Chess in the Philippines

The local population consisted of several tribes, One of them are the Igorots, living in the mountains of the biggest island, Luzon. They were known as the “headhunters”, as they kept the heads of their enemies and would exhibit them as a trophy in their huts. We gained an idea of these former tribes when visiting the “Tam-Awan” village near Baguio, where a dozen of huts and local art are exhibited. While the Irogot most likely did not play chess, they are nevertheless depicted in Filipino chess boards. In the Torre chess museum (see next section) a nice example of the headhunters fighting the agriculturors is on stage. The board explains:

“This unique wood-carved chess set is designed after the ethnic groups who inhabit the mountains of Luzon called the “Igorot”. Since they live in the highlands, they dvised a way to carve terraces on mountainsides for crops and various grains. The name “Igorot” came from the Tagalog term “golot”, which means “mountain chain” and the prexix “i”, meaning “dweller in” or “people of”. Early Spaniards used the term “Ygolotes” more frequently. The substitution of the letter “R” for the letter “L” came around the 18^th century. As seen on the sets’s pieces, the Iogorot soldiers hold severed heads on one hand, and an axe on the other. This is because the Igorots were known to practice the ritual of headhunting. This was linked to many aspects oft he indigenous culture including ancestral connectiosn, abundance of wild game and crops, warding off bad spirits, fertility, revenge, and many others”.

A Spanish colony for three centuries, the local population demanded independence at the end of the 19^th century. A leading figure was José Rizal, an intellectual who had studied medicine in Heidelberg (Germany). He returned to his country and inspired resistance to the Spanish rule by his writings. In 1896, he was executed in Manila for allegedly planning a revolt. Today Rizal Park, also known as Luneta, is a sprawling urban park that commemorates him with a grand monument and sculptures that depict his execution. Among many talents (as a writer and speaking numerous languages) Rizal was also an ardent chess player.

In 1898, Philippines fell to the United States who purchased the island from Spain after a short war. The first elements of self-government were introduced in 1903, and in 1908 national tournaments started being organised. The webpage of the National Chess Federation of the Philippines (www.philchess-ncfp.com) offers no details though – relevant information comes from Wikipedia Philippine Chess Championship - Wikipedia).

The Eugenio Torre Museum in Marikina

Located roughly one hour from Manila City, Marikina is known as the “shoes capital” of the Philippines for its progressive shoes industry. In 2023, another element was added, when Eugenio Torre opened his museum inside a fancy restaurant. Following the advice of his lovely wife Babushka, he showcases pictures, prizes and trophies of his career. Moreover, the owner of the restaurant has added a couple of chess board from around the world.

To my great joy, Eugenio Torre himself had time to show me his museum and to share with me some interesting details from his life. He was very open and friendly. Although this was our first contact, the exchange was very agreeable. So, our two hours talks went by in no time, and I am happy to present a few highlights from his museum.

Eugenio Torre was born on 4 November 1951 in the province of Iloilo. In 1969 and 1971 he participated in the Junior World Championships. In the 1971 edition in Athens, Torre scored a shared 4-6^th place among the juniors with 6.5/11 in a strong field of 44 players (Werner Hug won ahead of Zoltan Ribli). Already a year later, Torre won the Asian Zonal tournament and became an IM. This paved the way to participate in the Interzonal tournament in Leningrad 1973, where he was supposed to play the world elite. “How to prepare?”, I asked him. Torre explained that the only way was to gain practical experience by playing various tournaments in Europe. His patron Florencio Campomanes “phoned” a few friends, who were willing to accommodate him. Thus, he toured in Spain and Italy – his greatest success being a victory in Reggio Emilia in 1972-1973. He also earned a bit of money by writing the chess column for the Philippines Daily Express.

According to his own recollection Torre was “overwhelmed” in the 1973 Leningrad IZT itself of playing with such greats as Korchnoi, Karpov, Larsen and Tal. And what a start: In the second round, he beat ex world champion Tal with Black! Two rounds later he held a hard fought draw with Black against the tournament favourate Larsen in a memorable rook ending. The young Filipino thus stopped the Dane, who had made 100% in the first three rounds, in his march the top. However, in the fifth round Torre suffered with White an unfortunate defeat against GM Robert Byrne after a wild king hunt and could not hold Gligoric thereafter. The other top seeds also proved superior. Nevertheless, at the end, Torre finished with a respectable 7/17 at 13^th-14^th place (of 18 participants) and gained 59 ELO points. Korchnoi and Karpov took the first places with 13/17, while Larsen got elminiated from the FIDE cycle.

