Source: Chess Mate by Roberto Hernandez
Tia Belau Newspaper
Pages 12-13
Volume 20
Issue 11
March 14, 2011
Showing posts with label Ronel Gutierrez. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ronel Gutierrez. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
(1190) 2011 RAPID CHESS FIRES OFF AT PRR (TBN-March 14, 2011)
Source: Chess Mate by Roberto Hernandez
Tia Belau Newspaper
Pages 12-13
Volume 20
Issue 11
March 14, 2011
(1185) JOJO ON A PERFECT 3-0 START (TBN-Dec. 20-26, 2010)
Source: Chess Mate by Roberto Hernandez
Tia Belau Newspaper
Pages 12-13
Volume 19
Issue 51
December 20-26, 2010
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
(1015) JEFF WON 4, LOST 2; RONNIE IS 8-7-1
Jeffrey Negrillo, right, finally played in the 3rd Pax Cup by winning 4 straight before bowing twice to Paquito 'Pax' Suringa, Jr., 2nd from right. Roberto Hernandez, who won 12 straight, shakes hands with Pax before the start of their game. Ronel Gutierrez, 2nd from left, withdrew from the tourney due to schedule conflict.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
JEFF WON 4, LOST 2, RONNIE IS 8-7-1
AS WRITTEN in the last issue of
Chessmate, Jeffrey Negrillo, Edwin Acuyan and Ferdie Altea are the 3 remaining
players who have yet to play a game in the 3rd Paquito Suringa Cup
Rapid Chess Tournament being held at Palau Royal Resort Dormitory 1. This
tournament is exclusively for PRR employees only and to give equal chances to
less experienced participants, top seeds Roberto Hernandez and Paquito ‘Pax’
Suringa, Jr. are required to play 2-4 players at the same time.
Pax
has yet to play against 2 or more players but Hernandez played 2 at the same
time last month, against Ronnie Capio and Dan Roldan and against Joel Gabris,
Ferdinand Gutierrez, Miguel Gancayco and Rey Alenain last week. Hernandez
played one-on-one against Pax and against Rudel Roxas as there is no one
available for at least 2-player being played against simultaneously.
Finally,
Jeffrey Negrillo played his first games of the event scoring a perfect 4 out of
4. He swept Capio, nipped Roxas, and then clobbered Gabris in succession. His
4-game winning streak was snapped when he was swept this time by birthday
celebrant Pax on Friday, March 02, 2012.
Meanwhile,
Joel scored his 2nd and 3rd points at the expense of Dan
Roldan when he swept the latter the other day. Jeff bounced back from defeat
and swept Rey Alenain to have a respectable 6-2-0 win-loss-draw slate. Capio is
making his move to make it to the semifinal with another sweeps of Joel and Dan
to trail Hernandez and Pax at the forefront with an 8-7-1 card.
The
top 4 finishers of this event will play in the semifinals with the No. 1 to
play No. 4 and No. 2 to play No. 3 in maybe best of 3 series. The registration
fee is $5.00 which will be the prize for the top 2 finishers.
The
Palau Chess Federation, Knights and Rooks Chess Club (Palau) and King Royal
Chess Club of PRR welcomes a new addition to the club/federation—Mr. Rick
Miskiv, a dive instructor at Fish N’ Fins. He’s a friend of Blaire and he loves
chess and is interested in playing or visiting the chess clubs for practice and
meeting new people. He can’t participate in the ongoing event at PRR but he can
visit the Dorm 1 and practice with available or day off chess players.
He
was offered by Hernandez the slot of team captain for Palau Women’s Team to
2012 World Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, Turkey but he politely declined the
offer citing he don’t have experience yet being team captain or do
tournaments. He’s looking for a more
casual chess club experience to find other people who like chess, to learn
skills and to meet new people.
Hernandez
also suggested to him to check the Palau Chess Federation website http://palau-chess.blogspot.com to
learn more about chess in Palau. The website is becoming popular especially to
Europeans since its inception in Dec. 26, 2011 with the help of Papua New
Guinea’s Joselito Marcos, Hernandez’ best friend. As of March 03, 2012 at 4:22
pm (Palau time), the site have 2,109 page views and 63 posts mostly by
Hernandez. The latest post is by Joselito entitled “March 2012 International
Ratings of Palau Chess Players”. Hundreds of Chessmate articles have yet to be
posted by Hernandez in the future. He accidentally created another website “Palau
Chessmate” where he is posting the first issues of Chess Mate by Robert
Hernandez in Tia Belau since Dec. 29, 2002. Currently it has 76 page views and
34 posts.
