GM Torre, the first Chess Grandmaster in Asia and a Hall of Famer, has confirmed that he will be guest speaker at the 1st JCI Senate Lipa Open Rapid Chess Tournament on June 17, 2024 at Lipa Convention Center (formerly LASCA).
Hon. Mayor Eric Africa is instrumental in bringing GM Torre to grace the tournament, which is held as part of the celebration of the Lipa City Foundation Day.
From Wikipedia —
Eugenio “Eugene” Torre[1][2] (born November 4, 1951) is a Filipino chess grandmaster. In 1974, at 22 years old, he became the first Filipino and non-Soviet Asian to qualify for the title Grandmaster. Torre did this by winning the silver medal in the 21st Chess Olympiad in Nice, France. He is considered the strongest chess player the Philippines produced during the 1980s and 1990s, and played for the Philippines on board 1 in seventeen Chess Olympiads. In 2021, Torre was inducted into the World Chess Hall of Fame.
In a tournament in Manila in 1976, Torre was then the only one to beat the then-reigning World Champion Anatoly Karpov in a game that has become part of Filipino chess history. In 1982 he gained a spot in the World Chess Championship candidates matches, where he lost to Zoltán Ribli. He served as Bobby Fischer’s second in the 1992 match against Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia.
He currently plays for the Rizal Towers of the Professional Chess Association of the Philippines.
Chess career
1969–1973
Eugene Torre participated in the 1969 (10th) and 1971 (11th) editions of the Junior World Chess Championship, an under-20 chess tournament (players must have been under 20 years old on 1 January in the year of competition) organized by the World Chess Federation (FIDE). It was the brainchild of William Ritson-Morry who organized the inaugural event in 1951 in Birmingham, England.[3]
In the 1971 edition held in Athens, Greece in July–August, a record forty-four players from forty-three countries participated in six preliminary groups. Werner Hug of Switzerland was the surprise winner, scoring 8.5/11. Two years before, he had only finished fifth in Final C. More highly touted players finished lower like Hungarian Chess Olympiad team member and future World Championship candidate Zoltán Ribli who finished second (8/11); the strong American player Kenneth Rogoff finished third (7.5/11); and Torre and the Soviet Grandmaster Rafael Vaganian, who were among three players (Renê Borngässer) that scored 6.5/11 finishing in a tie for fourth to sixth places.[4] with Torre finishing in 4th place after the Sonneborn Berger (SB) tie-break system was employed.[5]
In 1972, Torre won the Asian Zonal Championship and became an International Master (IM), becoming the Philippines’ third IM after IM Rodolfo Tan Cardoso who gained his title after winning the silver medal in the 1956 Chess Olympiad and IM Renato Naranja who achieved his IM title in 1969 when he won the Asian Zonal in Singapore.[6] In September 1972, a Torre – Cardoso showdown was held to determine the Philippines’ best player with the winner playing the top board for Team Philippines in the Skopje Olympiad to be held later that month. It was supposed to be a six-game match but after Torre opened up an unassailable two-point lead (3.5–1.5) with 2 wins and 3 draws, the 6th and last game was no longer played.[6]
In 1972/1973, Torre tied for 1st place with Hungarian GM Levente Lengyel and International Master Ljuben Popow, also known as Luben Popov of Bulgaria, in the Reggio Emilia series known as the Torneo di Capodanno with a score of 7/11. This tournament was held annually from 1958 to 2012.[7]
In 1972/1973, Torre tied for 1st place with Hungarian GM Levente Lengyel and International Master Ljuben Popow, also known as Luben Popov of Bulgaria, in the Reggio Emilia series known as the Torneo di Capodanno with a score of 7/11. This tournament was held annually from 1958 to 2012, a grand total of 54 editions without any interruptions.[8]
In 1973, Torre participated in the 1973 Leningrad Interzonal Tournament where he played against the world’s top players such as future World Champion Karpov, Mikhail Tal, Viktor Korchnoi, Bent Larsen and Robert Eugene Byrne, among others. He ended up in a tie for 13th-14th places in the 18-man round-robin tournament[9] where he finished with 4 wins, 7 losses and 6 draws (7/17) but scored big wins over Tal[10] and Larsen.[11]
1976–1991
Torre in 1982
Torre reached prominence in 1976 as a possible future title challenger after winning a strong four-man tournament in Manila ahead of World Champion Anatoly Karpov – thus becoming the first player to finish ahead of Karpov in a tournament since the latter became world champion. In the summer of 1976, three grandmasters traveled to Manila, Philippines to participate in the Marlboro-Loyola Kings Challenge chess tournament. They were (in order by Elo): World Champion Anatoly Karpov (2695) from the Soviet Union, Ljubomir Ljubojević (2620) from Yugoslavia, and Walter Browne (2585) from the United States. They were joined by grandmaster Eugenio Torre (2505) from the Philippines for a double-round robin event. The average rating of the players qualified the tournament as a category XV event.
