GIANT-KILLER Noel Paguidopon suffered his only stinging loss in the seventh and final round, but still ran away with the individual title of the Civil Service Anniversary chess competition concluded on Thursday, September 12 at the Capitol Chess Park in Cagayan de Oro City.
Seeded No. 4, Paguidopon of the Provincial Assessor’s Office strung up sixth-straight wins including stunning upsets over the top-three seeds Lorenzo Cuizon of the Provincial Sports Development Office, William Reintegrado of the Provincial Admin and Joven Berondo of the Provincial Governor’s Office.
Paguidopon intends to finish the seven-round Swiss System tourney grandly but was caught off-guarded by the ‘fire on board’ sacrificial combination from the PSDO Socmed ‘Shirov’ Salgado-Lafuente.
“I was completely overwhelmed, but I learned a great lesson from the so-called fire on board in Cagayan de Oro-MisOr chess,” humbly said Paguidopon, who was outplayed in a Queen’s Pawn Opening and faced an inevitable mating threat under 20 moves after accepting a pawn sacrifice and another exchange sacrifice involving the white’s Rook and the black's passive Knight in just the middle game.
Still, his 6-of-6 effort before the final round has assured him the favorable “win over the other” tiebreak rule, that cleverly prompted Reintegrado and Cuizon to draw their seventh-round match for them to crack the top-three behind Paguidopon at 5.5 points each with P3,000, P2,000, and P1,000 cash prize take-home, respectively.
“Pildi na kaayo ‘ming duha ni Joven (Berondo) kay Shirov pero bilar tingali pista sa Bonbon kay wala ‘mi gituloyan, bisan Queen nga nabahog wala gi-capture. Siya unta ang maka-break sa score sa ni-champion. Pero kang Paguidopon gyod ang swerte kay na losing pud siya sa among Joven nidaug pa,” shared the top-seeded Cuizon.
