2573	-	GM	Sadvakasov Darmen	2627	½ - ½
2.3	GM	Gomez John Paul	2522	-	GM	Jumabayev Rinat	2571	1 - 0
2.4	GM	Torre Eugenio	2484	-	GM	Khusnutdinov Rustam	2524	½ - ½

R4 Gomez vs Jumabayev

GM Larry Melvyn Evans, RIP

Larry Evans, five-time chess champ, dies at age 78 

By The New York Times
Sat, Nov 20 - 4:54 AM

Larry Evans, a five-time U.S. chess champion and prolific writer who helped Bobby Fischer win the world championship in 1972, died Monday in Reno, Nev. He was 78.

Evans, who lived in Reno, died of complications of gall bladder surgery, according to the website of the U.S. Chess Federation, the governing body for the game.

Though Evans was a grandmaster, he was best known for his writing; he had a syndicated chess column for decades and wrote more than 20 books, among them New Ideas in Chess, Modern Chess Brilliancies and The 10 Most Common Chess Mistakes.

Evans was an editor of the 10th edition of Modern Chess Openings, long a mainstay for tournament players. The book that Evans was probably most famous for was one on which he assisted: Fischer’s My 60 Memorable Games. He cajoled and exhorted Fischer to finish the book, edited and helped him with the prose and wrote introductions to all the games.

Larry Melvyn Evans was born March 22, 1932, in New York. Growing up, he hustled games for dimes on 42nd Street. He won the championship of the prestigious Marshall Chess Club on West 10th Street at 15 and was New York state champion by 18. In 1950, he played for the U.S. team in the biennial Chess Olympiad in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, and took an individual gold medal. He went on to play on seven more Olympiad teams, including the one that won the gold medal in Haifa, Israel, in 1976.

In 1951, at 19, he won his first U.S. championship. He defended the title a year later in a match against Herman Steiner. He won the title again in 1961, 1968 and 1980, when he tied for first with Walter Browne and Larry Christiansen. He also won four U.S. Open championships. The World Chess Federation awarded him the title of grandmaster in 1957.

Asian Games R3

Round 3 on 2010/11/20 at 15:00

Bo.	9	Bangladesh	Rtg	-	6	Philippines	Rtg	1 : 3
4.1	GM	Murshed Niaz	2429	-	GM	So Wesley	2669	0 - 1
4.2	FM	Minhazuddin Ahmed	2350	-	GM	Antonio Rogelio Jr	2573	0 - 1
4.3	GM	Rahman Ziaur	2527	-	GM	Gomez John Paul	2522	½ - ½
4.4	FM	Abu Sufian Shakil	2340	-	GM	Torre Eugenio	2484	½ - ½

R3 Antonio vs Minhazuddin

R3 Murshed vs So

Asian Games R2

Board Pairings

Round 2 on 2010/11/19 at 13:00
Bo.	6	Philippines	Rtg	-	1	China	Rtg	1 : 3
1.1	GM	So Wesley	2669	-	GM	Wang Yue	2756	½ - ½
1.2	GM	Antonio Rogelio Jr	2573	-	GM	Bu Xiangzhi	2680	½ - ½
1.3	GM	Gomez John Paul	2522	-	GM	Zhou Jianchao	2669	0 - 1
1.4	GM	Laylo Darwin	2527	-	GM	Ni Hua	2633	0 - 1