The next bang followed at the Nice Olympiad 1974 in Nice. In Group 6, the team of the Philippines with an average of 2356 ELO scored 2^nd place after Bulgaria and made it to the final group A. Even more amazing it the came out on place 11 (of 16 finalists). This national success was partially due to Torre’s outstanding results. As first board of the Philippines, he won the silver medal behind Anatoly Karpov! This performance earned him the title of Grandmaster, the first Asian player to have earned it! When I had interviewed the Belgian player De Bruycker about Nice 1974, he remarked that night life there was even more interesting than the tournament. When hearing this comment, Torre smiled but politely said: “I found the atmosphere not distracting, but inspiring!”.

After having won the title at the green table in 1975, world champion Karpov proved his strength by remaining unbeaten in various strong tournaments. He also accpeted to play in a double round-robin in Manila 1976 with Ljubojevic (Yugoslavia), Browne (New Zealand) and Torre. To the great surprise of many, it did not prove to be a walk in the park for Karpov, though. Rather, Torre stole him the show by beating him in the second round with Black and winning the tournament with a clear 4.5/6! Torre is still very fond of this game, as it was the first loss oft he world champion in office. Only “drawback”: “I could have mated Karpov, but overlooked the mating attack in Zeitnot”. But the game is very present in his mind. Whereas I had the chance to replay it on the evening before in my hotel room, Torre still had the position present in his mind after almost 50 years! Here is the game, which wrote chess history in Asia.

In the same year, Torre proved to be the strongest master in Asia, taking an undisputed victory in the 2^nd Asia Masters Tournament in Jakarta (12/14!). In 1978, he married Babushka, who supported her husband since then. The happy couple has one daughter. On the chess board, further success in Europe followed, and in 1979, Torre won a 14-man tournament in Manila ahead of Olafsson and Dorfman. He then reached the top by tying first at the 1982 Toluca Interzonal with Lajos Portisch and qualifying for the candidates tournament. He had arrived in the top twenty of the world!

In the candidate’s cycle, Torre was paired against the Hungarian Zoltan Ribli. In hard fought match in Alicante (Spain), the first four games were drawn, but then Ribli won the 5^th game with Black. Torre recalls the circumstances as such: “I had achieved a slightly better position and wanted to play for a win on the queenside. So, I took a lot of time to find the best moves, which did not pay off. Ribli started a wining attack on the kingside and being short of time I did not defend correctly. In the next round, I had to strike back. But Ribli prepared a very sharp opening line (the Blumefeld variation in the Slav Defence), which was the right strategy. He beat me out of the opending, and with 2-0 the match was practically over”. Torre then won the 7^th game, but with the next two rounds were drawn. Torre had to win in the 10^th round with Black. Ribli destroyed his Old Indian Defence with a strong attack on the kingside in a “crazy game” according to Torre.

Being eliminated from the Candidate’s cycle may have marked a turning point in Torre’s career. He probably realized that he had reached his peak, but he was among the strongest non-Soviet grandmasters. In the 1980es he was regularly invited in top tournaments and we spoke about three examples. In Hannover 1983, Torre played against IM Herbert Bastian, a member of our association. Bastian managed to hold a draw and recalled that “Karpov was watching with interest and could not hide a certain satisfaction that Torre had to concede a half-point against me, the underdog”. When being told the story, Torre reacted: “Yes, that it is true! Ever since his loss in Manila 1976, Karpov was very keen of either beating me in our direct encounters or at least not allowing me to surpass him again. However, our last two rated games were drawn”.

In 1984, another edition of the “USSR v. the rest of the world” contest took place in London. Torre was nominated to play on the tenth board, where he scored 2/3 against Andrei Sokolov. This result partially restored the pride of the Western team, who had suffered defeat at the higher boards, in particular board 6 (Beljavsky beating Seirawan/Larsen 3.5-0.5). The tournament also had another effect on world chess: Timman, Ljubojevic and Anderssen followed Torre’s advice to complain in writing to FIDE President Campomanes that the adjournment of games would systematically favour Soviet players, who always had more (and probably stronger) seconds to analyse the games. Campomanest then took action, and the adjournments disappeared from FIDE tournament chess shortly thereafter.

