(479) ESCAPE WITH A WIN (TBN-April 06-12, 2007)

ESCAPE WITH A WIN

WHEN a player drew a losing position, he is said to escape with a draw. But when a player won losing position, it is not really escape with a win but that's the closer thing to it.

It happened on Easter Sunday afternoon in a match between 4th seed Roberto Hernandez and 8th seed Joel Azana of Daewoo Corporation held at Jean's Boutique and Store in the resumption of 2007 Palau National Chess Championship.

In their Modern Defence game, Azana won a minor piece for a pawn on the 15th move and looking ahead for a win with simplification of major and minor pieces.

But a weak knight move on the 19th move, instead of a more forceful queen exchange challenge, enabled Hernandez to counter with a strong attack with a strong knight on f6 and a rook that occupies the f file.

With his extra piece out of action, Azana was tied in defending his exposed king.

When Hernandez finally won back the piece on the 27th move, Azana again seized the initiative with a surprising capture.

Hernandez didn't allow the exchanges of queens and took 2 pawns instead and maintaining his attack.

A battle of tactics and strategies ensued and when Azana committed a blunder on the 37th move, the game ended on the next move with a mate.

In the first game of the day, newcomer Emmie Buyacao lost for the 3rd time in 3 games to Azana in 27 moves of Irregular Opening.

Buyacao left again after the game and didn't come back to play another one.

The tournament is only single round-robin and after it is finished, another tournament will follow and it will be sponsored by The Filipino Community In Palau (TFCP) with a round-trip ticket to Manila as the prize to the champion.

Hernandez has to play his remaining 4 games on Mondays as his day off now is Monday.

His remaining 4 opponents are venue host Gene Pastrana, top seed Tony Villa, Buyacao and Anselmo Idol, who paid his registration fee of $20.00 but haven't played a single game yet.

If after 4 weeks, he hasn't played all of his games ,he will lose it all by defaults.

Another 6-player blitz chess tilt was held after the regular games and blitz chess expert Tony Villa asserted himself again with another victory even with 2 losses and 2 draws allowed.

National Master Manny Nedic was the only one that can catch up with Villa, but his 1 draw prevented him to catch-up.

Joeven delos Santos joined the blitz chess contest after a long absence due to job schedule.

Another controversy about blitz chess rules happened between 2 of Hernandez' games.

The one against Montel, Jr. where the game was an overwhelming advantage for Cyril but on the last move, a stalemate position occured which is a draw.

But Hernandez moved his king to a square where it can be taken by Cyril's bishop.

Hernandez already press his clock when he noticed that the game had already ended in stalemate as his king has no square to go and it's not under check.

Even if Hernandez pressed his clock for illegal move violation, the game has already ended in a draw before his last move.

The other controversy occured in his game against Pastrana.

Hernandez played and moved his opponent's pawn and captured his own piece to the surprise and laughter of the audience!

ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN REALLY IN BLITZ CHESS CONTEST!

The violation does not include a king move so it just need to be replayed from the last position before the violation.

Next time, maybe a minute penalty might be imposed if a player has at least 3 minutes left in his clock.

If less than that, 15 seconds might be enough.



Source: Chessmate by Roberto Hernandez
Tia Belau Newspaper
Page 13
Volume 17
April 06-12, 2007