Record Olympiad for Torre

EVEN at age 58, GM Eugene Torre gets thrilled no end whenever there’s an opportunity to make a world record.

Exactly 40 years since making his debut as the country’s board two player behind IM Renanto Naranja in the 1970 World Chess Olympiad in Siegen, Germany, Torre carved his name in the record books when he made his 20th appearance in the Olympiad in Khanty Mansiysk, Russia.

Torre, dubbed as the “Ageless Warrior,” achieved the record when he made his first move against IM Stephen Buirns-Mannions of Scotland during the third round match between the Philippines and Scotland.

A close friend of the late former world champion Bobby Fischer, Torre tied the record of GM Lajos Portisch of Hungary for most Olympiad appearances at 20.

He missed tying the record during the 38th World Chess Olympiad held in Dresden, Germany two years ago when he was designated by NCFP president Prospero “Butch” Pichay as the non-playing captain.

It was Torre’s 237th game in the long and colorful history of the Olympiad — fourth-best behind only Portisch (260 games), GM Svetozar Gligoric (223 games) and GM Miguel Najdorf (222 games).

Before the Khanty-Mansiysk Olympiad, Torre had a record of 86 wins, 111 draws and 39 losses for 141.5 points behind only Portisch ( 176.5 points), Najdorf (145 points) and Gligoric ( 142.5 points).

In 2006 Turin Olympiad, Torre also made a record when he appeared in his 19th straight Olympiad, erasing the mark previously held by Paul Westerinen of Finland.

There are other note-worthy record in Torre’s resume in the Olympiad:

— He played top board for the country in 17 straight Olmypiads, a world record. Skopje 1972, Nice 1974 (where he got his GM title and led the Philippines to a then unprecedented 11th place finish), Haifa 1976, Buenos Aires, 1978, Malta 1980, Lucerne 1982, Thessaloniki 1984, Dubai 1986, Thessaloniki 1988 (where the Philippines recorded its best finish at seventh place), Novi Sad 1990, Manila 1992, Moscow 1994, Yerevan 1996, Elista 1998, Istanbul 2000, Bled 2002 and Calvia 2004.

— Played board two twice — Siegen 1970 (behind Naranja) and Turin 2006 ( behind GM Mark Paragua) .

— Bagged the silver medal on board one behind only world champion Anatoly Karpov of Russia during the 1974 Nice Olympiad, going undefeated in 19 matches with 10 wins and nine draws.

— Bagged the bronze medal on board one in the 1986 Dubai Olympiad with 9/5 points/13 games (seven wins, five draws and one loss).

— Bagged the bronze medal on board one in the 1980 Malta Olympiad with 11 points.

Special thanks to Ed Andaya for sharing this with us.
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