The third memory relates to the great SWIFT tournament 1986 in Brussels. In that event, the sponsor put big money into the prize pot, and several top players participated along with the crème de la crème of the Belgian youth. In the last round, Torre played the Belgian young master Michel Jadoul, who had acquired IM strength, but finished last in the tournament. When mentioning his name, Torre exclaimed: “Jadoul, yes, Jadoul! I lost in the last round against him by a tactical oversight. If I had won, I would have scored second place. Oh my good, this Jadoul”! We laughed a lot after this spontaneous outburst – and readers are directed to my book about 100 years Belgian Chess Federation, which annotates this feat as a noteworthy Belgian chess game!

An important episode of Torre’s chess occurred in 1992. He became the official second to Bobby Fischer in the “return match” for the world championship against Boris Spassky in Serbia. When asked how this came about, Torre explains that he had first met Fischer in 1976 during the secret negotiations with Campomanes about a possible match with Karpov. In 1986, Bobby phoned Torre and asked for his help for another visit to the Philippines. They became friends and Fischer would welcome him at the airport in the United States1988, when he was on a flyover to Canada to participate in the St. John’s Open. In 1992, Fischer then asked him to join in Yugoslavia. Torre was aware that the prize money came from a dubious businessman and that the entire set-up was a bit strange. Still, in pure chess terms, his convinced that Fischer was still very strong for hi sage, pointing in particular to Game 1. Torre is convinced that there was a mutual friendship between the two men, and he very much regretted Bobby’s later problems with the US government and his premature death at the age of 66 years in Iceland.

Eugenio Torre remained also very important for the national team of the Philippines. He participated in no less than 23(!) Olympiads, including the 1992 Olympiad in Manila. In Baku 2006, he celebrated another sparkling success: Bronze medal on board three with a performance of over 2800 ELO! Torre also trained with the younger generation and enjoys his undisputed status of “father of Philippine chess” and entered into the hall of fame of the St. Louis Chess Club. The National Chess Federation uses his services still today as head coach, and I can fully understand how motivating it must be to train with a living legend of Asian chess.

In 1978, Ramón M. Quezada published a first biography about Torre, entitled “Beyond the 13^th move”. The title is an allusion to his game in the 11^th round of the Nice Olympiad. He had White against GM Byrne from the United States, who was much higher rated at the time. A draw would suffice to clinch the GM title. So, after an eventless French Defence, Tarrasch Defense, Torre made the proposal and Byrne accepted to congratulate his opponent! It is probably time for an updated and greatly enlarged edition!

Remembering Baguio 1978 – the world championship match between Karpov and Korchnoi

Roughly 5 hours travel to the north is needed to arrive in Baguio City. Dubbed as the “summer capital” of the Philippines, it is located in the mountains. Temperatures are not exceeding 30 degrees Celsius (as in Manila and the beaches), and the city has green parks and many points for recreation. No surprise, that the current population is five times as big as originally planned by the Americans, which founded the city in 1909.

This time, Joan Joy brought me to the Sports arena of the city. In the administrative building of the stadium, Gaudencio J. Gonzalez, a local official in charge of sports activities has his desk. He explained that he supports the chess club by offering boards and clocks when a tournament is organised in the premises. Such tournaments need a private sponsor, though, to offer prize money: the last sponsor was a local politician who wants to be elected to the congress!

The world championship 1978 was played in a different place. In fact, the President of the Philippines Marcos and the FIDE Vice-President Campomanes, arranged to build an extra building: the “Convention Centre” for 25 mio. Pesos. It is located a bit outside the centre and still exists today. However, it suffers from a rather sorrow fate. Nothing reminds of the event in 1978, except chess board at the entry, which (horrible dictu!) is not arranged correctly. The square h1 is Black instead of White! Moreover, the specific set up: an empty hall in the middle with spectator ranks from all sides, makes it difficult to be used for cultural or musical events. In other words: the convention centre is more of a forgotten relic than an actual “plus point” for the city.

