Our team to the Dresden Chess Olympiad was doomed even before it left. Its composition—from a faulty national qualifying system—and board assignments were pitiful.

Top officials of the National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP), led by Prospero Pichay and Abraham Tolentino, could not be persuaded to include veteran Grandmaster Eugene Torre in the lineup, and that presaged the sorry campaign of our team, once a board terror in previous Olympiads.

Torre could have held his own on board one against the chess heavyweights, and strikers, like GMs Joey Antonio and Wesley So plus International Master John Paul Gomez, could have gathered vital points in the lower boards. As it is, the team was reduced to being a mere scavenger picking up crumbs from the cruiserweights in the field.

Sacrificing GM Bong Villamayor, the lowest rated member, on board one was a mistake because the Olympiad format calls for the Swiss system of play. Besides, there are only five players now, unlike the six for each team in previous Olympiads.

The strategy worked during the 1968 Lugano Chess Olympiad in Switzerland when round robin was the rule of competition.

National Master Roumel Reyes was assigned on board one over the late GM Rosendo Balinas Jr., IM Renato Naranja, the late IM Ruben Rodriguez and NM (now RTC Judge) Rosendo Bandal Jr. That team finished 14th overall, ahead of some of the world’s chess superpowers.

The change to the Swiss system started during the 1976 Haifa Chess Olympiad when I was the playing captain. I had observed then—and this was validated by later Olympiad results—that the real battle for final positions takes place during the last three rounds. It worked in the 2002 Slovenia Olympiad and again in the 2004 edition in Spain where we whipped former world champions Hungary and Yugoslavia en route to garnering equal 12th place in a field of 144 national teams.

Our winning streak was snapped in the 2006 Turin Chess Olympiad when Pichay intervened in the fielding of players, resulting in a disastrous end to our campaign.

Reports from Dresden state that he had also instructed Torre, the team captain, to remove GM Jayson Gonzales from the slate which played Czechoslovakia in the ninth round. The result was another disaster for the team, following a near shutout to Netherlands in the previous round.

Team owners or officials (like in the PBA) should leave the game strategy to the captain or the coach. After all, the latter knows very well the playing styles of his men on the floor. And it is he, not the official, who prepares the players before every game.

Unless we learn from the lessons of the past and follow the finer techniques of selecting, preparing and executing battle plans, we will never succeed in the Chess Olympiad.

(National Master Sammy Estimo, a practicing lawyer, is a four-time captain of the RP squad to the Chess Olympiad. He is also a co-founder of the National Chess Federation of the Philippines.—Ed)