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Eulogy Virtues

“A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth.”

— Ecclesiastes 7:1

In the recent article in the Harvard Business Review, “Building an Ethical Career,” Maryam Kouchaki and Isaac Smith assert that good intentions are insufficient, and people must be vigilant lest they violate their own moral values and create post hoc justification for their behavior.

Planning to be good requires understanding your personal strengths and weaknesses. The authors cite David Brooks, who distinguishes between resume virtues and eulogy virtues. Resume virtues represent the skills, abilities, and accomplishments that you can put in your resume, such as achieving sales and ROI targets. In contrast, eulogy values pertain to things people praise you for after you’ve died, such as being a loyal friend, a kind person, and a hard worker. Resume virtues reflect what you’ve done for yourself while eulogy virtues define your character and include what you’ve done for others. At some point, these two categories may overlap.

At the onset of your career, framing your professional life as a quest for contribution rather than achievement will make a big difference in building your career. Although people bring their moral ethics into the workplace, they tend to be influenced by their peers or pressured by their bosses into deviating from what they strongly believe in. Many people focus too much on traditional metrics such as compensation and promotion opportunities in their job search. But how many look at the importance of right moral fit?

Even after you have carefully constructed your job goals, things can still go awry. Personal safeguards such as habits and tendencies such as quality sleep, personal prayer, and mindfulness can help people manage and strengthen their self-control as well as resist temptation at work.

If you are committed to living an ethical life, then you should not be shy about letting people know it. Do this by openly discussing potential moral challenges and how you would want to do the right things. Some include a quotation in their e-mail signature line (e.g., “Integrity is my commitment”). Others are even brave enough to include this in their discussion during their job interviews. A word of caution though: do so tactfully, and clearly state your expectations.

Our environment shapes us more than we realize. Employees who feel that their values fit well with their organization tend to be more motivated than their misaligned peers. In their study, Kouchaki and Smith showed that ethical stress strongly predicts employee fatigue, decreased job satisfaction, lower motivation, and increased turnover.

If you’re facing an ethical dilemma, how can you prevent self-deceptive rationalizations? The authors suggest three tests: 1.) The publicity test: Would you be comfortable having this choice — and your reasoning behind it — published on the front page of a local newspaper? 2.) The generalizability test: Would you be comfortable having your decision serve as a precedent for all people facing a similar situation?, and, 3.) The mirror test: Would you like the person you see in the mirror after making this decision? Is he or she the person you truly want to be? If you replied “no” to any of these questions, think carefully before proceeding.

Studies have shown that people are more prone to committing unethical mistakes when rushed, so take time to contemplate and put things into perspective before deciding. Be wary of doing something just because everyone else is doing it, or because your boss told you to do it. Take ownership of your actions. Learn from experience. A lot of growth happens after decisions have been made and actions have been taken. Ethical people aren’t perfect. When you make a mistake, review and reflect on it to ensure better decisions in the future.

Your parents have always told you: “Just do the right thing.” However, remaining morally chaste is difficult when the environment is not enabling. Yet always remember that you are in control of your ethics. Take charge, and live up to your values and aspirations.

After four decades as a civil servant mostly in the GOCC/GFI arena, I am ready to bid goodbye to my professional career. It has been both fulfilling and challenging, and I am grateful to my present and past superiors, my peers, my staff, and most importantly, the constituencies I have had the privilege of serving. Only time can tell if I have done enough to ensure that my eulogy virtues match or surpass my resume virtues. I’d like to be able to quote Robert Frost: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.”

 

Benel D. Lagua is Executive Vice-President at the Development Bank of the Philippines. With an AIM-MBM and a Harvard-MPA, he is a part-time faculty of the Ramon V. Del Rosario College of Business of De La Salle University.

benellagua@alumni.ksg.harvard.edu

Are we Good As Gone?

If some of our people have little regard for their own safety, can we still expect them to have any regard for the safety of the rest of us? Self-preservation is a natural instinct. And yet, with the way some of us conduct ourselves, this does not seem evident. And with this being the case, then maybe little to nothing can be expected from us with respect to the preservation of others.

At the corner of Dela Rosa and Salcedo streets in Legaspi Village in Makati City, a portion of the sidewalk is currently closed. Large signs clearly state that pedestrians are to use alternatives like the elevated walkway, for safety reasons. And yet, some of us choose to disregard the signs — and the alternatives — and instead walk on the road. By doing so, we risk not only our safety but the safety of others like passing motorists.

