Ultei
Angelie Surangel shakes hand with her first round opponent and fellow
newcomer Robert Godwin Sola during the Opening Day of 2014 Palau
National Chess Championship held at Bethlehem Park on Sunday, Nov. 16,
2014. In the background are the very busy Palau Chess Federation
officers assisting to the needs of more than 30 chess players in 4
divisions.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
The
first game of the day has already started between Angelil Sisior, left,
and Cyrelle Ann Montel while Ultei and Robert are shaking their hands.
As shown in their clock, they spent already more than 10 minutes each in
the opening phase of their game.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
Eugene
Labarda, left, defeated Geoff Martin, right, in their 1st round
encounter in 30 moves while junior top seed Destiny Sisior is writing
her move against Kayah Iblai Whipps in their junior division clash.
Remrel Dizon and Moded Samantha Remengesau Surangel are watching the
games.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
First
national chess championship game for Jade Mariur, left, and Roxanne
Parco, 2nd from left. The unrated Jade bowed to Palau WNM Angelica
Parrado in 18 moves of French Defence (unusual 2nd moves) while Roxanne
was mated by Gladys Anne Paloma in 30 moves.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
IN DEEP THOUGHT ARE (FROM LEFT) GLADYS ANNE PALOMA, JOY FLORES WHIPPS AND LEIF TORIBIONG.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
Koichi
Matsuda, one of Palau Chess Federation's Honorary Members, is watching
the Baby Edna Mission-Joy Flores Whipps match. Standing at the
background are Felix Oling and Gonzalo 'Jojo' Escapatoria. Both of their
opponents didn't show up so they won by default. Marcial Santander also
played his first serious and competitive chess in Palau against Leif
Toribiong. Marcial defeated Leif in 26 moves of Classical French
Defence. Newcomer Nelson Sablan also prevailed against Glen Navarosa at
the other table while Arnold Undecimo clobbered Jo-Arl Cris Ulap in 32
moves of Two Knights Defence (Max Lange
Attack).
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
The
other side of the previous photo -- Arnold vs. Jo-Arl Cris; Nelson vs.
Glen; Leif vs. Marcial; Joy vs. Bheng; Gladys vs. Roxanne and Angie vs.
Jade.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
Marcial
Santander, left, said he needs to improve the Algebraic notation of his
game. He reviewed it at home and notice some mistakes. More
improvements are needed to many players including the veterans to
annotate their games accurately. Marcial opponent here, Leif Toribiong
don't write N for Knight, R for Rook, B for Bishop, Q for Queen and K
for King in this game but he did better in his 2nd game against Eric
Ksau Whipps. Some missed letters need to be addressed.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
THE
CEREMONIAL FIRST MOVE BETWEEN SENATOR SURANGEL WHIPPS, JR. AND JADE
MARIUR, LEFT, VS. ANGIE, WAS TAKEN IN ERIC KSAU WHIPPS' CAMERA.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
LEFT
TO RIGHT --Top seed Menandro 'Boy' Manuel, 2nd seed Tito Cabunagan and
10th seed Nilo de Jesus are waiting for their opponents to finish
attending to the contestants before their games. Menandro and 3rd seed
Roberto Hernandez agreed to play at 3pm, Tito vs. Cyril and Nilo vs. CM
Bernard Garcia.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
Remrel
Dizon, left, shakes hand with Christopher Kitalong, another first timer
in the PNCC while the two Juniors, Senator Surangel Whipps, Jr. and
Manuel 'Jun' Mahor, Jr. are ready to start their game using the
state-the-art digital chessboard. The Dizon-Kitalong match is not yet
recorded in Chessbase due to numerous errors in notating their game.
It's been tried more than a dozen times and still can't construct the
right sequence of moves. Kitalong writes the N, R, B, Q, and K in small
letters. He won in 44 moves of Bishop
Opening.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
***Finally, the Dizon-Kitalong game was recorded in Chessbase after 2 more tries.
Senator
Surangel Whipps, Jr., left, writes Algebraic notation better than 70%
of the current participants. His game's notation here against Manuel
Mahor, Jr., right, shows how knowledgeable he is in chess notations.
Tito Cabunagan, standing left, noted that he will follow Algebraic
notation in this tournament when Roberto criticized his notations. But
he still doing the same and worst! In his game against Cyril Tomas
Montel, Jr., he wrote on the 4th move KNf6 instead of the usual and
effective Nf3 because he is handling the white pieces. He's still
thinking that the Knight is in the king side so he adds K and HOW CAN
THE WHITE KNIGHT REACH THE f6 in the first move? In the 14th move, he
wrote 14. QRb1 KRd8 15. Be3 KNd5 16. QNxN KRxN 17. KRG1 QRd8 20. QxQ
NxQ 22. ... BxB 23. NxB 28. RxR h4xR. The worst thing beside this
is... he's written 30 moves but Cyril's record had 33 moves! Actually,
their game lasted 34 moves.
Since 2009, Roberto never had
Tito's notation as his referral for all his games. It's always the
writings of his opponent that he relied to get the accurate notations.
Jeff Balbalosa, right, suffered the same experience in recording Tito's
games (in the 2014 Micronesian Open).
