Tuesday, February 26, 2019

The Grandmaster that never was



He first played chess in 1963 when Tigran Petrosian was world champion. He participated in many out-of-town competitions three years after until 1966 when Petrosian was already 36 years old. After failing to dethrone Petrosian in 1966, Boris Spassky, 26, described his older opponent as, "first and foremost a stupendous tactician.” In chess, unlike in physical sports, like in love, age doesn’t matter. As long as dementia do not get you.

Marcelo “Boyet” Abeleda, Occidental Mindoro’s monster chess player is now 66. He is the Last of the Mohicans, so to speak, in our local chess landscape. Other pioneers are either by now at the bosom of the Heavenly King, lived somewhere or already gone nuts. (Yes there is one mentally challenged person roaming around San Jose that was once a maestro de ajedres in the locality. But I won’t elaborate any further to keep respect to his privacy. )

Playing for nearly 6 decades, Boyet Abeleda is breathing chess. There is chess in his cigarettes and also in his dreams. Even coming from family of prominent politicians, joining politics never entered his mind. He preferred to display his tactics in the chess board rather than the political war room. To him, chess is the most dignifying thing in the world. Anything not related to chess are just icings. It is his main dough. Chess is his life and at times, his financial resource. Chess is to him is science, art and sport, rolled into one, paraphrasing Anatoly Karpov.

According to him, he garnered 1810 Elo rating. A player's Elo rating is represented by a number which increases or decreases depending on the outcome of games between rated players. But as a young enthusiast, he had been a constant feature in the downtown of Pandurucan, especially in barbershops, billiard halls and the rest. Glued to this game, chess made him intellectually independent. In 1969, he became a national player when he joined a national competition held at La Salle Lipa in Batangas.

His most unforgettable feat came in 1987. The only player coming from Occidental Mindoro, out of more than 4 hundred participants in the National Capital Region (NCR), he placed 7th in the over-all. It was a national tournament. But he was not able to reach the finals and failed to join the elite group coming from Luzon, the NCR itself, Visayas and Mindanao. The tournament was held in the now site of the Coastal Mall along Roxas Boulevard in Pasay City.

He said his love of chess was influenced by a certain Emilio T. Villamar III, nicknamed Baby, one of the pioneering players in Southern Mindoro along with the late Raul Jimenez and the all-around sportsman Ronnie Carlos.

Tatay Boyet, as he is fondly called by the younger co-members of the Occidental Mindoro Chess Academy (OMCA), hopes that through the present loaded activities of the OMCA and its officers, the province will produce lot of masters or Grand Masters in the future. He also involved himself in tutoring young players whenever there is a competition participated by his Alma Mater, the Divine Word College of San Jose. He shares his talent to everybody specially the young. Though he already loose many of his teeth, he is a saber-toothed tiger when he moves.

Marcelo Abeleda never been ranked by the Philippine Chess Federation as Grand Master but he is certainly the Grand Ole Man in Occidental Mindoro chess history.
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Photo courtesy of Emmanuel Bandelaria Asi of OMCA. Shown in the picture above are L to R, Marcelo “Boyet” Abeleda, Mr. Renato Gatuz, President of OMCA and SB Ana Barrera-Sembillo of Magsaysay. This was taken during the Awarding Ceremonies of the Mayor Eleonor Barrera Fajardo Chess Tournament held in said Municipality recently.


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