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By Noli S. Cruz Photos by Rene H.
Dilan
WESLEY SO made it look so easy.
He won the tough Dubai Open, toppled the top player of Indonesia on
his own backyard and ran away the unofficial national championship
against the best of Philippine chess.
Topping a field that included 29
Grandmasters and a host of super GMs can be a highlight of
anybody’s career. Needing a minimum four games to beat Indonesian
GM Susanto Megaranto in a six-game duel during the JAPFA chess
festival in Indonesia can be the crowning glory of any woodpusher
from Southeast Asia.
Winning a round-robin tournament
featuring the top rated players in the country with a full point
margin can be the defining moment of any Filipino’s chess life
except that of Asia’s first GM Eugene Torre and former top local
players Joey Antonio and Mark Paragua.
Wesley pulled them all off in a
span of four weeks.
The boy is good and he’s in a
hurry. The hat-trick, no matter how astonishing it is, is just a
fraction of the story.
His career is on a fast lane. It
has been since he became the youngest national kiddies champion at
the age of nine.
Interestingly, Wesley is still
qualified to compete in the national kiddies championship—a
14-under tournament. The current youngest GM in the world won’t
turn 15 until October 9.
He’s a certified sports hero
and an ideal model to the youth.
In an era of drugs, booze and
casual sex among teenagers, Wesley chooses to live a clean life.
Wesley sleeps on time, hones his
craft with daily practice, runs regularly on his personal treadmill
and eats lots of fruits and vegetables.
He’s a celebrity who lives like
a monk. In him, the country has a bankable sports superstar who vows
never to fall to evil vices.
Nobody doubts his ability to
conquer the world.
“Wesley is a rare talent.
He’s like the young Bobby Fischer,” said Torre, runner-up to
Wesley in the recent Battle of the Philippine Grandmasters.
Fischer, a good friend of Torre,
also started out young and dominated chess in the United States
early in his teens. The controversial chess genius, who died of
kidney failure a few months ago, is considered by many as the
greatest player of all time.
Wesley is actually ahead of
Fischer’s pace.
Fischer was the national junior
champion at age 13. Wesley’s already the national men’s champion
two months after his 13th birthday. Fischer was about to turn 15
when he earned the International Master title. Wesley’s already a
GM at the age of 14 years, one month and 29 days.
But Wesley knows better that
resting on his laurels.
“I still have a long way to go.
There are still areas of my game that need polishing,” he said.
Wesley’s palpable desire to
succeed is critical in his drive to become the first world chess
champion this part of the globe.
“It’s an honor to represent
the country in international competitions and it makes me proud to
be a Filipino every time I do well in those events,” he said.
Sooner or later, he will
challenge the world’s best and the whole chess kingdom will trace
the beginning of his love affair with the sport.
He learned the basics at the age
of six from his father William, a Filipino-Chinese from Quiapo,
Manila. They played the game over a narra-made chess set the elder
So bought somewhere in Quiapo two years earlier.
There’s no school of chess and
no top-notch coaches.
Former national champion and
Asia’s first IM Rodolfo Tan Cardoso noted in a website that Wesley
had to rely on diligence, pure talent and a computer chess program
to make progress in his young career.
But his humble—and quite
late— beginning only made his sudden rise to fame phenomenal at
the very least. Wesley’s game borders that of an aggressive and a
calculating player.
“I like to play slam-bang games
with complicated positions,” he related. “Those games are like
problem solving in math.”
The incoming junior student at
St. Francis of Assisi College System in Bacoor, Cavite, loves
mathematics. It’s in
his genes. His parents are both accountants.
Wesley’s mother, the former
Eleanor Barbasa, is presently the Controller of De La Salle Health
Sciences Institute in Dasmarińas, Cavite. The father, of course,
had to stop working to accompany Wesley everywhere he plays.
Despite his success in chess,
education remains a priority for Wesley. “My father always reminds
me that education is more important than money.”
Wesley’s elder sister Wendelle,
16, is a nursing student at the University of the
Philippines-Manila. His youngest sister Wilma is 2 years old.
There are two immediate goals on
Wesley’s list: to become a super GM and to win the world junior
championship.
The first is within reach. His
official rating based on the latest release of FIDE is 2540. He
gained 15 points from his Dubai Open victory and another 12 points
from his 4-2 conquest of Megaranto for an unofficial tally of 2567,
just 33 points shy of the 2600-mark.
Paragua is the only Filipino
player to reach super GM status, doing the trick two years ago while
peaking at 2621.
Nobody’s betting against him in
his other short-term goal either. His victory over reigning world
junior champion GM Ahmed Adly of Egypt in the early round of the
Dubai Open makes Wesley a favorite in the next edition of the
20-under tournament.
The ultimate goal, of course, is
to capture the world championship.
“Everybody wants to be a world
champion. I believe I have what it takes to achieve it,” Wesley
said.
He also has time on his side. His
idol, Garry Kasparov, holds the record as the youngest world
champion at 22. Wesley has eight years to at least equal the feat of
the now-retired Russian.
Odds are in his favor
The past eight years he evolved
from a total chess idiot into the most dominant chess player in the
country. Try to imagine what he will become in the next eight years.
Leave it to Wesley. He will make
the right move.
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