ABS CBN News, Philippines
July 18 2004

Rañola unbeaten in four rounds

By Manny Benitez
TODAY Chess Columnist

Filipino National Master (NM) Yves Rañola defeated Spanish NM Jose
Luis Ramon Perez in the third round and drew with Cuban International
Master (IM) Yuri Gonzales in the fourth to tie for second to 11th
places with 10 others in the Balaguer International Open chess
tournament in Spain.

In first place was Grandmaster Karen Movzsizsian of Armenia, who had
a perfect 4.0 points.

IM Jayson Gonzales, however, settled for two straight draws, while IM
Ronald Bancod had a win and a loss in the third and fourth rounds.
Both had 3.0 points to stay half a point behind the runners-up.

Both Rañola, who is campaigning for his third and final IM norm, and
Gonzales remained unbeaten after four rounds.

The Tai Yuan Grandmasters chess tournament, meanwhile, got off to a
flying start for Alexey Dreev of Russia and Nigel Short of England,
who both won their first assignments, with White against Chinese GMs
Ye Jiangchuan and Xu Jun, respectively, over the weekend.

Three other first-round games in the 10-player event ended in draws
— Bu Xiangzhi vs Zhang Zhong, both of China, in 31 moves of an
English Symmetrical duel; Smbat Lputian of Armenia vs Xie Jun,
China’s former world women’s champion; and Ni Hua of China vs Joel
Lautier of France.

Dreev beat Ye in 49 moves of a King’s Indian, Saemisch variation,
while Short taught former Asian continental champion Xu a lesson in
55 moves of a Sicilian Najdorf.

Meanwhile, defending champion Alexander Morozevich of Russia is the
odds-on favorite to win the Biel Grandmasters Tournament, which gets
under way in the Swiss city on Monday (Tuesday in Manila).

Another favorite is past world champion Ruslan Ponomariov. The other
players in the super event are Etienne Bacrot of France, Krishnan
Sasikiran of India, Luke McShane of England and Yannick Pelletier of
Switzerland.

The GM contest is part of the celebration of the annual chess
festival in Biel city, also known in the predominately
French-speaking Swiss canton as Bienne.

In Tuguegarao, Manila bets Froilan Bolico III and Michael Adarlo
zeroed in on the top two North Luzon leg berths by posting their
fifth straight victories in the Shell National Youth Active
Championships.

The top-seeded Bolico trounced Baguio City’s Alex Siblagan, while
Adarlo beat another Manila player, Carl Espallardo, to emerge the
only unbeaten players in the juniors (20-under) division of the
two-category tournament.