Thursday, August 09, 2007

RP Boys Aiming for Title

The Philippine team, ranked 22nd in the field, is playing brilliantly in Singapore and are now running just a point behind the Indians after 7 rounds. RP yesterday defeated the Indian team 3-1. Pinoy fans can thank their super player on board 1, IM Wesley So, who is yet to drop a point. Back in round 4 Wesley defeated the 2436-rated Tamas Fodor Jr of Hungary.



An Australia 1 vs RP contest will be the dream match and the 4th ranked Australians will surely be the favourties for that. Today, the Aussie juniors will be under plenty of pressure against the Indians and will be hoping to emulate RP's positive outcome against the Indian team yesterday.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Today is a rest day Amiel so we will have to wait 24 hours more!
Brian

Anonymous said...

Phillipines certainly put the cat among the pidgeons with that brilliant round against India. Aus has to still play both Phillipines and India so a tough road for us.

We were unhappy with both results against Hungary and Switzerland, as some points slipped away.

Everyone looking forward to the rest day today, although a lot will be spent working.

Jenni

The blindman said...

I don't think you can say Australia would be favourites over Philippines when board 1 is Wesley, and boards 2 and 3 look like 2350+ players!

Anonymous said...

I am told board 3 for Phillipines is a new star and he certainly looked very good against India.

We've had an eventful day with Zhigen managing to hit Derek with a mini golf club. An ambulance ride and 2 stitches later Derek is fine. Team a bit tired after their afternoon out, but now busy working again.

Isaac Ng is also unwell and not sure if he will play tomorrow - he is playing brilliantly for a 9 year old.

Jenni

Anonymous said...

Jenni, i think you are giving excuses for australia's upcoming loss against the philippines :)

archer_401 said...

AUS-1 vs RP will be interesting.

Wesley So is probably the strongest chess player under 14 years old in the world today.

I hope a super benefactor takes the prodigy under his wing for training and even academics to meet his full potential, and to participate in FIDE rated tournaments to be one of the youngest GMs ever and perhaps even a super-GM.

Not far-fetched if you look at a phenomenal improvement from the 2300's to 2516 in 12 months!

Anonymous said...

Wesley's chess prowess is an open book so I looked for chess records of the lower boards for the Pinoy team. What I found are quite impressive. OChoa, the oldest of the 4, is a veteren world campaigner. The last 2 major tournaments he played in the US he placed first (8.5/9 in HB Global U2000 and 5.5/6 in North American Open U1800). He was about 13 then. Pascua is a recent multi-gold medalist in the ASEAN u-14 tournament (8.5/9 in standard game). The least popular Grafil is an age-category champion in Philippines. It's dishearthening that talended kids like them don't even have FIDE rating. Best of luck to them.

Anonymous said...

...it's interesting (and impressive) that members of the Pinoy team, except for Ochoa (brd 2), are all under 14 yrs old. Furthermore, they don't have a substitute player !

Anonymous said...

yes! philippines are the best :)

Anonymous said...

Who is making excuses. :) Derek and Isaac weren't playing in Aus 1 last time I looked.....

People on this blog seem to have trouble grasping that Aus has 4 teams playing :)