(987) 3rd PAX CUP RESUMES (TBN-Jan. 15, 2012)

Neophyte Ronnie Capio.

Ronnie Capio, left, got his baptism of fire in his first chess tournament in Palau. Dan Roldan, middle, shakes hands also with Roberto Hernandez as they played their 1st and 2nd games of the 3rd Pax Cup rapid chess tournament. Hernandez easily subdued Capio and Roldan and now leads the tourney with 5 straight wins after clobbering Paquito Suringa on Sat. afternoon.          (Photo by Roberto Hernandez)

3RD PAX CUP RESUMES

THE THIRD edition of Paquito Suringa Cup continues on Friday evening at 10:00 pm with top seed Roberto Hernandez playing 2 players at the same time as odd. Ronnie Capio and Dan Roldan are practicing chess at Dormitory 1 when Hernandez came from prayer meeting at Pentecostal Missionary Church of Christ 4^th Watch. He asked Ronnie and Dan if they like to play with him at the same time. Ferdinand Gutierrez is also around but he refused to play as usual.

The game started with Hernandez playing the white pieces. Ronnie is the first one to lose and Dan followed suit after a few more moves. The second game produced the same results with Hernandez having the black pieces in this double round robin rapid chess tournament exclusively for Palau Royal Resort’s employees only. It started in Oct. 23, 2011 and because of peak season at PRR, only few games were played.

On Saturday Jan. 14, Paquito Suringa and Hernandez played their first game one on one because they are both top seeds. At 1:40 pm, their game started with Pax drawing the white pieces. In their Sicilian Defence encounter, Pax showed how tough he is now and manage to hang on till more than 70 moves before succumbing to pressure of being a pawn down. Thus, Hernandez won 5^th straight game. Maybe Jeffrey Negrillo and Ferdie Altea are next on Sunday, Jan. 15 at 4:30 pm.

Standings of players and their win-loss-draw record: 1. Hernandez (5-0-0) 2. Pax (4-3-1) 3. Capio (4-3-1) 4. Rudel Roxas (3-5-0) 5. Rey Alenain (2-4-0) 6. Dan Roldan (1-4-0). The other 7 contestants haven’t played a game yet.

On Thursday evening at 9:15 pm, Hernandez called Mohammad Manik Hossain to tell him of his decision to put Manik as team captain of Palau Women’s Team in the 2012 World Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, Turkey. Usually, Manik don’t complain about any decision of Hernandez to make the team stronger by this line-up: Board 1- Roberto Hernandez, Board 2-Tito Cabunagan, Board 3- Bernard Garcia, Board 4- Menandro Manuel and reserve George Anzawa.

Manik explained that he will be spending more or less $2,000.00 for airfare and miscellaneous expenses at the Olympiad and if he can’t play a single game for being a team captain in the women’s team, it's not worth it for him. Hernandez understands his point and immediately shifted the reserve position of men’s team to Manik and George now will spearhead the women’s team that includes his mom Adele, Elizabeth Manuel (Menandro’s wife) and top board Angie Parrado. 

Board 4 and reserve are still available to interested women chess players. If things come to worst, what happened to Hernandez and Cabunagan at Khanty-Mansiysk Olympiad in 2010 might happened again if one of the 3 women’s team members don’t make it to Istanbul. Team with less than 3 members will not be allowed to play as what happened to Palau team in 2010.

Source: Chess Mate by Roberto Hernandez
              Tia Belau  Newspaper
               Pages 9-10
               Vol. 21 
               Issue 03
              January 16, 2012