The last round draw was all he needed. Thus, when his young but dangerous opponent, FIDE Master Jason Cao of Victoria BC agreed to halve the point, could only heave a sigh of relief. At long last, and after so many tries and disappointments, the FIDE International Master, thus, claimed the March Active Chess championship plum much deservingly. The win came after Mayo Fuentebella, the 2013 BC Active Chess champion was relegated to third place overall after suffering an upset loss to Joe Roeback in the 2nd round and could only squeeze a draw in the 5th round. His 4.5 points tally was not enough to bring home any prize money however. Other Canoy chess artists in the 6-round tourney participated by other 45 players from across the province and held at the Arbutus Shopping Mall, Vancouver, BC were Butch Villavieja, Jose Kagaoan and Jofrel Landingin, who tied for the BU 1800 category prize money.
Meanwhile, Viswanathan ‘Vishy’ Anand, the current World Chess champion has a challenger. This came after 22-year old Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, the highest rated player in the world was adjudged winner by tie-break in the recently concluded Candidates tournament held in London, England.
No less than Garry Kasparov, the ex-world champion, however, criticized the rules of tie-breaks harshly. For one, Carlsen and Kramnik, also an ex-world champion, both lost their last games which brought an anti-climactic finish to the Candidates matches. Kasparov also scored the nonuse of a play-off match to break the tie. “Even if it’s not a tie but one of them finishes ahead of the other by no more than a point. Only if that match ends in a draw should the tiebreakers be taken into account”, Kasparov concluded.
The world championship is slated November 2013 in a venue yet to be decided. (For comments & suggestions, direct email to: josef_soliven@ yahoo.ca)
