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Emmanuel Closas Jr. PHOTO BY RICHARD GAPPI/ ANGONO RIZAL NEWS

ANGONO, Rizal native Emmanuel Closas Jr. bagged the bronze medal in the Visually Impaired Chess Online Tournament of the Philippine Sports Commission on Sunday.

Mayor Jeri Mae Calderon lauded Closas, who is totally blind, for his achievement

"Congratulations Emmanuel Closas Jr., our kababayan for his second runner-up finish!" Calderon said.

Closas participated at the tournament held virtually for people with disabilities at the Tornelo Platform on November 21, 2021.

Calderon said Calderon's win added luster to the municipality's Higantes festivalto celebrate the feast of St. Clement, the patron of fishermen.

Geronimo Torres bagged the gold while Kenneth Namisato clinched the silver medal. The top three winners received certificates along with the prize money.

The PPG was held in partnership with the Philippine Paralympic Committee and the Integrated Philippine Association of Optometrists on the classification of registered para-athletes.

The para chess program produced the first Filipino world chess champion on a wheelchair -- Fide Master Sander Severino, who won the online 2020 International Physically Disabled Chess Association tournament and finished with a team bronze in the recently held 4th World Chess Championship, among others.

PSC Oversight Commissioner for para-athletes Arnold Agustin said the project is a continued effort to address the country's need for a comprehensive grassroots sports development program for para-athletes, and to continuously harness their full potential.

Original post:
Blind man from Angono wins in chess tournament - The Manila Times

With 192 pavilions, myriad exhibitions, hundreds of restaurants and non-stop activities, there are experiences for every taste at Expo 2020 Dubai.

Each week, we give you a round-up of some of the coolest happenings not to miss at the world's fair. Celebrating their country days this week are Belarus on Monday, Italy on Wednesday, and the Ivory Coast on Friday.

Follow the latest updates on Expo 2020 Dubai here

Here are our top picks of things to do this week:

Experience an eclectic journey through Algerian music courtesy of El Day, who will fuse together a number of musical styles including diwane, flamenco, chaabi, samba, salsa and reggae in a two-hour concert designed to showcase the richness and diversity of the countrys musical heritage.

Where: Jubilee Stage

When: Monday, November 22

Time: 8pm

A unique Qawwali Pakistani concert with Ustad Fareed Ayaz and Ustad Abu Muhammad, presenting various genres of classical music and Sufi performances, will take place on Monday evening. The pair hail from a traditional family known for their various genres of music, and will showcase the techniques passed down to them through generations.

Where: Dubai Millennium Amphitheatre

When: Monday, November 22

Time: 8pm

As part of Italy Pavilion's film series, prepare to be enchanted by this movie from Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore. The winner of the 1989 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, starring Philippe Noiret and Antonella Attili, the romantic drama centres on a filmmaker's recollection of falling in love with movies at the cinema in his local Sicilian village.

Where: Italy Pavilion

When: Monday, November 22

Time: 8pm

The Portugal Pavilion has launched Home and Design month to showcase Portuguese tradition, innovation and sustainability. Running until December 5, artisans and designers will appear at a series of events, including a conference on Sustainability and Design, set to take place on November 23.

Where: Portugal Pavilion

When: Tuesday, November 23

Time: 4pm

Renowned chef Manish Mehrotra will host a chef's table at Expo 2020 Dubai. Picture by Graham Crouch/The National

Award-winning Indian chef Manish Mehrotra will host a luxurious evening at Jubilee Gastronomy, serving up a nine-course tasting menu including some of his signature dishes. Guests will even be picked up and dropped off in a limousine, and sent away with personalised gift bags. Reservation is required by e-mailing book.jubilee@gatesdxb.com or by calling 050 222 1488.

Where: Jubilee Gastronomy

When: Tuesday, November 23

Time: 10am midnight

More than 100 of the worlds best young chess players will come together for the World School Chess Tournament, taking place at the Spain Pavilion from Wednesday to Monday. Grouped in 12 teams and coming from 10 different countries, 108 participants will battle it out to take the final title in front of reigning World Champion Magnus Carlsen (Norway) and his opponent, Ian Niepomniachi (Russia). The participants are the finalists of the one-year event, initiated with 2,600 contestants from more than 54 countries.

Where: Spain Pavilion

When: 25-29 November

Time: Ongoing

Arabic music and poetry will come together in an evening featuring renowned and emerging poets from the Gulf and Mena, who will showcase their latest works.

Where: Dubai Millennium Amphitheatre

When: Saturday, November 27

Time: 8pm to 10pm

Discover the beautiful designs and detailed craftsmanship of a unique collection of Moroccan Caftans, designed by top Moroccan fashion designers. The garments combine intricate designs with rich fabrics, using traditional techniques that have been used for centuries.