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
Destiny
Sisior played her 2nd game against Kayah Iblai Whipps using the plastic
spoon as her pen. They are sharing the chocolate ice cream under the
2:30 pm sun! She swept Kayah to lead the junior division with a perfect
2-0 win-loss slate. Geoff Martin, left, is pondering his next move
against Eugene Labarda.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
LONGEST AND LAST GAME OF THE DAY.
Felix Oling, left, and Gonzalo Escapatoria, right, both won their games
by default. Jeff Balbalosa asked them if they like to play their 2nd
round since they are both winners and they said yes. Both of them had
the white pieces in their default wins so Roberto hide in his hands two
pawns (black and white) and Felix got the black. Roberto is finished
already with his won game against Menandro and still, Felix and Jojo are
still playing. It's getting dark and Jojo is ahead by 2 pawns and a
bishop. He is using the flashlight of his cellphone to get some light.
Roberto suggested to Felix to give up that hopeless position so that
everybody can call it a day. Roberto will still have to be one of the
judges in THE VOICE blind audition at 8pm, where Joy Flores Whipps is
also one of the judges.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
Second
game of Ultei Angelie Surangel against Robert Godwin Sola. Ultei won
the first game but Robert bounced back this time with the white pieces
and even-up their matches. He requested to Roberto not to write chess
notation but Roberto insisted that he should write notations and gave
him this advise... "THIS IS PALAU NATIONAL CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP! Ten years
from now, you will thank me for my insistence and you will not regret
this decision. You can also refer to this game of how did you improve
onwards."
Robert had a hard time in chess notations because he was
taught by Roberto only once (Nov. 9) and he's handling the black pieces
in this photo of his first game against Ultei.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
Next
to Robert and Ultei is the match of Cyrelle Ann Montel, middle and
Angelil Sisior. Cyrelle lost a piece early but played brilliantly in the
ensuing play. She later succumbed to pressure of being a piece down.
Angelil hold on to her advantage.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
Cyrelle
Ann Montel, left, got a gift from Gary Bekker of Australia -- a CD of
chess tutorials for children. It's a big help for her to improve her
game. Mr. Bekker and Roberto Hernandez collaborated to hold the first
ever 2006 Palau Invitational Chess Championship to have the top 6
players of Palau get their international ranking. From then on, chess in
Palau moves forward.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
After
taking care of all the payments of players/participants of their
registration and membership fees, Dennis Gonzales, right, the Treasurer
of Palau Chess Federation, was able to play his match against 10th seed
Rafael Paloma. Glen Navarosa, standing left, one of the original members
of chess pioneers in Palau, lost to newcomer Nelson Sablan, 2nd from
right.
Robert
Godwin Sola, left, had the white pieces this time and won over Ultei
Angelie Surangel. Robert's mom Joy, middle, supports her son's chess
career.
3rd
seed Roberto Hernandez, 2nd from right, shakes hand with top seed
Menandro Manuel, covered by the face of Ultei Angelie Surangel, before
the start of their 3:00pm game. Menandro thought for more than a minute
when Roberto opened up with 1. f4. He usually opens with 1. e4 against
Menandro in their numerous encounters since 2003, where Menandro won
about 3/4 of all their games including blitz. This time Roberto
prevailed in 31 moves of Bird's Opening. Menandro is back in Palau for a
2-month work contract. He is requesting other players in the Top 10
division to play with him on week days. His job project will be finished
in the first week of December 2014.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez --Taken by Joy Sola)
While
the Hernandez-Manuel is going on in the middle game, CM Bernard Garcia
approach them and stopped the chess clock to ask a question because
Roberto is also the Tournament Director and Deputy Arbiter of the event.
FA Eric Ksau Whipps has left already. All the finished score sheets but
one were signed by Roberto.
Bernard
ask about his current game with 9th seed Nilo de Jesus in which Nilo
has promoted a pawn but didn't get an extra queen to make the promoted
pawn as queen. According to Bernard, he was told by an International
Arbiter (IA) in Norway's 2014 Chess Olympiad, that if a player failed to
put a queen to promote a pawn, the pawn will stay as it is --a pawn!
Roberto's
tone of voice becomes higher upon hearing this. He knows very well that
a promoted pawn will not stay as a pawn. HOW CAN IT MOVE IF IT WILL
STAY AS A PAWN? IT WILL BE THE MOST USELESS PIECE INSTEAD OF THE MOST
POWERFUL.
Later, everybody realizes that Nilo say the word "Queen, Check". It means he intends to make that pawn a queen.
If a player intends to make it a Knight, Bishop, or Rook, he will get
that piece from the captured pieces and say that he intends to make it
that piece. BUT IF A PLAYER DOESN'T SAY ANYTHING, IT AUTOMATICALLY
BECOMES A QUEEN AS EXPERIENCED BY BABY EDNA MISSION IN NORWAY. She
promoted a pawn and didn't replace it with a queen. THE ARBITER WAS THE
ONE WHO REPLACED IT!
Bernard
said they will continue their game and he will research the FIDE Laws
of Chess regarding this rule. He eventually lost that game. Two hours
later, he text Roberto that he found out that he's wrong and accepted
that he lost that game.
Roberto text back with, "Thank u. Sorry that I raised my voice during discussion." Bernard replied back with, "No worries."
Source: History of Chess In Palau
By Roberto Hernandez
November 2014
To be published as a book in the future
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