Chess in the Philippines 2011

Its almost June 2011 and we have seen a steady stream of chess tournaments in the Philippines for this year. So far there have been two major international tournaments our country hosted and this afternoon in Tagaytay, the third one: ASEAN Zonal 3.3 Championship.

The ASEAN Zonals which is the World Chess Cup Qualifier starts May 24 and will end by May 30. It is happening at the Tagaytay Convention Center and Asia's first chess grandmaster Eugene Torre is playing there. Together with GM's Rogelio Antonio Jr., Mark Paragua, John Paul Gomez and Darwin Laylo. Richard Bitoon Oliver Barbosa, Barlo Nadera, Ronald Dableo, Chito Garma and Oliver Dimakiling, they will try to earn GM norms in this tournament too aside from earning a spot for the World Cup.

In the local scene, summer time has always been a good time for developmental chess as we see chess tournaments organized almost everywhere around the country. Good for the game but even better for the youth of this country.

And in my quest to quench my thirst for bullet chess, here is a game I played awhile ago at Chess Cube:

Site www.chesscube.com

Date 2011.05.24

White: Me 1901

Black: hajrushi1@chesscube.com 2036

Result 1-0

Time 1:00 min

1. d4  c6 2. Bg5  d6 3. e4  h6 4. Bh4  f6 5. Bg3  g6 6. Nf3  Bg7 7. Bd3  e6 8. c3  f5 9. O-O  Ne7 10. h3  O-O 11. exf5  d5 12. fxg6  Nf5 13. Nh4  Nxg3 14. fxg3  Rxf1+ 15. Qxf1  Nd7 16. Nd2  Nf6 17. Ndf3  Nh5 18. Kh2  Qf6 19. Ne5  Qe7 20. Qf7+  Qxf7 21. gxf7+  Kf8 22. Rf1  Nf6 23. Nhg6#   1-0

The knights of King Arthur worked their ass off in this game!