***As of April 02, 2015 (10:00am Palau Time), there are 138,386 page views, 965 posts and more than 89 countries who viewed this website (Palau Chess).
With exactly 50 lesser posts, Palau Chessmate has 915 posts currently.
***As of April 02, 2015 (10:00am Palau Time), there are 138,386 page views, 965 posts and more than 89 countries who viewed this website (Palau Chess).
With exactly 50 lesser posts, Palau Chessmate has 915 posts currently.
Source:
Chess Mate by Roberto Hernandez
Tia Belau Newspaper
Volume 21
Issue 10
Page 12
March 05, 2012
Chess Mate by Roberto Hernandez
Tia Belau Newspaper
Volume 21
Issue 10
Page 12
March 05, 2012
Friday, July 31, 2015
(1004) PINOY CHESSERS THRIVE IN PALAU (TIF-Dec.16-31,2009) (TBN-Feb. 15-21, 2010)
Participants
of the Paquito Suringa Cup Invitational Rapid Chess Tourament shake
hands before the start of their match in Oct. 24, 2009 at Dorm 1 of the
Palau Royal Resort. From left, they are Miguel Gancayco; Gracie Alenain,
the top seed in the women's division; her husband Rey; Randy Sioson;
Roberto Hernandez; Joel Gabris; Jaime Guevarra; Ronel Gutierrez and the
innovator of the event, Paquito 'Pax' Suringa, Jr.
(Contributed photo by: Roberto Hernandez)
PINOY CHESSERS THRIVE IN PALAU
PINOY CHESSERS THRIVE IN PALAU
MANILA--Teen Grandmaster Wesley B. So is currently the Philippines' pride in international chess competitions.
The
16-year old prodigy from Bacoor, Cavite demonstrated his chessboard
prowess in the ongoing World Chess Cup (WCC) in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia
by ousting higher-ranked and senior GMs Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and
Gata Kamsky of the U.S. to become the first ever Filipino to reach the
fourth round of the toughest chess tournament before bowing out against
Russian Vladimir Malakhov.
So drew with Malakhov twice but lost to the 22nd-seeded GM in the following three rapid chess matches.
So is just one of many Filipinos who keep the Philippines a force to reckon with in a game dominated by Russia.
Interestingly,
Filipino chessers are so good that they also represented other
countries in international tournaments sanctioned by the world's top
chess body, the FIDE.
For
example, six Filipinos working in the Republic of Palau are recognized
by FIDE as players of that tiny Pacific island country.
They
are Menandro Manuel, Cyril Montel, Jose Omega, Gene Pastrana, Roberto
Hernandez and Manny Nedic. But more than being among the top chess
players in Palau, they started the ball rolling for chess in Palau.
Hernandez
and Sergio Alemania, an official of the Filipino community, organized
the first chess tournament in the island in 2002.
Hernandez
helped establish the first local chess club and federation in the same
year. From then on, he took the lead in organizing yearly tournaments,
which he describes as the most flexible FIDE rated competition in the
world.
The
games are held in different volunteered venues and matches are played
when the players are available to encourage more participants.
Palau participants to the game are very limited to this day, though other foreign workers in the island are becoming regulars.
Also,
a local have yet to join an international competition, though the
country had been represented for the first time by a Filipino, Hernandez
himself, in the Oceania Zonal Chess Championship in Australia in June.
That tournament was the qualifier for the WCC.
Under FIDE rules, a foreigner can represent a country in its tournaments.
"In
chess, if you've been a resident of a country for at least 2 years, you
can represent that country." Hernandez explains, adding that Papua New
Guinea and the Solomon Islands were also represented by Filipinos in the
Australian tournament.
Also, a player need not be good to join the contest. The real challenge is shouldering the cost of participating.
"Every time we have invitation to participate in other
country, we ask the Palauans who are financially capable to join even
though they don't have yet the capability to win it. You don't need to
be in the top 5 to make it. It depends on your financial capability
because you'll be shouldering your own airfare," according to Hernandez.
