2003 OPEN Chess champion Menandro Manuel captured the 4th speed (blitz) chess tourney of the year, with a 4-1 win-loss record. The one-day tourney was held Sunday, September 12 after the conclusion of all regular games of the 2004 Open Chess Tournament held at Filco Thrift Mart in Malakal and sponsored and hosted by Nestor Canaria, who is also donating cash prizes for the top 3 finishers in Class A.
Manuel lost his first game against Eddie Grefiel but swept his last 4 opponents to win the half of the registration fee of $5.00 from each player. The other half was spent for the drinks of other 5 participants.
In the last game of the exciting and fun tourney, Roberto Hernandez (3-1) and Bong Alipoon (1-3) were in a complicated middle game and everybody were watching as the result would determine the champion.
If Hernandez would win, he will tie Manuel for the title but he missed a bishop sacrifice that would have won him the game. After further analyses by some players, the result was another another blitz champ in 4 different occasions.
Grefiel, Hernandez and Jimmy Valenzuela finished with identical 3-2 slates while Alipoon had 2-3 and Joel Azana was scoreless in five games.
In the 5th round of regular games, Grefiel, with a 5-0-1 win-loss-draw record, defeated Valenzuela (3-2-2) to solidify his hold of the lead with 5.5 points.
Defending champion Jess Toldoya (2-1-1) clobbered Azana (1-4--1); Hernandez (3-2-0) took the measure of Ivan II Chess Computer (3-2-0) in 36 moves of Modern Defence and Alipoon (1-3-1) survived a mate in two and was lucky to beat Azana when the latter blundered away his queen with a d7 check instead of an f7 check.
In the Class B division, Ivan II Chess Computer (4-0) defeated Mariano Agustin, Jr. (4-3) and remains the only undefeated player in the field.
Agustin, Jr. later whipped newcomer Den Canaria (3-4) while top seed Jose Omega and another newcomer Jerry Sermeno were absent for different reasons.
Dyan Castillejo and Mark Nelson, two popular hosts of the Philippine weekly TV show "Sports Unlimited," were here in Palau for 3 days to shoot some scenes for their show.
On Friday night, they had dinner at Image Restaurant with their cameramen and crew. All service staff of the restaurant had a field day with autographs and taking pictures.
Before they left, Hernandez gave Dyan two copies of Tia Belau and a video (VHS Cassette tape) entitled "Chess in Palau 2002-2004)".
Sports Unlimited covers all kinds of sports and Dyan was interested to know that Filipinos started chess tournaments in Palau.
Dyan's sister, Jackie, likes music and requested Hernandez a song by Elvis Presley and later sang "This Masquerade" with him.
THE MEETING WITH DYAN AND COMPANY WAS ANOTHER WAY TO PROMOTE CHESS WITH MINIMUM EXPENSE.
Tia Belau Newspaper
Pages 9-10
Volume 13
September 17-24, 2004
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