USA and Philippine Chess Master Almario Marlon Bernardino, National Master and International Arbiter Erwin Carag and James Infiesto didn't make it for some reasons.
Boris has a FIDE rating of 2180 and number 73 in the Philippines' top list while the elder Allan has a national rating of 1964.
The Palau top 6 players, Menandro Manuel (1945), Cyril Montel, Jr. (1870), Gene Pastrana (1870), Jose Omega (1870), Roberto Hernandez (1830) and Manuel Nedic (1830) will try to improve their ratings while unrated Tony Villa and Koror State Legal Counsel Craig Dittrich will try to gain international ranking if they score at least 3 points in 9 games. Morton Sawaichi didn't make it due to schedule conflict.
In the early first round of the event, players who are off on Saturday played as many games as they can with Dittrich playing 4 games. He lost to Manuel in 42 moves of Slav Defence, drew with Pastrana in 45 moves of Queen's Gambit Declined; lost to Allan in 18 moves of another Slav Defence and drew with Montel, Jr. in 50 moves of yet another Slav!
Manuel played 3 games winning all of them. He clobbered Omega in 41 moves of Sicilian Defence (Dragon Variation) and outwitted Villa in 37 moves of King's Gambit Accepted. Villa suffered another setback to the elder Diez in 33 moves of Slav Defence, now gaining popularity in this event.
Boris nipped Montel, Jr. in 45 moves of Modern Defence and out-dueled Hernandez in the resumption of their adjourned game at Philippine Embassy on Monday in 37 moves of Dutch Defence.
Boris kept his perfect start with a masterful conquest of Omega in 45 moves of another Modern Defence.
After losing his first 2 games, Villa scored 4 straight to automatically gain international ranking. He touted Hernandez in 59 moves of King's Gambit Declined, drubbed Omega in just 14 moves of King's Pawn Opening and subdued Dittrich in 46 moves of Giocco Piano.
Nedic played just 2 games so far, winning all of them over Allan of Queen's Gambit Declined and dealt Dittrich his 4th loss...
BUT.. Dittrich scored the biggest upset of the event, when he defeated the top seed Boris in another Queen's Gambit Declined game!
Hernandez adjourned his game against Allan to attend the Pentecostal Missionary Church of Christ (4th Watch) service. In the resumption of their game, Allan lost for the 2nd time in 36 moves of Modern Defence. He bounced back from defeat and scored 2 straight over Omega in 24 moves of Sicilian Defence (Dragon Variation) and dealt Manuel his first loss of the tourney of Queen's Gambit Accepted.
Manuel also got his first draw with Pastrana in their Caro-Kahn Defence encounter, and Pastrana missed the very neat smothered mate in his game against Omega and drew the game instead via 3-move repetition.
Resumption of games will continue on Friday and the duo from Davao will leave Palau on Saturday as they will try to make Palau their 2nd home and be an honorary members of Palau Chess Federation and might have a chance to represent Palau in the next Chess Olympiad in Dresden, Germany in 2008 if they can afford the high cost of airfare and accommodations.
With the ongoing PICC, the Palau Royal Resort rating chess tournament was put to a one-week break and will resume play on Thursday with Arnold Rivera to play his first ever tournament game.
Reminder to Paquito Suringa, Jr., Randy Sioson, Zaldy Ranopa, Tony Penas and Zuenie Mirabueno -- to pay their registration fee as it's already 3 paydays (3 months) to pay a mere amount of $5.00. Manny Dulay paid his due on Monday.
Source: Chess Mate by Roberto Hernandez
Tia Belau Newspaper
Pages 13-14
Volume 17
September 14-20, 2007
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