It is beyond me why we choose to do precisely what is discouraged primarily for our protection. Laziness seems too trivial a reason. And, it costs us only a bit of time and effort to take a roundabout route. But why is it that we are just too busy to be bothered to take precautions for our own safety and the safety of others? What does this say about us?

Have we become this callous and uncaring in this day and age that we can no longer tell right from wrong, proper from improper, safe from unsafe, considerate from inconsiderate, important from trivial? Why do we readily trade safety for comfort and convenience? Are we being practical by doing so? But, to what end? Does it profit us, in any way? But, at what cost?

A newspaper photograph from 1975 was circulated in social media recently. It showed three buses coming from Liwasang Bonifacio, all going up what appeared to be MacArthur Bridge. The buses, three astride, didn’t want to give way to each other. Thus, they ended up hitting each other on their sides. As a consequence of this, they blocked the bridge and traffic.

This was in 1975, when the country was still under military rule. Obviously, even martial law was no match against the lack of discipline on our roads. But, even under better political conditions, lack of discipline — or lack of courtesy — remained an issue. It is as if we — as a people and as motorists — have not moved forward even after four decades.

In 2015, a similar incident again happened among buses refusing to give way to each other. On EDSA-Kamuning, three buses ended up blocking traffic after they sideswiped each other. And then, just late last year, a similar accident happened yet again. Three buses hit each other, and blocked traffic, inconveniencing hundreds of road travelers.

PHILIPPINE STAR/MICHAEL VARCAS

As I write this in the New Year, I come to the realization that nothing has changed in the last 45 years, as far as driving and pedestrian habits are concerned. They have only gotten worse, not better. Courtesy is now practiced more in breach, and not just in driving but everywhere else. The Filipino of today, it seems, has less regard for his fellow than the Filipino of yesteryears.

Gone is the post-war Filipino who used to be known for his values, and his strong sense of others as evidenced by his readiness to be part of any bayanihan (the spirit of communal unity, work and cooperation) to help his fellow man. In our cities in particular, people now look out more for themselves than each there. And with the spirit of bayanihan obviously dead, I can only wonder if bayan (country) itself will soon follow to the grave.

Just look at how we litter our streets, and you cannot help but think that the Filipino of old, the one who was friendly and helpful and considerate and mindful of others, is now GAGo or Good As Gone. Are we deliberately refusing to move up and forward as a people? Why have we chosen to abuse the political freedom regained in 1986 to bring out the worst in us?

Recently, I was at a shopping mall’s food court for lunch. On the tables were stickers encouraging diners to ClayGo or Clean As You Go. Diners are being reminded to clean up after themselves — to bring used plates and utensils to tray stations after dining. Same thing for water goblets or tumblers. The drinking station has crates for clean and used tumblers.

But despite the clear signs and markings for what I believe to be a reasonable request, most diners still leave their used plates, tumblers, and utensils on tables. Worse, they actually leave a mess after eating. Very few people bother to clean up and stow away. And with only a few hired cleaners doing the rounds, it takes them a long time to bus tables and wipe them clean.

I have raised this topic in my column time and time again primarily because I believe this to be a strong indicator of who and what we are as a people. This “problem” has less to do with the assumption that labor is relatively cheaper here, and more to do with how we regard each other. In Japan, for instance, it is practically second nature to them to clean up after dining.

The Filipino of old, the one with traditional values and who understood the spirit of bayanihan, is Good As Gone. And he is unlikely to come back. His ilk evolved, for sure, but not necessarily for the better. The personality traits of his descendants seem to have been shaped less by heredity and more by environment. And given how things are now, perhaps their disastrous end is inevitable.

 

Marvin Tort is a former managing editor of BusinessWorld, and a former chairman of the Philippines Press Council.

matort@yahoo.com

Inflation, transportation, and production

Regional and global inflation has been generally rising over the last two months of 2019. The Philippines reached its lowest inflation since around 2016 of only 0.8% last October, then a quick uptick to 2.5% by December (see Table 1).

The Philippines’ full year 2019 inflation was 2.5% and the “inflation valedictorian” position claimed by the Philippines with 5.2% in 2018 has been snatched by Indonesia with 3% in 2019.

