GM Eugene Torre in PSA Hall of Fame
01/15/2007 | 09:37 PM
Eugene Torre, Asia's first grandmaster of chess, will be elevated to the Hall of Fame on January 18 at the annual awards of the SMC-Philippine Sportswriters Association at the SM Mall of Asia.
The 53-year-old Torre joins an elite list of sports greats honored by the PSA —among them, golfers Ben Arda and Celestino Tugot, tracksters Lydia de Vega-Mercado and
Mona Sulaiman, and basketball stars Lauro Mumar and Caloy Loyzaga.
Torre earned his GM title in 1974 during the World Chess Olympiad in Nice, France, where he fought fiercely against the world's best.
From 1970 to 2006, the former business administration undergraduate from Mapua played for the national team, including 19 consecutive times playing in the World Chess Olympiad, now a new record after surpassing the previous mark of 18 held by Paul Westerinen of Finland.
During that 36-year stretch, Torre assumed the top board (Board 1) for the country 17 times — also a world record – and yielding it only twice, during the 1970 edition in Siegen, Germany and last year in Turin, Italy.
In all, Torre compiled 86 wins, 111 draws and 39 losses in 236 games in the Olympiad, giving him a total of 141.5 points for the fourth best record ever behind Lajos Portisch, Miguel Najdorf, and Svetozar Gligoric.
A close friend of former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, Torre, a native of Iloilo , once earned a spot in the World Chess Candidates Championships, but lost to Zoltan Ribli of Hungary in their 1983 quarterfinals match up.
He has played against many of the world's best, including Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, Viswanathan Anand, Mikhail Tal, Boris Spassky, Viktor Korchnoi, Lajos Portisch, Ljubomir Ljubojevic, Florin Gheourgiu, among others.
In 1988, Torre captained the Philippine team to a historic seventh-place finish in the Chess Olympiad in Thessaloniki, Greece for the country's best ever showing in the quadrennial meet.
A year later, Torre was honored by the PSA as among its Athletes of the Millennium, together with other sports greats such as Felicisimo Ampon, Bong Coo, Gabriel "Flash" Elorde, Loyzaga, Paeng Nepomuceno, Mansueto "Onyok" Velasco Jr., de Vega-Mercado, Pancho Villa, Anthony Villanueva, and Teofilo Yldefonso. - GMANews.TV
The 53-year-old Torre joins an elite list of sports greats honored by the PSA —among them, golfers Ben Arda and Celestino Tugot, tracksters Lydia de Vega-Mercado and
Mona Sulaiman, and basketball stars Lauro Mumar and Caloy Loyzaga.
Torre earned his GM title in 1974 during the World Chess Olympiad in Nice, France, where he fought fiercely against the world's best.
From 1970 to 2006, the former business administration undergraduate from Mapua played for the national team, including 19 consecutive times playing in the World Chess Olympiad, now a new record after surpassing the previous mark of 18 held by Paul Westerinen of Finland.
During that 36-year stretch, Torre assumed the top board (Board 1) for the country 17 times — also a world record – and yielding it only twice, during the 1970 edition in Siegen, Germany and last year in Turin, Italy.
In all, Torre compiled 86 wins, 111 draws and 39 losses in 236 games in the Olympiad, giving him a total of 141.5 points for the fourth best record ever behind Lajos Portisch, Miguel Najdorf, and Svetozar Gligoric.
A close friend of former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, Torre, a native of Iloilo , once earned a spot in the World Chess Candidates Championships, but lost to Zoltan Ribli of Hungary in their 1983 quarterfinals match up.
He has played against many of the world's best, including Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, Viswanathan Anand, Mikhail Tal, Boris Spassky, Viktor Korchnoi, Lajos Portisch, Ljubomir Ljubojevic, Florin Gheourgiu, among others.
In 1988, Torre captained the Philippine team to a historic seventh-place finish in the Chess Olympiad in Thessaloniki, Greece for the country's best ever showing in the quadrennial meet.
A year later, Torre was honored by the PSA as among its Athletes of the Millennium, together with other sports greats such as Felicisimo Ampon, Bong Coo, Gabriel "Flash" Elorde, Loyzaga, Paeng Nepomuceno, Mansueto "Onyok" Velasco Jr., de Vega-Mercado, Pancho Villa, Anthony Villanueva, and Teofilo Yldefonso. - GMANews.TV
