BUDAPEST — Julio Catalino Sadola caught out another super grandmaster in AR Saleh Salem as the Philippines maintained momentum by beating the United Arab Emirates 4-0 to set a new Philippine best result at the 45th FIDE Chess Olympiad at the BOK Sports Hall.
Utilizing a rarely used strategy against Salem’s favorite King’s Indian Defense, Sadrat won in 35 moves by sacrificing his bishop and knight to expose his opponent’s kingside while his confused opponent fought back with desperation.
Daniel Quizon, Paulo Bersamina and Yann Emmanuel Garcia also beat Omran Al Hosani, Sedrani Ammar and Fareed Ahmed respectively on the lower boards to help the Philippines move up to the big group in 20th place with 12 points each.
With two rounds remaining, the country was also looking to repeat or even surpass its best result in the biennial tournament, a seventh place finish achieved in 1988 in Thessaloniki, Greece, when current coach GM Eugene Torre was a top board player at the time.
The Philippine team, funded by the Philippine Sports Commission and backed by NCFP president Butch Pichai, will hope to realise that dream when it faces off against the 32nd-seeded, all-GM Georgia team in the penultimate round.
And that was all thanks to a youngster by the name of Sadra, who boasted an unbeaten record with six points from seven games in the Hungarian capital, recording an impressive 3.5 points against four super GMs.
Interestingly, one of Sadra’s Super GM victims, Vladimir Fedoseyev, a Russian immigrant in Slovenia, shocked former world champion and current world number one Magnus Carlsen of Norway in the same round.
The masterful performance has propelled the University of Texas at Dallas coach into third place on the first board’s individual medal contenders with a performance rating of 2845, behind only Indian sensation Domaraj Gukesh (3012), who will challenge world champion China’s Ding Liren for the title in Singapore later this year, and Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusatlov (2949).
“I chose to play like Smyslov and used a Smyslov variation against my opponent’s favorite, King’s Indian,” Sadra said, referring to former world champion Vasily Smyslov of the Soviet Union.
“Later I stopped using c5 on B5 siya and made the Benko structure worse, kanya,” he added.
The Filipino athletes are also leading Group B in a very tough race and are vying for category medals, which are awarded to athletes who do not make it onto the podium in each evaluation group.
It also made up for the disappointment of the Philippines’ 3-1 loss to Romania.
Wonder Girl Ruel Canino rose from the grave when she stunned WGM Carmen Voigt J. Jagodzinski with a board evasion sweep.
Janelle Fraina, Jan-Jodilyn Fronda and Bernadette Galas were outplayed on the first, second and fourth boards by Irina Brumaga, Mihaela Sandu and Mirna Daria Lehac.
Filipino players dropped from the top 30 to the top 50.