Where: Morocco Pavilion

When: Friday, November 26

Time: 9am to 10pm

Catch a screening of this multi award-winning documentary by Vibha Bakshi, which tells the story of the fight to change the narrative on gender inequality. It will be followed by a call to action by the Heads of the Diplomatic Missions.

Where: Jubilee Stage

When: Friday, November 26

Time: 7pm

When Buzz T Isles heard his wife Kira sing for the first time, he immediately realised her talent. The couple released their first music together a few months later. The duo will take to the stage at the Germany Pavilion on Friday evening, bringing with them their dynamic sound, which pays homage to both the younger and older generations.

Where: Germany Pavilion

When: Friday, November 26

Time: 8pm

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Updated: November 22nd 2021, 11:38 AM

Read the original:
10 things to do at Expo 2020 Dubai this week: world chess tournament and film screenings - The National

As the U.S. population ages, concerns about dementia grow larger. David Canning, the Richard Saltonstall Professor of Population Sciences and of Economics and International Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is studying aging among chess players, reasoning that the centuries-old game serves as a type of cognitive test. The research involves analysis of a massive database of games from the U.S. Chess Federation and a second pilot study that will follow 200 players over time. Canning spoke to the Gazette about what he hopes to find. The interview was edited for clarity and length.

GAZETTE: Why study chess and cognitive decline?

CANNING: Theres a big concern about population aging, and dementia in particular: what its going to do to the economy, what its going to do to the healthcare system. There are a lot of people living longer and we had this compression of morbidity over the last century the period of ill health at the end of life getting shorter. But now theres some evidence in the U.S. over the last 20 years that morbidity is expanding, so people are living longer but theyre not healthy years. One of the big burdens is dementia.

The reason for chess is that I play chess. One of the problems in studying dementia is our data sets are small because its hard to get people to do surveys, and it takes an hour to do full cognitive testing on people. Then I realized that we have all these people playing chess. Theyre essentially doing cognitive tests many times a year. Its a huge data set that spans the whole age range very few data sets do. We have children playing chess, we have old people playing chess. It has been used in other countries some people have looked at world champions, and elite players have been looked at but no one has ever used the U.S. chess database before.

GAZETTE: So the idea is to use chess as a cognitive survey?

CANNING:Yes, we can get insights into cognition by looking at chess performance. There is a potential complication, in that mental activity may improve your cognitive performance, so the players may do better because theyre playing. We want to study that as well, though the main evidence is that it is physical activity that really helps amend your cognition. The evidence for mental activity helping is mixed. But it is possible that playing chess prevents cognitive decline.

GAZETTE: What does the existing literature on chess and cognition show?

CANNING:Theres a literature on world champions, which shows only slow decline with age. We also have standard cognitive tests of chess players. There is a correlation with chess performance and general cognitive abilities, but its not incredibly high. Theres quite a lot of work on age effects and cohort effects, looking at life cycle patterns of chess ability, but usually focused on elite players. And then there is some literature on whether playing chess is good for cognition, particularly in children.

One thing Im particularly interested in is air pollution and cognition. Theres a study actually measuring air pollution in a chess tournament hall and its effect on move quality. You can measure the quality of each move versus a computer program and basically peoples move quality goes down when theres air pollution. Im interested in looking at that, and whether that affects performance.

GAZETTE: How big is the effect?

CANNING:I just got results. I was excited because I linked the air pollution and the chess data set for the first time. The finding we have is fine particulate matter, PM 2.5, varies between about 0 and 20 micrograms per cubic meter in the U.S. and it goes up to over 100 in developing countries. In India rates of 70 or 80 are quite common. A 10 point change in air pollution 10 points higher on your average annual exposure reduces your chance of winning a game by about 30 percent.

GAZETTE: I think people tend to think of these effects as being durable: You live in a polluted place and the effects are constant. But pollution can affect you differently on different days?

CANNING:There is the literature on long-term effects on mortality, but theres also literature on daily effects, these acute effects, with higher death rates on days with high pollution. The evidence on cognition is similar, with both long-term chronic effects and a short-run acute effect. Theres also a lot of evidence linking general cognitive abilities to chess ability, but no ones really looked at that over time. What we want to do in the long-run study is look at a group of chess players over time, hopefully three to five years, and see how their cognitive ability changes and their chess-playing ability changes. Changes over time are more interesting than what the levels are. We can also get at this issue of if people stop playing, does that affect cognition? Its a really good data set, but quite a lot of people drop out so theres a lot of loss to follow up, attrition. People stop playing chess after a few years.