I checked the commodities inflation of the country, and saw that three groups have experienced significant declines in 2019 vs. 2018 levels: alcohol and tobacco, food, and transport. All other commodity groups have been generally flat or saw mild declines in prices. While this affirms the statement that the rice tariffcation law (RTL) has contributed to a significant price decline in rice and other food items, this contradicts the claim by some government agencies like the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board and Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) that fares by less-regulated transportation like transport network vehicle service (TNVS) are rising too fast (see Table 2).

If the PCC in particular thinks that there is “abuse of market power” by the dominant TNVS despite the presence of multiple choices for the passengers, then the PCC should also investigate coffee shops to see why brewed coffee is only P20 a cup in convenience stores like 7-Eleven but P100 to P120 in Starbucks. Or investigate the two dominant local airlines to see why their fares from, say, Manila to Cebu are at least P1,000 more expensive than the smaller regional airline.

Related to inflation or price changes from the perspective of consumers is the producer price index which measures selling price changes from the perspective of domestic producers. Indonesia and the Philippines are the outliers among their neighbors which have price indices of only 97 to 109 (see Table 3).

Two headwinds face the Philippines in fighting high inflation in 2020. One is internal: the third part of the implementation of the “expensive energy is beautiful” policy via higher oil-coal taxes under the TRAIn (Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion) law. The other is external: renewed political and military conflict in the Middle East with an immediate impact on world oil prices and the deployment of OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers) to the region.

So two important lessons here: One, more government taxation of very useful commodities like oil and coal is anti-consumer and anti-producer; and, two, more government fines and restrictions on certain sectors like land transportation are often based on wrong premises and assumptions, and work to limit the supply of services, and are inimical to passengers’ welfare.

More tax hikes, fees, and new fines are being prepared this year by the administration to finance more spending and more borrowings. Not good. They should do the reverse. Step back and allow the people and private enterprises to keep more of their earnings to finance more household spending and enterprise investments.

 

Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. is the president of Minimal Government Thinkers.

minimalgovernment@gmail.com

The Internet has become a cluttered, proprietary mess

By Elaine Ou

THE INTERNET was built on open standards and interoperability, but networks tend to balkanize.

If you’ve ever tried to receive an e-mail from me through Gmail, it probably went to spam. My company runs its own e-mail server, and Google feels that our mail authentication is inadequate. And remember those Flash-based websites from the aughts? They’re no longer supported by major browsers, and entirely blocked from Apple’s mobile devices.

Every now and then, we see attempts to re-open the internet. Last month, for example, Twitter announced Bluesky, a project to create an open protocol for social media. If adopted, Bluesky would allow anyone to spin up a Twitter clone and host a social network. Content could be shared across platforms — for example, a Twitter user could retweet a post from a Bluesky version of Facebook, allowing her followers to interact with the post without switching accounts.

There are plenty of other examples. One of the older ones is XMPP, an open protocol developed for social networking and chatting. The project began in 1999, and was adopted and later abandoned by AOL Instant Messenger, Facebook Chat, and Google Talk. (Once a platform gains significant market share, there are competitive advantages to using a proprietary protocol.) A more recent introduction comes from Mastodon, a decentralized social network as well as a software, in the form of ActivityPub.

You know where I’d really like to see open protocols? On the entire rest of the internet. Take Wikipedia, regarded as a definitive source of truth by fact-checkers on Facebook and YouTube. After criticizing Wikipedia’s oligarchic editing process, a former co-founder created the Knowledge Standards Foundation to promote an open protocol where anyone can host wiki-type encyclopedia pages. Custom reading interfaces can then fetch pages from sources preferred by the individual user.

Then there’s Google Search. Google’s prowess doesn’t come from hundreds of petabytes stored on index servers, although that does create a massive barrier to entry for competitors. The company’s dominance comes from its proprietary ranking algorithm, designed to deliver the worthiest links to the top of a user’s search results.

Google has been accused of de-ranking certain sites, promoting political biases, or even spreading disinformation. An open protocol for Google Search could allow anyone to set up a web server to receive queries and forward them to the index servers, then rank results using competing algorithms. The approach could be extended to any content platform.