"I
was able to represent Palau in Australia because Mr. Gary Bekker
shouldered my airfare from Manila-Sydney and Sydney-Gold Coast through
travel subsidy," he says referring to the president of the FIDE Oceania
Zone.
Hernandez is dedicated in promoting chess in Palau not only to Palauans and Filipinos but also to other foreigners there.
In
fact, he keeps all the records of the games since 2002. That includes
his annotations of all his matches that he recorded himself while
playing.
He
also reports the results of matches, including the defense or opening
used, in a column of a local weekly Tia Belau News and email the
clippings to colleagues in other countries.
His
efforts were supported by other Filipinos, who donate cash for the
prizes of champion. Lately, the Palau Royal Resort hosted a Paquito
Suringa Cup, a tournament named after the sponsoring employee of the
hotel.
Australian
GM David Smerdon topped the Australian Zonal to make it to the WCC. It
was a long shot for Palau to rule the contest.
"I
think it's still a long way before Palau can send a player in the World
Chess Cup. Maybe in the Chess Olympiad, which we nearly made it in
Turin, Italy (2006) and Dresden, Germany (2008)", Hernandez says.
If ever that happens, both Palau and Philippines will get the honor, he says.
Reporter: Windsor John Genova
Source: The International Filipino
Volume 1
No. 2
December 16-31, 2009
PINOY CHESSERS THRIVE IN PALAU
(Tia Belau Version -- Vol. 19 Issue 07 Feb. 15-21, 2010)
IN THE Vol. 1 No. 2 December 16-31, 2009 issue of The International Filipino, Palau chess players were featured in the Superstar column written by Windsor John Genova, a former reporter/writer of Tia Belau News. It is written as follows: (above)
The second article "Chess and Music -- Pioneering the game in a tiny nation" by Roberto Hernandez will be published next week.
In the resumption of Edgar Cayanan Cup Rapid Chess tournament at Palau Royal Resort Dormitory 1, Mohammad Manik Hossain continued his domination of lowly-rated PRR players as he swept Ronel Gutierrez and extracted a win over Eli Madrinan.
The Madrinan-Jojo Escapatoria, Jr. match for the consolation round (Class B) of 2009 Palau National Chess Championship was postponed again.
The awarding ceremony of 2009 NCC will be held at PRR Dormitory 1 on Saturday, February 20. Winning and non-winning players are requested to attend for group picture session.
Source: Chess Mate by Roberto Hernandez
Tia Belau Newspaper
Volume 19
Issue 07
Feb. 15-21, 2010
(997) A DAY EARLIER (TBN-June 20, 2011)
Dhon Pano-on, center, celebrated his birthday at the tournament site of Rapid Chess Tournament (Palau Royal Resort Dormitory 1) by treating the chess players and non-chess players with ice cream and chesse cake. From left, Erick Ventinilla, Jordan Santos, Roberto Hernandez, Derrick Manipis, Miguel Gancayco and Ronel Gutierrez.
(Photo by: Roberto Hernandez - Taken by Tonet Medillo)
A DAY EARLIER
IN HIS telephone conversation with Menandro ‘Boy’ Manuel, Roberto Hernandez got an idea to make the 2011 Palau National Chess Championship more convenient to all players. Since Gene Pastrana is still waiting for his airfare to go back to work in Guam, Manuel suggested that he should join the PNCC that will start on Sunday, June 26 and one of the venues will be his Beken’s Store and General Merchandise premises.
Gene has an international FIDE rating of 1754 and if he will join the other 4 FIDE rated players, there will be a maximum of 15 participants and 10 of them can have international rankings. If Bernard Garcia is also joining, 18 can compete and if Manuel ‘Jun’ Mahor will also join, then a maximum of 21 players can join. One third is the required number of FIDE rated players to make a tournament FIDE rated. Palau top rated players are Cyril Tomas Montel, Jr. (1941), Manuel (1910), Hernandez (1846), Pastrana (1754), Mahor (1646), Garcia (1629) and Paquito Suringa, Jr. (1602).
Manuel also suggested that the start the tournament will be a day earlier (Saturday) as it’s his day off and he can play as many games as he can because he is taking a vacation in July. The venue (Beken’s Store) is also excellent for other players like Jimboy de Jesus, Mahor and others who live nearby. The Palau Royal Resort’s players can play their games at PRR Dormitory 1 or at Bethlehem Park near Palau National Gymnasium for players who are watching basketball games.