Torre defeated the world champion in the second round, and went on to finish clear first ahead of Karpov, a feat no one had yet accomplished since the latter had become world champion. The final standings and crosstable are as follows:
Manila 1976
1 2 3 4 Total
1 Torre – 1 ½ ½ 1 1 ½ 4½
2 Karpov 0 ½ – 1 ½ ½ ½ 3
3 Ljubojević ½ 0 0 ½ – ½ 1 2½
4 Browne 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ 0 – 2
Later in the same year 1976, Torre topped the 2nd Asian Masters held from 23 August to 10 September at Jakarta, Indonesia. The event qualified as a Category III event with an average Elo rating of 2304. At that time, this was only the 2nd international tournament held in Jakarta the first being the FIDE Zonal 10 Tournament in 1963. Torre scored a whopping 12/14, going undefeated with 10 wins and 4 draws. Compatriot Rico Mascariñas earned an IM norm in the same event where he tied for 3rd place with 10/14 (+8, =4, -2).[12]
In 1977, Torre (2550) finished tied for 5th-6th places at the strong Geneva Tournament held from March 26 to April 11, 1977, with GM Ludek Pachman where he recorded 4 wins, 6 draws and 3 losses (7.0/13) but ended up 6th after the SB tiebreaks were applied losing out to Pachman, 47–43.[13]
At the 1st Burroughs Computers Grandmaster Tournament held on April 5–19, 1978, Torre copped second-place finishing with a score of 8/12 on the strength of 6 wins, 4 draws and 2 losses just behind winner Miguel Quinteros. The first leg was held in Baguio City, Philippines, the third leg in Jakarta, Indonesia and the fourth leg in Penang, Malaysia.[14]
In 1979, Torre topped the 7th Marlboro Classic, a 14-man tournament held in Manila in January 1979 finishing clear first, a point ahead of GM Fridrik Olafsson of Iceland and 2 points ahead of top seed Josif Dorfman, a Soviet-French Grandmaster, with a score of 10/13.[15] Also in 1979, Torre tied for 1st place in the 2nd Asian GMs Circuit 1st Leg held in Jakarta from 26 May to 6 June alongside Dorfman and GM Yuri Averbakh all with 6.5/11 recording 5 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses. Coincidentally, they were the top 3 seeds in the tournament with GM Dorfman having a 2595 Elo rating, Torre with 2520 and Averbakh with 2515.[16]
The high point of his career came in the early 1980s when he was ranked world No.17;[17] successfully going on to qualify as a candidate for the world championship after tying for first with Lajos Portisch during the 1982 Toluca Interzonal, thereby becoming the very first Asian ever to qualify in the Candidates. By qualifying in the Candidates, Torre’s feat was considered “a vindication of FIDE’s democratic world-wide qualifying system”.[18] At that time, Torre was viewed as a serious rival to the Soviet grandmasters in the 1984 Candidates Matches considering his head-to-head record with some of the finest Soviet GMs at that time: 2.5–1.5 against Tal, 2–2 opposite Tigran Petrosian, 1.5–2.5 versus Vassily Smyslov and 3.5–5.5 contra Karpov.[10]
Torre finished clear second in the 56th Hastings Premier Tournament, a Category 10 tournament (average Elo 2476) organized by William Ritson-Morry held from 29 December 1980 to 15 January 1981, with a score of 10/15.[19]
Torre has the distinction of being the first Asian player to earn the title of International Grandmaster.[20] He qualified for the Candidates Matches for the 1984 World Championship. In that preliminary stage, the contenders play matches against each other to determine who will challenge the world champion. Torre was eliminated when he lost his match against Zoltán Ribli by a score of 6–4.
In 1984, Torre was selected to play in the second USSR vs. the Rest of the World competition billed as the Match of the Century of 1984 held in London, England. The USSR team was led by the world’s two highest ranked players at that time, Garry Kasparov (2710 Elo) and Karpov (2700 Elo) while the Rest of the World was led by Viktor Korchnoi and Ljubomir Ljubojević both with 2635 Elo rating. Torre had an Elo rating of 2565 for this tournament where he contributed 2 points in 3 games, all against Andrei Sokolov, winning 2 and losing once finishing with a performance rating of 2620. He was among the team’s high scorers only eclipsed by Korchnoi, Ribli and GM Anthony John Miles who all ended up with 2.5/4 but in terms of winning percentage was the high scorer with 66.7%[21]
Torre finished in a tie for 3rd at the 1986 Brussels SWIFT Tournament, a Category 13 event held in April 1986, alongside Timman and Miles posting 3 wins, 7 draws and 1 loss (6.5/11) but behind Karpov (9/11) and Korchnoi (7/11). Torre’s lone loss was inflicted by International Master Michel Jadoul who ended up dead last in the tournament with 2.5/11 (+2,−8,=1).[22][23]
At the 1988 Biel Tournament held in July, Torre tied for 3rd together with GM Vladimir Tukmakov with a score of 6.5/11, just half a point behind tournament joint 1st placers GM Boris Gulko and GM Ivan Sokolov.[24] Also in 1988 a 6-game Nigel Short vs. Eugenio Torre one-on-one match was held in Manila sponsored by Carlsberg Beer. Torre won the 1st game but Short evened up the match with a win in the 4th game with all the other games ending up in draws as the match ended in a 3–3 tie.[25]
In 1991, Torre was invited to play in the Pan Pacific Grandmaster Tournament. Torre took first place with an 8/11 score (+5−0=6). GM Patrick Wolff of the USA was 2nd with 7/11 with GM Mikhail Tal of Latvia, GM Larry Christiansen and GM Joel Benjamin both of the US and Australian GM Ian Rogers, all tying for 3rd with 6/11.[26] It would be noted that Torre was the second-lowest ranked participant in this tournament with an Elo rating of 2552 only ahead of the sole International Master invited to play, American John Grefe who had a 2400 Elo rating. This was a 12-man tournament with GM Benjamin the top seed (based on Elo) with an Elo rating of 2662, followed by Tal (2645), GM John Fedorowicz (2634) also of the US and GM Utut Adianto (2634) of Indonesia rounding up the 2600-rated players.[27]
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