The challenge, of course, is making a profit. It’s hard for platforms to monetize an open protocol — it’s like trying to make money off of e-mail. Jack Dorsey explains how an open protocol might be good for Twitter: “It will allow us to access and contribute to a much larger corpus of public conversation, focus our efforts on building open recommendation algorithms which promote healthy conversation, and will force us to be far more innovative than in the past.” No company truly wants to be forced to innovate — Jack was just going for a tricolon — but the first two points are valid. As a non-dominant social network, Twitter could benefit from accessing external content, just like Google gains access to new data each time a Gmail user corresponds with an external e-mail address.

Distributed platforms also give companies a way to avoid the messy problem of content moderation. Google contracts with over 10,000 search quality raters who spend their days evaluating controversial search results, while Facebook has hired 15,000 moderators to manage problematic content. With a federated internet, these companies would not have to employ so many moderators, or worry about creating a catch-all policy that attempts to please everybody — anyone who didn’t like one server’s content policies could simply start their own social network. No one complains to Mastodon about unsatisfactory moderation rules, because the host of a Mastodon server can implement whatever filters or amplification algorithms they want without losing access to external content.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that nasty content will take over the internet. When a controversial social network called Gab created a Mastodon instance, many other servers simply preemptively blocked it.

Rather than adhering to content rules imposed in a top-down manner, individual communities make their own rules and create an actual marketplace of ideas.

Requiring open protocols could even be part of an antitrust approach to increasing competition among big tech companies. Back in March, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg suggested that regulators should guarantee the principle of data portability between services. If regulators go a step further and promote interoperability as well, it could be the modern-day equivalent of forcing Bell Labs to liberate their patents. Compulsory sharing of technology may not have been advantageous to the Bell System, but it certainly increased US innovation in the long run.

 

BLOOMBERG OPINION

Why 2020 is harder to predict than 2019 was

By Tyler Cowen

MY MAIN PREDICTION for 2020, if it can be called a prediction, is trend exhaustion: For the first time in a long while, several important trends have come to an end.

What do I mean by that? Trends ebb and flow, of course, but at any given moment many of them embody one of two distinct states: momentum, or reversion to the mean. The first is a continuation of past progress, either upward or downward. The second is a movement back toward “normal,” however that may be defined.

Now, in an especially wide variety of areas, neither of these conditions is prevalent. Start with the US job market. Since the end of the recession, employment has been improving quite steadily. That has been great for the country, but with unemployment now at 3.5%, does that trend have much further to run? I am not pessimistic about the US economy, but I would say that the direction of the next jobs report is now harder to predict than it used to be.

How about relations with China? For the last few years, it has been fairly easy to predict that US-China relations will continue to get worse. But with a new US-China trade deal due to be signed later this month, this is no longer such a sure bet. I tend to think the deal will not stick, and perhaps could create new terms for intensified conflict, but there is a decent chance the negative momentum has been reversed. Whatever your view, recent trends are not necessarily helpful in making predictions.

Chinese economic growth is yet another major issue where past trends seem to have been drained of their informative value. For a long time, a good and indeed continually verified prediction was this: “The Chinese economy will continue to grow at a rapid clip.” After that, “Chinese economic growth will slow down” did well for a number of years.

Today there are mixed signals. On one hand, corporate debt problems seem to be getting worse. On the other, there are signs the Chinese economy may be stabilizing. You could argue this one either way, but looking at recent trends isn’t going to settle it.

Or you might have thought that India was the obvious new candidate for economy on the rise. And maybe it still is. But it turns out a lot of Indian economic data was falsified or exaggerated, and the true Indian growth rate may be closer to 4% than 6% or 8%. Once again, the (ostensible) past trend turns out not to be so informative.

Similarly, the potential trend of Africa as the “next big thing” has not (yet?) been crystallized into a consistent series of economic growth numbers. The economies of Ghana and Ethiopia are doing quite well, but elsewhere on the continent growth rates have disappointed; the largest African economy, Nigeria, grew at only about 2% last year.

Another big trend has been the rise of right-wing populist parties in many countries. That has been a pretty solid prediction for a few years, but now there is evidence that those parties are no longer growing more popular. Will they retreat as mainstream parties adopt their agendas, or is this just a slight pause? Again, I would say the previous trend has been exhausted and this is a new and hard-to-predict moment.