GAZETTE: Was that a surprise? I always thought it was a lifelong game.

CANNING:I thought so too, but what we see is a lot of dropout and turnover over time. Most chess players are under 18 because a lot of people play in school and then they quit when they leave school. People play as adults, but even among adults we are finding in any year about 30 percent of players are dropping out. Theres more turnover of players than I was expecting. I thought that once people were playing and they were older, they would be very long term. There are some, but actually the attrition rate is quite high.

GAZETTE: Youre still recruiting for this study, is that right?

CANNING:We have this big data set with millions of observations from the U.S. Chess Federation for all of the chess players in the U.S. For our pilot study, we have about 150 out of a target of 200 people recruited. What we want to do with the pilot is get some baseline and show that we can do it. And then do a bigger study where we have a big cohort of chess players that we follow.

GAZETTE: So the first study, with the big data set, looks back in time at games and scores and environmental conditions that have already occurred. And the pilot will move ahead in time, following this group longitudinally?

CANNING:Yes. For the pilot, we want to use the cohort of chess players to harmonize the chess-playing data with standard cognitive testing to understand really what were getting out here. That cohort will allow us to do that and also look at changes over time. I would also love to do an intervention study encouraging people to keep playing chess and see what effect that has. That would be very exciting.

Link:
Harvard researcher turns to chess for insights on brain health - Harvard Gazette

Alireza Firouzja, the Iran-born 18-year-old who emigrated to France due to Tehrans punishments for playing Israeli opponents, has become the third youngest Candidate in chess history, with a chance of a glittering prize, the youngest ever world champion.

Firouzja scored 8/11 in the Grand Swiss in Riga to earn a place in the eight-player 2022 Candidates, whose winner will play for the global crown later next year. He reached his target two months younger than Boris Spassky at Gothenburg 1955, and is the third youngest Candidate qualifier, behind only Magnus Carlsen at 15 at the 2005 World Cup and Bobby Fischer at 15 and a half at the 1958 Portoroz interzonal.

Garry Kasparov was the youngest world champion at 22 years and six months when he defeated Anatoly Karpov in their 24th and final game in 1985. Carlsen was also 22, but five months older, when he beat Vishy Anand in 2013. Could Firouzja eclipse Kasparovs record by winning the Candidates then capturing the title?

Historical parallels suggest that this challenge may be a bridge too far for a teenager. Spassky and Carlsen won the Candidates at their second try, Fischer only at his third. There were also championship cycles for the trio where they did not compete or were eliminated before the Candidates.

Spassky was favourite against Tigran Petrosian, yet succeeded only at his second attempt, while Fischer and Carlsen were odds on to beat Spassky and Anand respectively. Firouzja would probably face Carlsen in 2022 and would be expected to lose at his first try, although it might well be different at a second attempt in 2024 when he would still be younger than Kasparov in 1985.

Firouzja also broke through to the top of the world rankings last week, ending up No 5 after briefly touching No 3 before his loss to Fabiano Caruana at Riga. His latest surge seems to have been helped by a conscious change of direction.

Up to a few months ago he was one of the recognised top three, along with Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura, in one-minute bullet chess. Lately he seems to have cut down on or even abandoned bullet, and he also withdrew from the current chess.com speed championship, where most of the top GMs are competing.

Instead, his games at Riga showed a notably greater all-round theoretical knowledge and an improvement in his endgames, which used to be his major weakness. The daring and mazy tactical style which was his hallmark has sobered down in favour of a more flexible style waiting for the opponent to allow an opportunity.

This weekend Firouzja makes his debut for France in the European championship at Catez, Slovenia (live and free to watch online, 2pm Friday start), with the extra incentive that a high scoring performance could advance his ranking all the way up to world No 2.

Frances squad, which also includes the world No 10, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, is seeded No 3 behind Russia and Azerbaijan, with Poland No 4 and England No 5. Englands team is David Howell, Michael Adams, Luke McShane, Gawain Jones and Ravi Haria.

Firouzja won his opening round game against Austrias Markus Ragger and advanced to No 4 in the live ratings, but England had a poor day. The open team lost 1.5-2.5 to Norway as Jones won, Haria drew but McShane and Howell lost, while England women lost 0-4 to Spain.

