Had a dream to be a GM when there was none in Asia: Torre, chess

Eugene Torre
| Photo Credit: P.K. Ajith Kumar

Eugene Torre became Asia’s first Grandmaster in 1974, two years after Bobby Fischer’s historic victory in the World championship match against Boris Spassky. The Filipino living legend would go on to strike a close friendship with Fischer, the most influential figure of all time in chess.

Torre was Fischer’s second when the American played a sequel to his World title match with Spassky in 1992. In a famous game in 1976, he defeated the reigning World champion Anatoly Karpov. In 2016, at the age of 64, he won a bronze medal in the Olympiad, playing on the third board for the Philippines.

At 73, his affair with chess continues.

“Back in my time, the Grandmasters from Europe, the United States, or the Soviet Union would treat the Asian players as their easy victims,” Torre told The Hindu in Singapore recently. “But I had this dream to become a Grandmaster when there was none in Asia, and in fact, not many even outside.”

In order to fulfil his dream, he travelled to Europe. “My family was very supportive of me, as would be the case of Viswanathan Anand years later,” he says. “Because we had no tournaments in Asia, and it was inconceivable to campaign in Europe for a long time. Thankfully, I had an arrangement with a local newspaper, which would pay me $300 a month for my reports. Stay was cheap in Madrid then.”

He did not make his Grandmaster norms on that European tour, but he got his title at the 1974 Chess Olympiad in the French city of Nice. He also has fond memories of beating Karpov at home in the Marlboro-Loyola Kings tournament in Manilla.

“I had black pieces in that game, which was a Sicilian Richter-Rauzer variation, and I surprised him,” Torres smiles. “I played good chess and he was virtually unbeatable those days.”

Karpov had become the World champion after Fischer forfeited his crown. The American genius was a hero for Torre.

“When Fischer came as a guest of the Philippines in 1968, I was very young, and I just watched him,” Torre recalls. “But in 1976, I came close to him, and then got an opportunity to work with him in 1992 for his match against Spassky in Yugoslavia”.