Wesley holds super GM to a draw but RP falls

DRESDEN, Germany – GM Wesley So held his ground against super GM Alexei Shirov and salvaged a draw but the Philippines absorbed stinging losses on boards 2 and 4 and took a 1-3 defeat to Spain in the World Chess Olympiad here Wednesday night.

Three-time national junior champion IM John Paul Gomez also halved the point with GM Miguel Cordoba Illescas on board 3, but GMs Jayson Gonzales and Darwin Laylo bowed to GMs Francisco Vallejo and Pablo San Segundo on boards 2 and 4, respectively.

The loss left the Filipinos with only seven points on three wins, one draw and two losses based on the 2-1-0 win-draw-loss match point style scoring system now being used by FIDE to determine the final rankings.

“Wesley did well against Shirov on top board but we missed winning opportunities in the other three boards,” said non-playing team captain GM Eugene Torre after an assessment of the Filipinos’ sixth round performances against the highly-rated Spaniards.

“But there’s still five rounds left. We have to play consistently to win starting in our seventh-round match against Belgium,” said Torre, who analyzed the matches with Idelfonso Datu and Cesar Caturla.

So, the world’s youngest GM at 15, and Shirov agreed to a draw after only 31 moves of the Sicilian Rossolimo with the Filipino opting for an e4 opening, which Shirov challenged with the sharpest line in the variation – Bd7.

After some maneuverings, which followed the bookline of the game, the two agreed to a theoretical draw after less than one hour of play.

Gomez mishandled the opening stages but played well enough to escape with a draw with Illescas in 68 moves of another Sicilian. He remained RP’s leading scorer with 4.5 points on three wins and three draws.

Gonzales misplaced his knight on a5 in the middle game which Vallejo translated into an advantage and later on into a victory after 33 moves of the Nimzovitch.

Laylo, who earned a slot in the World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia last year, missed the right continuation in a sharp middle game battle and fell to San Segundo in 35 moves of the Gruenfeld.

The RP ladies team likewise dropped its match to Sweden, 1.5-2.5.

Cheradee Chardine Camacho provided the full point for Team RP as she defeated WIM Irina Tetenkina in 38 moves of the Sicilian Dragon.

Camacho, at 14 the youngest member of the five-player national team, unleashed a strong kingside attack to stun the higher-rated Tetenkina to chalk up her fourth win against two draws.

Christy Lamiel Bernales blew an excellent chance for an upset win and settled for a draw with WFM Evgenia Pavlovskaia in 59 moves of the King’s Indian Attack.

Bernales made a dubious rook sacrifice on the 39th move, allowing her higher-rated Swedish opponent to gain a strong counterplay and force an inevitable draw by repetition of moves.

Catherine Perena and Daisy Rivera found themselves on the losing end – again.

Perena bowed to former women’s world championship contender Pia Cramling in 24 moves of the Queen’s Gambit Declined, while Rivera lost to WIM Svetlana Agrest in 55 moves of the Pirc.

Perena, the only remaining member of the RP team, which finished a respectable 27th place in the Turin Olympiad, suffered her fourth loss in five matches.

Rivera, who is making only her initial appearance in this biennial gathering of the world’s top players, absorbed her second defeat against one win.

Next up for the Filipinas is No. 80 seed Costa Ria, which lost to Iceland on the sixth round.