Howell shared the lead with two rounds to go at Riga, but fell back after his penultimate round loss to Firouzja and finished in a multiple tie for fourth, but ninth on tiebreak, on 7/11. Places 3-8 qualified for the 24-player Grand Prix in Berlin next spring, where the top two will earn Candidates places. Unlucky

It would have been a career-best performance for the three-time British champion from Seaford in Sussex, who turns 31 on Sunday, to qualify for the Grand Prix. It could still happen if a player withdraws or, less likely, if he is awarded either the Fide or the organiser wildcard. Realistically, though, the Fide wildcard is likely to go to Chinas world No 2, Ding Liren, who due to the pandemic has played too few games for an automatic place, while the organiser choice will probably be a German or a regular participant in a Bundesliga team.

Eleven Grand Prix spots go to the top players on the December 2021 Fide rating list who are not otherwise qualified, and this may create an unexpected opportunity for Michael Adams. Unofficial calculations claim that the Cornishman, a seven-time British champion who turns 50 next Wednesday, would be second reserve for the 11 Grand Prix rating places.

Adams, whose best career performances have come in world title competitions, is only two rating points behind the lowest qualifier, Russias Andrey Esipenko, on the unofficial live ratings and so has a big incentive to turn back the years, perform well in the nine-round European Teams, and gain crucial points for the December rating list.

Meanwhile, Carlsen continues to relax with one-minute bullet games on Lichess as he prepares for his $2m, 14-game world title defence against Russias Ian Nepomniachtchi starting in Dubai on 26 November.

Following last weeks 10-0 against the speed expert GM Andrew Tang Carlsen, also known as Dr Nykterstein, won 10-0 again, this time against the Belarus GM Sergei Zhigalko, but found it harder against 21-year-old Nikolas Theodoru.

The little-known Greek GM, though losing heavily overall in a marathon series of around 100 games spread over two or three days, actually checkmated the world champion on at least six occasions.

Guardian reader Peter Ballard points out that Firouzja is the fourth, not third, youngest Candidate. Vlad Kramnik, the 2000-2007 world champion, qualified as a Candidate at 18 years and one month at the 1993 Biel interzonal.

3789 1 Rg1! threatens 2 Rh3+! gxh3 3 Qh6+ Kg8 4 gxh3+ winning. The best Black can do is 1...Qd7 2 Rh3+ gxh3 3 Qh6+ Kg8 4 gxh3+ Kf7 5 Rg7+ Ke8 6 Rxd7 Kxd7 7 Qxf8 Rb1+ 8 Kg2 fxe5 9 Qg7+ Kd6 10 Qxa7 and the a6 pawn wins.

Read more from the original source:
Chess: Teenager Alireza Firouzja aiming to be youngest ever world champion - The Guardian

In the most active Titled Tuesday since August, GM Rustam Khusnutdinov took home the victory with a 9.5/11 score, winning on the tiebreak system over second-place finisher GM Dmitrij Kollars. In a logjam on 9 points out of 11, two well-known GMs took third and fourth place on the tiebreaks: Baadur Jobava and Alexander Grischuk, respectively.

538 players participated in this week's Titled Tuesday, as usual, an 11-round Swiss tournament with a 3+1 time control. It was the most players in a Titled Tuesday since August 31.

Live broadcast of this week's tournament, hosted by WCM Rebecca Selkirk.

The lead changed hands several times in the mid-to-late rounds: Kollars was the last perfect player, on 7/7, but lost in round eight to GM Hikaru Nakamura, who took the tournament lead on 7.5/8. Nakamura drew with Jobava the next round, however, allowing several players to catch up with him with two rounds to go.

After nine rounds the tournament was wide open with five players tied for first on 8/9, but Khusnutdinov was the only of them to win in round 10 (against GM Aryan Tari), establishing himself as the favorite entering the last round of play.

Khusnutdinov quickly drew in the final round with fellow Kazakh GM Denis Makhnev, leaving him to watch two other players on 8.5/10 who could catch up. Kollars did so with a win over GM Jose Martinez. However, Khusnutdinov's tiebreaks were much better.

The other relevant game featured two Speed Chess Championship (SCC) competitors. Grischuk (who will face GM Nihal Sarin in the SCC on Thursday) stopped Nakamura to reach nine points, while Nakamura stayed at 8.5 points and finished 10th. Nakamura plays GM Peter Svidler in the SCC on Friday.

The top two finishers Khusnutdinov and Kollars had something in common: losses to Nakamura, who ultimately had to play all of the top five finishers. Third-place Jobava was actually the only undefeated player in the tournament, scoring +7 =4.

November 9 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings here.)

WCM Veronika Shubenkova won the $100 prize for the highest-scoring female player.

Titled Tuesday is a weekly Swiss tournament for titled players on Chess.com. It starts at 10 a.m. Pacific time/19:00 Central European every Tuesday.

Read more from the original source:
Khusnutdinov Wins November 9 Titled Tuesday - Chess.com