MANILA, 16 January 2004 — Take your pick: Grandmaster Eugene Torre or International Master Mark Paragua.

A titanic showdown between Torre — Asia’s first Grandaster in chess — and Paragua — the hottest chess commodity today — is in the works.

The 52-year old Torre, the ageless chess warrior regarded as the top classical player the country ever had, stakes his claim to that billing against the 19-year-old Paragua, a former chess prodigy and now the top-rated Filipino in the FIDE rankings in the first potential blockbuster showdown in Philippine sports this year.

Baguio City, the host of the historic 1972 World Championship match between GMs Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korthnoi won by Karpov, is tipped to be the venue of the Torre-Paragua showdown scheduled sometime in March.

The 1.5-million pesos event is scheduled for eight games — four classical and four rapid — taking away Torre’s advantage in long game and giving Paragua the edge in blitz. The duel is not your typical one-on-one chess series. The games are split into four rapid and four standard plays.

The last time a one-on-one chess series was held in the country was in 1998 when GM Joey Antonio earned the bragging rights to called RP’s No. 1 by beating Torre 1-up in the Centennial Showdown.

The winner of the event will take home 1 million pesos while the loser will receive 500,000 pesos. Paragua (ELO 2529) and Torre (ELO 2521) have been the top performers of the Philippine chess team in the 22nd Southeast Asian Games with the 19-year-old winning three gold medals, the most by a Filipino in the games.

Paragua established himself as the fastest gun this side of Earth by topping the individual rapid event, taking the scalp of compatriot and fellow blitz specialist GM Joey Antonio along the way.

Torre, meanwhile, underlined his lofty status in long game with a bronze medal finish, the best by a Filipino, to go along with a couple of golden finishes as part of the successful rapid and classical teams.

The duel will serve as Paragua’s ultimate tuneup match before competing in the World Chess Championship matches. Also competing the world chess elims is Asian 3.2a Zonal king IM Ronald Dableo.

Boosted by an active campaign in Europe and an impressive performance in the Vietnam Southeast Asian Games, Paragua has overtaken Grandmaster Rogelio Antonio Jr. in the recent rankings for the Philippines by the International Chess Federation (Fide). The Tondo-born Paragua jumped eight points to 2529, drawn from respectable finishes at the 8th Lutece Echecs Open in Paris, France (5/5); Grand Prix ACCS in Cap d’Agde, Spain (4/6); VII Parla International Open in Madrid, Spain (6/8); VII Pablo Gorbea Tournament in Madrid, Spain (6/8); and the Solsones International Open in Solsona, Spain (6/8).

He then went on to reap three gold medals in the Vietnam SEA Games last December. Paragua also barged into the world’s top 400 at 383. Torre, who is equally excited about the “dream match,” was buoyed by his three-medal (two golds and a bronze) haul in the biennial games and enhanced his Elo from 2519 to 2521 to remain at third in the national rankings. Limited to just two international Fide-rated tourneys in the last quarter of 2003, Antonio’s rating inched up to 2523 from a 2521 standing in October.

The Mindoro-born chesser topped the 3rd Bangkok Chess Club Open but exhibited only a shadow of his razor-sharp form in the SEAG team standard event.

Interestingly, Torre will be Paragua’s second/trainer for this year’s World Chess Championships.

Torre is expected to provide temperament and experience to Paragua, who is bidding to become the country’s fifth and youngest GM at 19, when the knockout Fide (World Chess Federation) tournament is held.

The 128-man world chess championships is tentatively set in Tripoli, Libya, and Baku, Azerbaijan, in July at the latest.

Torre was also hired as second/ trainer of his best friend and legendary world champion Robert James “Bobby” Fisher in the 1992 Fisher-(Boris) Spassky rematch in Yugoslavia which was won by Fisher.

Many chess experts believe Paragua could become the Philippines’ next grandmaster, and could even break the Super Grandmaster barrier.

Paragua himself is confident the grandmaster norm is “within his reach”. As a matter of fact, he is giving himself a year to become the country’s fifth grandmaster.

But this early, his coaches are predicting the young woodpusher could even break the Super Grandmaster barrier in two years.

Paragua captured the XV Open Cannes International Chess Championships crown last year in Cannes, France, before finishing in joint second place in tournaments like the Open Internacional de Solsona and XIII Memorial “Sergio Guillen” Madrid, Spain.

Paragua had moved four points shy from his Grandmaster dream last year.

After a strong fifth-place finish in the 2002 World Youth Chess Championships held in Crete, Greece, Paragua earned additional points to top his Bled Olympiad production that gained him 20 rating points.

Paragua accepted a second draw offer in the final round with GM Berkes Ferenc of Hungary for fifth place in the premier Under-18 category. Paragua, who at 15 became the country’s youngest international master, has already dislodged Bong Villamayor, the country’s fourth grandmaster, for third place in the last FIDE rankings.

From sixth place, Paragua found himself moving up to third behind GMs Joey Antonio and Eugene Torre after finishing tied from third to fifth place in the World Youth Championships in Verakilo, Crete, Greek.

Interestingly, Paragua, a former World Under-14 rapid champion, is giving himself another year to become a grandmaster before he resumes his studies again.

The recent FIDE rankings is inspiring Paragua and his father, Ric, to improve his standings in the local chess scene by participating in more major tournaments abroad.

Paragua became one of the youngest players to join the Olympiad two years ago.

Despite the disappointment of his worst ever Olympiad performance in Bled, Slovenia, recently, Torre is setting aside plans for silent retirement.

Torre has vowed to keep on playing and carry the country’s colors until his younger players can do so. He said he would only entertain retirement the moment he fails to win local competitions — consistently.

In the 35th edition of the Olympiad in Bled, he finished with three victories, five losses and two draws, surpassing the three losses he absorbed during the 1990 Olympiad in Novi Sad, a city in the former republic of Yugoslavia. Torre lost only four points from his Elo rating of 2523. The team’s top scorer was Joey Antonio, who gained 14 ELO rating points to raise his total to 2521.

For the record, Torre has played on the top board since 1972, the longest record of any grandmaster in the biennial competition which drew 141 nations. It marked the 16th time since 1970 that Torre played on Board One for the country in the Olympiad.