PRESS RELEASE 1: October 15, 2004

 CORBIN DEVASTATES SLOVIAN INTERNATIONAL MASTER

Slovenia revenged the shock defeat to its B Team by Barbados in Bled 2002 with a 3-1 win in the opening round of the 36^th World Chess Olympiad in Calvia, Spain.

Playing two Grandmasters and two International Masters, a confident Slovenian team soon found that Bled 2002 was no anomaly as they became bogged down by the Bajan quartet of Denny, Warner, Farley and Corbin.

As he has done so many times in the past, FIDE Master Dr. Philip Corbin, playing board 4, threw the Slovinians on the defensive with a flurry of tactics which saw him devastate International Master Tade Sakelser, rated 2425, in only 24 moves.

When the smoke cleared Sakelser, play the white pieces,found his King checkmated on the b3 square , a rare occurrence at this level.

Sadly for Barbados, FIDE Master Delisle Warner succumbed to Grandmaster Drazen Sermek, rated 2547, in his pet opening the French Defence at move 34 to give the Slovinians the equalizer.

Terry Farley playing his first Olympiad since 1996 had difficult adjusting to the new but faster time control. With the score tied 1-1, International Master Jure Borisek (2489) took advantage of Farley’s time deficit to steer an otherwise balanced game the Slovenians way. 

Slovenian Grandmaster Adrian Mihalcisin (2515) seeing his opportunity, forced matters when National Champion, International Master Kevin Denny dropped a tempo due to an inaccurate rook move.

On the World Stage even the slightest inaccuracy can change the course of a game and Denny endured a hard fought but losing the resulting rook and pawn ending.

In other matches USA had a close call against the Dominican Republic just managing to win 2 ˝ - 1 1/2, while Puerto Rico stunned  Norway with a 2-2 tie.

Jamaica lost 3 ˝ - ˝ against Macedonia, with top Jamician Junior Ras Malaku Lorne (2110) drawing a won game against FIDE Master Nikola Vasovski (2324).

Trinidad and Tobago feared slightly better with 3-1 loss to Iceland. FIDE Master Mario Merritt (2079) of Trinidad & Tobago earned the Trini’s only point when he beat International Master Anar Gunnarsson (2437).

Another top Caribbean Junior, Marvin Dekker (2133) of the Netherlands Antilles, scored a vital point for his country by beating Barzil’s International Master Cicero Braga (2441). Unfortunately this did not prevent the Brazilians from scoring a 3-1 win over the Netherland Antilles.

Report & Photo by Mr Allan Herbert