Luckily, though, Alex Avaldez also showed up at the meeting at the stadium. In 1978, he was a young man. As local junior champion, he had been selected to work as “steward”. He was thus allowed to approach the board and then put the last played move on the big demonstration board! Alex also collected documents from the event and put them together into a hand-made folder. The folder not only contains the 32 round reports, but also copies from the notation scores signed by the players! Juan went through the booklet, making comments on several occasions. He remarked that arbiter Lothar Schmid had been very friendly all around, and also spoke to him. The seconds of both camps played an important part in the overall event, but Tal was “always drunk”. The organisers wanted to stay “neutral” affording equal treatment to both camps. In his comments about the match, Korchnoi contested this assessment. In his view, Campomanes was clearly pro-Soviet in his behaviour. At the same time, the challenger repeatedly thanked the Filipino people for their hospitality.

When I asked Alex whether he had wished success to one of the players, he replied: “This is a political question, but it was clear that many did not want to see the Soviets winning”. He also held a firm view on the many scandals (did the Soviet delegation have a point when insisting that Korchnoi could not play under a Swiss flag without being a Swiss citizen?; was giving “yoghurts” to Karpov a “secret code”?; was the presence of Dr. Zukhar from Moscow arranged in order to trying hypnotize Korchnoi?; was it correct to remove the “gurus” brought in by Korchnoi to “neutralise” the bad influence of Dr. Zukhar?) were blown out of proportion by the press. In his view, the match was in reality a sober and fairly orderly event. In the end I asked him, what he intends to do with his collection. He said that he was open to receive offers. In the internet, an American collector had offered one BITCON (around 85.000 USD), but he would only sell it for at least 3 BITCOINS. Such amount of money, I am afraid, I did not have in my travel purse, even though the booklet was certainly unique.

Why the Philippines? The decision of FIDE to go there did not have much to do with the chess heritage of the country, but rather followed the logic of the smallest common denominator: FIDE had received bids from Hamburg (Germany), Tilburg (the Netherlands), Graz (Austria) and Baguio. Karpov ruled out to play in Tilburg, as Korchnoi had been residing in the Netherlands after his defection in 1976. He thus put Hamburg first and Baguio third. For Korchnoi, it was the opposite. He would have preferred to play in Graz, followed by Baguio, but put Hamburg last. At the end, Euwe decided to award the tournament to Baguio. According to Korchnoi/Keene this decision “enraged Karpov” at the time. However, once the champion had defended his title with 6-5 after a nerve-wracking 32 rounds, he apparently made peace with the place: Karpov came back twice (the last visited dating from 2023!) to the place of his first major success.

The Campomanes Photo gallery

During the conversation with Alex it also became clear that one man was the key for having brought the match to the island: Florencio Campomanes (1927-2010). A political scientist by education, he had become national champion in 1950, and represented his country in five Olympiads (1956, 1958, 1960, 1964, and 1966). He acquired master strength with his historical peek ELO of 2408 in 1966. Later on, Campomanes concentrated on chess politics and became FIDE Vice-President.

A good side-effect of the FIDE decision to give the world championship match in 1978 to Baguio was that Campomanes could represent President Euwe there. As Campomanes had died in fifteen years ago, there was no chance to interview him, but I was allowed to visit a close companion of his, Mr. Leonides Bautista (born 1942), in his house. His daughter runs an art gallery and cosy café attached to it.

Bautista was a local counsellor of the city of Baguio, firming as “co-organiser”. He recalls that Campomanes had to travel several times to Manila to ask President Marcos for additional financing when the match drew on (in the beginning it was thought they could even reach Christmas!). Also sponsors from Spain and Venezuela were helping to keep the championship afloat. After the match Bautista kept close contacts to Campomanes and recalls that they played poker in later years at the Campomanes residence in South Drive They apparently preferred the cards over the board, as this would allow to play also with old friends. From this period, Bautista also secured a couple of framed photographs from Campomanes’ private collection. They hung in the latter’s residence, but are now stored in Bautista’s house. When going through them, it appears that they capture a few moments that Campomanes considered milestones in his career, for whom chess was a very important part of his life:

The first frame shows the “Campo campaign” of 1981. In the first part, he makes reference to Baguio 1978. The Filipino presented himself as an experienced achiever, and a dedicated and tireless worker for chess. His slogan “from continental to truly universal FIDE” was well chosen to convince the delegates from less influential nations.

