Philippines stuns Belarus, bows to Belgium

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines was punished for being overconfident and blew a two-point lead against lower-ranked Belgium in a heartbreaking 2.5-3.5 defeat yesterday, and slipped out of the top three after five rounds of the FIDE Online Chess Olympiad.

Up 2.5-0.5 following wins by Jerlyn Mae San Diego and Bernadette Galas over Tyani De Rycke and Diana Musabayeva and a draw by Grandmaster Darwin Laylo with FIDE Master Lennert Lenaerts, GM Banjo Barcenilla, WIM Jan Jodilyn Fronda and Michael Concio Jr. all suffered stinging defeats and blew a potential win away.

The setback sent the Philippines down to a three-team gridlock at fourth with Indonesia and Belgium with six points apiece behind Bulgaria, Germany and Australia.

The Agila ng Pilipinas paid dearly for underestimating the Belgians as they rested their top players – Grandmaster Mark Paragua, WGM Janelle Mae Frayna and IM Daniel Quizon.

The Filipinos were hoping to spring back to life as they were tackling the Aussies in the sixth round at press time.

Paragua brought down GM Vladislav Kovalev on top board as the Philippines shocked second seed Belarus, 4.5-1.5, earlier in the fourth round.        – Joey Villar

Faced against a player with a super GM level rating of 2648, Paragua showed incredible poise under tremendous pressure from Kovalev’s sacrificial attack and eked out a 58-move win that helped propel the team to victory.

Mordido and Quizon followed it up with wins over Woman FIDE Master Aliaksandra Tarasenka and FM Denis Lazavik, respectively, as the Filipinos remained at No. 3 with the Aussies with six points apiece.

Other Philippine results in that round saw GM Joey Antonio, WGM Janelle Mae Frayna and WIM Bernadette Galas splitting the point with higher-rated foes GM Kirill Stupak, IM Olga Badelka and IM Nastassia Ziaziulkina.

Antonio found a way to extricate himself out of a slightly inferior position and even emerged with the advantage, thanks to his active pieces. But he had to give it up due to internet glitches caused by the deluge that caused the signal interruption.

“I think I had some winning chances but I decided to draw because I was unnerved by my wifi problems,” said Antonio.

The juniors, Quizon and Mordido, were equally impressive as they used their familiarity with the fast time control against and used their massive time edge to pull off the win.