Another recent trend, the proliferation of new #MeToo cases and an accompanying rise in publicity, may also be losing momentum. Figures such as Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein have receded from the news. Could this issue come back with another major celebrity-linked scandal? Absolutely — but it also might have cooled off for a while. The prediction that there will be more #MeToo cases is no longer so easy.

Are there examples of contrary cases, where an important preexisting trend still seems very much in force? Well, carbon emissions will almost certainly get worse before they get better. When it comes to temperatures, however, the global data have exhibited periodic flat periods or even declines before renewed rises. So at least in the short run, predictability there is not so great either.

One implication is that the coming year may hold an especially large number of surprises. Alternatively, rational people (and readers of Philip Tetlock, who has studied the difficulty of forecasting the future) might discard their hubris and not be very surprised at all.

In any case, it is a scary moment. Past performance is not indicative of future results, as they say on Wall Street, and that may be even more true in 2020. Don’t throw out your history books, but you may want to open your mind about what happens next.

 

BLOOMBERG OPINION

Nation at a Glance — (01/09/20)

News stories from across the nation. Visit www.bworldonline.com (section: The Nation) to read more national and regional news from the Philippines.

Nation at a Glance — (01/09/20)

Black hopes bench steps up in bounce back bid

By Michael Angelo S. Murillo
Senior Reporter

OUTLASTED in Game One of their best-of-seven Philippine Basketball Association Governors’ Cup final series on Tuesday, the Meralco Bolts look to bounce back against the Barangay Ginebra San Miguel Kings in Game Two, hopefully with help from their bench.

Thus, said, Meralco coach Norman Black after his team dropped the series-opener of the finals, 91-87, in a game that they had control of for the most part only for them to falter in the end.

The multi-titled PBA coach said bench play left much to be desired in Game One and that it something they have to address come the next game.

“We need to get more production from the bench. I haven’t studied the statistics yet but we really have to get production from our bench. That is something we have to fix in Game Two,” said Mr. Black in the postgame press conference on Tuesday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

“I still have to get my starters out to rest and when we do that we want to maintain whatever advantage that we have or even build on it if possible. So our bench really have to play better in Game Two,” he added.

In Game One, Mr. Black tapped five players off the bench but only two managed to score — Anjo Caram (4) and Allein Maliksi (2).

The Meralco bench only had four rebounds, two steals, an assist and a block.

The Bolts’ starters, led by do-it-all import Allen Durham, tried their best to tow their team but the Kings just had more extra to give down the stretch to fend off the former to book the win and the early series lead.

Mr. Durham had a triple-double of 25 points, 18 rebounds and 10 assists to go along with four blocks in a losing cause.

Chris Newsome had 24 points and eight rebounds while Raymond Almazan added 20 points and 13 boards for Meralco.

For Barangay Ginebra, it was import Justin Brownlee who showed the way with 38 points and 16 rebounds, followed by Japeth Aguilar with 16 points, six rebounds and three blocks, the last off Mr. Durham in the dying seconds of the game that helped put the game away.

LA Tenorio and Stanley Pringle had 14 and 10 points, respectively, while Greg Slaughter led the Kings’ bench with eight points, eight rebounds and four blocks.

Game Two of the series goes on the road to Lucena on Jan. 10, and it is a game that Mr. Black considers as “must win” for them even as he said that Barangay Ginebra would have the crowd support advantage anew.

“That is really an advantage for Ginebra (crowd support). Wherever they go in the country they have the support of the fans. So we will see. Anyways, we have to win the game. It’s a must-win situation for us and it doesn’t matter where we play,” the Meralco coach said.

Chooks-to-Go’s sports thrust set to expand with planned 3×3 basketball league for women

By Michael Angelo S. Murillo
Senior Reporter

ALREADY a steady supporter of Philippine sports the past few years, Chooks-to-Go is set to expand its sporting thrust with a planned 3-on-3 basketball league for women beginning in February.

Announced in a press conference at the Bounty Agro Ventures, Inc. (BAVI) office at Ortigas Center on Tuesday, which also served to recognize the gold medal efforts of the Philippine women’s basketball team at the recent Southeast Asian Games, Chooks-to-Go 3×3 Pilipinas owner and BAVI president Ronald Mascariñas said that due to the huge clamor for a women’s tournament they are taking heed and making it a reality.

