HALL of Famer and Asia’s first chess Grandmaster Eugenio ‘Eugene’ Torre may already be past his prime, but he’s still actively promoting chess on his own around the country.
The 70-year-old Torre will be on a three-stop jaunt in Mindanao starting this week, as invited guest of the 1st Surigaonon Fiesta Chess Tournament jointly hosted by Mayor Paul Dumlao, Congressman Robert Ace Barbers, and Governor Lyndon Barbers.
A veteran of 23 Olympiads, Torre is slated to meet up with top government officials of the Caraga region to promote the game and play simultaneous exhibition games with the locals at the Surigao City Cultural Center.
“As we’re getting older, we need to stay mentally sharp. And how productive it is to do it by sharing our chess talent and knowledge to the young ones, especially the children,” Torre said.
The first male chesser in Asia to be enshrined in the World Chess Hall of Fame (the other was female Chinese chess legend Xie Jun), the venerable Torre said it is of paramount importance to seriously promote the mental sport in the country where Filipinos can excel such as the Bacoor, Cavite-born Wesley Barbossa So who became World Fischer Random chess champion, and currently ranked 5th among the world’s top 100 players in standard chess.
“Believe me, we can find and develop just two young players with exceptional talent and the rest will follow,” said Torre, who prefers to spend more of his time encouraging children to play chess.
Arena Grandmaster Rey Urbiztondo, who along with fellow Mindanaoans in boxing legend Manny Pacquiao and Dapitan City mayor Seth Frederick Jalosjos made it to the 15-man board of the National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP), has facilitated Torre’s sojourn in Mindanao.
“His being (disciplined) makes him exceptionally healthy and still capable of promoting the game we love most. And he’s been doing this all along after his national duty as head coach of the Philippine men's team in the recent World Chess Olympiad in India,” Urbiztondo said.
From Surigao then Cagayan de Oro probably on September 13-14, Urbiztondo said Torre will proceed to Dapitan City on Sept 15 in time of the NCFP-sanctioned Grand Finals of the National Youth and Schools Chess Championships from September 16 to 23 at the Dapitan Sports and Cultural Complex in Dapitan City, Zamboanga Del Norte.
“The Dapitan City event is also a good opportunity for us to discover fresh talents since it is a competition among the country's best age group and junior players. We'll be there then hawk watching for prospective talents,” Torre said.
Going around, Torre said, is also a refresher especially since he’s in the near part of completing a book he himself is writing that may come for official release next year.
“In my private teaching, lectures, and public speaking engagement, I always emphasize the importance of developing our mental king, physical king, and spiritual king that will also be elaborated in my book along with some memorable games,” Torre said.
Chess fans around the world, Torre said, can expect in the book the details of his chess struggle like his Europe campaign for the GM title, his chess match triumph over the then world chess champion Anatoly Karpov of the Soviet Union and his special friendship and collaboration with the late American genius Bobby Fischer.
“I’m just hoping that everyone else including the mainstream sports journalists will not get tired of supporting our cause because chess discipline suits well the character of the relatively small but inherently talented Filipinos,” Torre said.