After talking to Gene Pastrana, Hernandez was able to convince him to join the tourney and he’s willing to be the caretaker/arbiter of the games to be played at Beken’s Store. The FIDE Laws of Chess will be displayed at the giant chessboard that he converted into bulletin board so that any dispute will be settled by referring to it. Gene is also worried that he is rusty at this time but in only a week of practice, one can regain his top form.
One of the suggestions also of Manuel is to reduce the amount of registration fee from $20.00 to $10.00 and half of the collected fee will be for cash prizes and the other half is for the Palau Chess Team Fund of the 2012 World Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, Turkey.
The awarding of cash prizes of the 2010-2011 Palau National Chess Championship will also be held on the opening day of the PNCC. Manuel donated $20.00 of his $80.00 prize pot to the Team Fund and he will keep the remaining $60.00. First runner-up Jerry Sermeno will get all of his $65.00. Second runner-up Hernandez will donate $15.00 and will get $50.00. Tito Cabunagan will donate all of his $30.00 prize pot. Dennis Gonzales will get also his $40.00 cash prize with still undetermined amount of donation to the Fund as well as Montel, Jr. while Mohammad Manik Hossain will donate half of his cash prize ($10.00) and will keep the other half ($10.00).
Hernandez has
emailed the participants of the still unfinished 2011 Rapid Chess tournament
that suggested that all the remaining games be declared draws. Thus, the
following will be the final standings: 1. Menandro Manuel – 8 pts. 2. Roberto
Hernandez -7 pts. 3. Cyril Tomas Montel, Jr. and Tito Cabunagan with 6.5 points
but the winner-over-the-other tiebreak gives the 3rd spot to Cyril.
5. Jose Celiz -5 pts. 6. Mohammad Manik Hossain and Jeff Balbalosa with 4.5
points each but Manik has won more games than Jeff.
The prize for the champion
(Manuel) is a gift certificate of dinner for 2 at Palau Royal Resort’s Waves
Restaurant and the 1st Runner-up (Hernandez), a lunch for 2 at PRR’s
Waves Restaurant. The registration fees that will be collected will be added to
the Team Fund.
The 3rd Palau Invitational Chess Championship has some good news from Philippine Congressman and President of National Chess Federation of the Philippines Prospero ‘Butch’ Pichay. Through a Facebook chat with USA and Phil. Chess Master Almario Marlon Bernardino, Mr. Pichay will be coming to Palau to visit Hernandez and maybe a discussion about the possibility of sponsoring some players to compete in the 3rd PICC, the inclusion of 2 young FIDE Masters to the Palau Chess Team to Turkey and some ways to develop chess in Palau.
This is the fulfillment of his promise to Hernandez during the last day of 2010 World Chess Olympiad in Russia that being short of players in future Olympiad will not happen again to Palau. And that he will visit Palau through his private plane (Cessna) in late part of 2010 or early in 2011. WELCOME TO PALAU CONGRESSMAN PICHAY!!!
Source: Chess Mate by Roberto Hernandez
Tia Belau Newspaper
Pages 9-10
Volume 20
Issue 25
June 20, 2011
Thursday, January 22, 2015
(862) MUSIC AND ME (Dec. 04, 2014) TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS CHOIR OF PRR RESUMES
In 2014, it was held at Breeze Bar with almost half of the choir members are new employees.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
It becomes 6 songs when during practice, the Silent Night was added.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
Solo shot of Lei, one of the members of PRR choir, after their performance.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
Photo
session with Japanese guests with Den Flores, the bartender, posing in
the background with Roberto's Yamaha guitar. The Japanese lady in the
middle is in a wheelchair.
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
When I'm having dinner, I sat at the table beside them. The guy gave me a glass of red wine. I said thank you when I've got the red wine and said, "Kampai" while our GM Masayuki Kawaguchi is at the other table with the 2 ladies (Japanese, one is in wheelchair). A younger Japanese couple (walk-in guest) arrive and I finished my dinner fast to accommodate them. (Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
"Ungiil Tutau" is Palau word meaning "Good Morning".
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
(Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
Source: Chess and Music (Perfect Combination)
The Beginning of Chess in Palau
By Roberto Hernandez
December 2014
To be published as a book in the future
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