(376) RAPID CHESS TILT TO START OCT. 24

THE VENUE HOST, SPONSOR AND THE CHAIRMAN
Nestor Canaria, left, sponsored the 2004 Open Chess tournament in his Filco Thrift Mart. He is handing the cash prize of Roberto Hernandez, who finished 1st runner-up to eventual champ Eddie Grefiel. (Photo by Roberto Hernandez)





                  RAPID CHESS TILT
           TO START OCT. 24, 2004

THE AWARDING ceremony of the 2004 Open Chess tournament was held Sunday, October 10 at Filco Thrift Mart in Malakal.

Cash prizes to the top 3 finishers in Class A and certificates were given to the participants and to the host and sponsor Nestor Canaria who also treated the players with a snack of spaghetti, sandwich and fruit punch prepared by his wife, Lolit.

The 6 trophies for the winners didn't arrive in time and it will be given on the opening of the 2004 Rapid Chess tournament to start October 24 with at least 19 players expected to compete.

The new venue for the tournament is the Parish Center For Migrant Workers beside the Sacred Heart Catholic Church.

The format will be 30 minutes for each player to finish the game. The players must play at least 2 games each week in this single round-robin event.

Current champion Eddie Grefiel and his co-employee Joel Azana must play 4 games each week because they can play only every other week.

Sonnenborn Berger System of tiebreak will be used to break the tie among top 5 finishers. There will be no Class A and B division and if there are at least 5 junior players who will participate, there will be a double round-robin for juniors (18 years and below).

Ivan II Chess Computer will participate in both divisions. Registration fee is $10.00 and the half of the collected fee will go to The Filipino Community in Palau who will sporsor the event.

Margarita Borja Dalton, a senatorial candidate, will provide the lemon tea drink every Sunday for the players while another senatorial candidate Carlos 'Hiros' Salii has not yet committed as of press time.

Jimboy de Jesus, the 2nd runner-up in the 2002 Open Chess tournament is expected to join this coming tournament after being inactive in the last 4 tourneys. His barrack is just beside the tournament site.

Mario Ramos, Danny Dandoy and Mike Miguel, Jr., all trophy winners in the 2004 Non-master Chess tilt are joining again after missing the last tournament due to job schedule conflict.

Father and son Norbert and Dmitri Villanueva were also invited. Norbert is a very busy man nowadays and so as Tutii Joe Chilton, the first Palauan trophy winner of the 2003 Open Chess tournament at Image Restaurant and Sports Bar and hosted by Margarita Borja Dalton.

Before the awarding of certificates and cash prizes last Sunday, some players watched the raffle drawing of Shell where a jet ski is the grand prize. White waiting, most of the players practice speed (blitz) chess at Rip Tide.

Only after the grand prize was won that the players proceed to the awarding ceremony and after the snack, Grefiel and Azana left and the planned 10-minute blitz chess tourney was cancelled.

A few years ago, rapid chess is called active chess and speed chess is called blitz. Internationally, it is now called rapid instead of active and speed instead of blitz but some players still use the old one.

The recently concluded 2004 Open Chess tourney have a record of 6 newcomers -- Den Canaria, Morton Sawaichi, Edward Agravante, Jerry Sermeno, Dennis Gonzales and Azana.

There's almost 3 months rest after the 2004 Non-Master Chess tourney and 2004 Open. And now, it's only 3 weeks before the start of the last tournament of the year.

Solution to last week's puzzle: 1. Qxf7+! Kxf7 2. Bc4+ Qd5 3. Bxd5 mate.

This week's puzzles:
White to move and mates in 3 White to move and mates in 2
(Solution next issue)


Source: Chessmate by Roberto Hernandez
Tia Belau Newspaper
October 15-21, 2004