Wesley So made it to the semifinals of the World Fischer
Random Chess Championship after defeating (6.5-1.5) Vladislav Fedoseev in the quarterfinals last
October 6, 2019 to join Fabiano Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi, and world champion
Magnus Carlsen in the Final Four. The Bacoor-born chess prodigy will meet them
this October 26 in Norway.
The International Chess Federation (FIDE) runs the
tournament. Fischer Random has different rules from the ordinary or classical
chess we know. Just ask the experts to explain to you about it. Honestly, I can’t.
In an interview at Chess.Com by David Cox posted in April
10, 2019, Wesley So, the Philippine-born chess wonder and world’s top 10,
recollects how he met former actress Lotis Key. So said, “I was staying with
this Filipino guy during the tournament, and he put on a dinner party where I
met Lotis and her family …. [T]hey gave me a place to stay, which was only
supposed to be a short-term thing, six months to help me get my paperwork and
everything sorted out. They’d always supported a lot of foster children through
their local church. But then within 10 months of that Christmas, I was living
with them full-time and they adopted me.” Lotis Key, erstwhile Dolphy’s
leading lady, is married to Bambi Kabigting, a former basketeer who now lives in the US.
Wesley So’s surrogate father has ancestry in San Jose,
Occidental Mindoro. He is a first cousin from maternal side of my high school
batch mate Francisco “King” Banta, a resident of San Roque and a basketball
referee in town. King, by the way is the youngest of Lt. Col. Jose Banta and
Pilar Trinidad. Pilar had a sister named Estrella (or Esther) who later tied
knots with Ramon Kabigting. Ramon and Esther are the parents of Renato
nicknamed “Bambi,” now foster father of Wesley So. Bambi is the subject of my
conversation with his cousin King through private messenger at Facebook the
other night.
Renato “Bambi” Kabigting is a former college basketball star
who played for the Ateneo Blue Eagles and Crispa Redmanizers and from there
moving on to several professional basketball teams including San Miguel (1982),
Alaska and Great Taste (1986). He had a short stint in the PBA though. In 2014,
Lotis and Bambi took Wesley into their family.
Bambi is a grandson of one of San Jose’s early settlers Vicente
Trinidad and his wife Isidra. His grandparents from the Trinidad side owned a
refreshment parlor at the mill site of the Sugar Central in San Jose during
World War-II. Throughout the Japanese occupation, Vicente became aide and kitchen
staff of guerilla leader and local hero Capt. Lawrence Cooper. One of Bambi’s aunts, Esperanza (or Panching), even
served as medic attending the wounded Filipino guerillas and American soldiers during the Japanese occupation
before the historic Mindoro Landing of the US and Allied Forces on December 15,
1944.
Bambi Kabigting’s mother, Estrella Trinidad (or Esther), is the first
ever beauty titlist of Pandurucan, San Jose’s name of yore. The first beauty
contest ever held in that town was in 1950 and Esther bagged the title. Esther became
flight stewardess at Philippine Airlines (PAL) until his retirement in the 70s.
Her marriage to Ramon Kabigting yields 7 children: 4 boys and 3 girls, namely,
Ramon Vicente, Renato (Bambi), Roel, Ruby Anna (Avecilla), Roselle, Rhodora
and Raul.
Esther as a teenager studied at the South Mindoro Academy
(SMA), the precursor of now Divine Word College of San Jose (DWCSJ). Before her
time at PAL, Esther taught at San Jose Pilot Elementary School, according to my
buddy King Banta.
Kabigting was in the line-up of the triumphant Blue Eagles in
1975 when Ateneo bagged its 13th NCAA basketball crown. They
repeated the feat in 1976. Five players on that team went on to play in the
PBA: Steve Watson, Joy Carpio, Fritz Gaston, Padim Israel, and yes, Bambi
Kabigting.
Grand Master and chess book writer Artur Yusupov of Russia thinks
that Fischer Random is an alternative variant but it is hard to predict how it
will develop then. Yusupov further stressed that, "Chess is very beautiful and difficult and will be played many years
to come.”
Like family ties, chess and basketball dwell in the heart of the Filipinos to stay.
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Photo from
Wesley So’s Facebook page
References:
“Mindoro sa
Panahon ng Digmaan”, Rodolfo M. Acebes; 2008; National Commission on Culture
and Arts; pp. 235-236.
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