Reaching for the stars

Lionel Messi is an Argentine footballer who plays as a forward for La Liga club FC Barcelona and the Argentina national team.

I just have to cite Lionel’s accomplishment as it is absolutely incredible even to chess fans.

He sailed past Gerd Müller’s 40-year-old record of 85 goals in one calendar year with his two strikes against Real Betis two weeks ago. He has, since then, scored 91 goals to end the season.

Lionel’s feat has been compared to running the marathon under two hours or the 100 m. under 9 seconds. 

On the other hand, Norwegian chess superstar Magnus Carlsen, 22, won the London Chess Classic and in so doing broke Garry Kasparov’s 13-year-old rating record by 10 points. 

“Pretty cool,” Magnus described the biggest achievement of his chess career. He won a neat 50,000 Euros.

Carlsen’s rating of 2861 will officially appear in the FIDE January 2013 rating list.

The London Chess Classic was one of the strongest tournament in history and the strongest in England. Playing were former champion Vladimir Kramnik 2795. He matched his own performance last year, but it was not enough . He will move to second place in the FIDE rating list next month and will gain 15 pts. For the last 20 years, he has been rated among the world’s top ten.

World Champion Viswanathan Anand 2775 had a so-so performance placing 5th. Levon Aronian 2815 lost 13 Elo by placing 6th. Michael Adams 2710 and Hikaru Nakamura 2760 played well and gained 15 and 9 respectively.

The other players were Judit Polgar 2705, Luke McShane 2713 and Gawain Jones 2644. 

Does that mean that Carlsen is better and stronger than the world champion Anand? Not necessarily, but it is a good indication. Magnus has been playing at the 2800 level for some time now and is showing signs of being considered the greatest player in history. This includes Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov and he is only 22.

RH bill. The Reproductive Health bill has been the center of attraction these past months and is very controversial as the Catholic church has taken a very strong stand against it,
Lawmakers and some media columnists have added insult to injury by saying that its passage is the best Christmas gift to the Filipino people.

I am mentioning this because in the 10th to the 15th century the Catholic Church and chess did not always get along. The church has, at one time or another, forbidden its play and has influenced various kings, Bishops and Abbots to ban the game. In Russia, the game was once associated with witchcraft and heresy. 

“The Deep Blue Christmas Open Chess Tournament was held in SM Cebu last Dec. 22-23, 2012.

About 80 players took part in the tournament, and the Top 32 proceeded to the double-game knockout system format.

Five junior players had held on impressively in the top the top 32: Rhenzi Kyle Sevillano, Diego Claro, Allan Pason, Adrian Basilgo, and Felix Shaun Balbona. It was only Sevillano though who carried on to top 16, where he was unfortunately defeated by Yves Fiel.

The number of players was quickly reduced down to 8, namely Rommel Ganzon, Bryll Arellano, Eden Diano, Anthony Makinano, Edcel Montoya, Fiel, Allan Salientes, and Michael Pagaran.

For the semifinals, Ganzon came up against Makinano while Salientes challenged Montoya. It was Montoya and Makinano who faced each other in the finals.

Drawn on the first match, Montoya sealed a victory to win the champion trophy while Makinano plunged to 2nd place.”- submitted by our lady contributor and chess player KC Morala. boypestano@gmail.com,www.chessmoso.blogspot.com