Campo’s campaign was successful. In the next frame, we can see him playing with Torre and showing his good connections with the Soviets. In 1982, he was elected, beating Fridrik Olafsson (Iceland) and Borislav Kazic (Yugoslavia). Cleary, the organisation of Baguio 1982 had boosted his chances to succeed the Dutchman later. Campomanes then served at the head of FIDE for thirteen years (1982-1995). He was apparently also on good terms with Iljumshinov, who appears twice in his gallery.

The next frame shows Campomanes with Kasparov. Interestingly, the gallery does not contain any memories of the Karpov v. Kasparov matches as such, which fell under Campomanes’ Presideny. Famously, the Filipino cancelled the 1984 match in Moscow after at the standing of 5-3 for Karpov. Karpov had the lead of 4-0 after nine games, but only scored the fifth win in Game 27. But he could not convert a winning position in Game 31, lost Game 32 and suffered two more losses in Games 47 and 48. Campomanes then terminated the match, citing health problems of the players. While the details of this disputed decision cannot be reconstrued here, there is a strong probability that Campomanes followed more the wishes of Karpov-camp, which feared a total breakdown of the champion who had lost already 10 kilograms of weight during the match. In the next match, in 1985, Kasparov then beat Karpov to become world champion. Most likely, the photograph is from this year.

Campo’s gallery then continues with a less controversial memory. In 1986, he awarded the 34^th Olympiad to the United Arab Emirates in Dubai. It was the first time, when an Arab nation became the host. Campo could not solve the political problems. though. Israel was banned from the event, in an in protest the teams from Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands did not participate. The Soviet Union won with Kasparov and Karpov on the top boards, but only a half point in front of the United Kingdom (with the golden generation of Miles, Nunn, Short, Chandler, Speelman and Flair) and the United States (led by Seirawan).

This frame shows Campomanes giving flowers to Karpov. Most likely, it is connected with the FIDE championship 1993 after the split of Short and Kasparov from the world organisation. Karpov won against Timman, who played instead of the “defector” Short, who had beaten Timman in the ordinary FIDE cycle. Another picture depicts Campomanes with Vishy Anand probably around the same time when Campo was still in office. Anand would play Kasparov in 2005, but later stay “loyal” to he FIDE to become the first Asian world champion.

The next frame depicts memories from the 34^th Chess Olympiad in Istanbul (2000), which Russia won ahead of Germany and Ukraine (with Ivanchuk on top board) in the large field of 124 nations participating. Campo meets the Turkish President, General Evren (top left) and watches how his successor, Ilyumshinov, tries to impress on the board.

Current developments

Today, the Philippines is an established chess nation in Asia. After the breakthrough with Eugene Torre, it has produced altogether 16 grandmasters and one woman grandmaster (for the list see www.philchess-ncfp.com/team). Among the list figures GM Mark Paragua, the first Filipino who broke the 2600 ELO wall. However, the best talent, GM Wesley So, has left the country and became a US citizen. During my visit, our driver told me that he saw personally how So was playing as a “wonderboy” at the age of 8-10 years with many old men to earn money. When his biological parents left him alone in the country at the age of 16 years. There, he could develop his full potential and joined the world elite with a peak rating of over 2800 ELO(!) in 2017. Nowadays, he is No.11 on the FIDE ranking list with ELO 2753.

At amateur level, the Filipinos play in different settings. As mentioned above, there are regular tournaments with prize money, like the one in Baguio. Moreover, there are leisure possibilities. In Manila one can find chess players, for example, in a shopping mall or in the Igorot Garden. One special feature: One should not forget to wear a hat, as the sun is producing over 30 degrees Celsius!

Conclusion

The Philippines is known for natural beauty, historical landmarks, and warm hospitality. This overview has shown that it has also a lot on offer as a chess nation. GM Torre put his home country on the chess map as the first Asian grandmaster, paving the way as a role model for subsequent generations. While China and India have overcome the Philippines nowadays, the chess boom in Asia is probably due to the efforts of FIDE President Campomanes, who has supported the broader dissemination of the game beyond Europe and America. The Torre museum and the Campomanes gallery offer a great idea about the achievements of this nation for chess history. In my humble view they deserve visits from chess fans all over the world.

Frank Hoffmeister, President of the Chess History and Literature Society, 12 May 2025.