“First of all there was really a clamor for women’s basketball now especially after the SEA Games. I have my own Facebook page and before not a single comment about women’s basketball was on it, but now the public is really urging us to support women’s basketball as well. That is why we are trying to organize a 3×3 league for women’s basketball because that is what the Filipinos want now,” said Mr. Mascariñas.

The women’s league is planned to coincide with the Chooks-to-Go 3×3 league for men, with the same aspirations of bringing 3×3 hoops to the fore and elevating the country’s status in it, including earning outright qualification in the Olympics down the line.

“Our target is automatic qualification. In the next four years, we should qualify in the top three,” Mr. Mascariñas said.

“For the 2020 Olympics, we almost made it with little activity, but if we organize 3×3 basketball for women, we have a good chance, not just for OQT (Olympic Qualifying Tournament) but for the automatic qualification,” he added.

Mr. Mascariñas also highlighted that adding women’s 3×3 to the roster of sports they are backing is not only for the sake of just doing it but rather a continuation of the mission they have set forth as an organization under the “Manok Ng Bayan” thrust.

The Manok Ng Bayan mission started in 2016 and is geared towards helping promote nationalism through sports and inspiring the Filipinos.

“Our Manok Ng Bayan mission is not only for the sake of being in sports. The underlying reason why we are supporting basketball is because we see it as a source of inspiration, especially for the poor. For us these athletes, both men and women, can inspire them not to lose hope in life; that there is always a way to improve themselves,” Mr. Mascariñas said.

At the press conference, Mr. Mascariñas was joined by national team members Jack Animam, Afril Bernardino and Claire Castro as well as women’s team assistant coach Mark Solano.

For their efforts in winning the 3×3 gold medal in the 30th SEA Games, the players were rewarded by Chooks-to-Go with cash incentives.

Ceres-Negros gearing up for tough challenge in AFC Champions League

TOP local club football team Ceres-Negros FC begins its 2020 campaign next week, starting with the preliminary stage of the AFC Champions League (ACL).

Opening their ACL bid here at home against Myanmar’s Shan United on Jan. 14, the three-time Philippines Football League (PFL) champion said it is preparing the best way it can for what it expects to be a tough run in the tournament.

“We cannot promise anything, but we will represent the country in the best way possible. We are going to fight until the last minute to reach the next round. It’s a very hard competition. But we are going to try. We will give our best so I hope everyone will support us,” said Ceres coach Risto Vidakovic at the Philippine Sportswriters Association (PSA) Forum on Tuesday at the Amelie Hotel in Manila.

Ceres will face off with Shan United at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday at the Rizal Memorial Stadium where it hopes to come away a winner to move to the next round of the preliminaries and continue to vie for a spot in the group stage of the ACL.

The team will parade staples like Bienvenido Maranon, Stephan Schrock and Rolland Muller in the contest, joined by newly signed players Mark Hartmann, Pika Minegishi, Josh Grommen and Arnie Pasinabo.

Mr. Maranon said they are very excited to get the year going and play in Rizal as their home turf of Panaad Park and Football Stadium in Bacolod City is being renovated.

Back in 2018, Ceres reached the third round of the preliminaries, which Mr. Vidakovic said they are looking to take cue from.

“Two years ago we made it to the third round so hopefully we can create a surprise again in the first two rounds,” said the Ceres head coach. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo

Thunder stay hot with OT win vs struggling Brooklyn Nets

NEW YORK — Chris Paul scored 28 points and hit two clutch shots in overtime as the surging Oklahoma City Thunder outlasted the slumping Brooklyn Nets 111-103 Tuesday night in New York in the second night of a back-to-back for both teams.

The Thunder won for the 10th time in their last 12 games and rebounded nicely from Monday’s loss in Philadelphia thanks to Paul’s dynamic performance.

Paul came within two of his season-high for points and shot 9 of 15 from the floor, including four of eight from 3-point range.

He snapped a 103-103 deadlock with a baseline 10-footer over Jarrett Allen with 3:36 remaining and then hit a 13-footer about a minute later for a 107-103 edge.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander added 22 points and hit four free throws in the final minute to ice Oklahoma City’s win and send Brooklyn to its seventh consecutive loss.

Dennis Schroder added 14 points, while Steven Adams posted a double-double with 10 points and 18 rebounds as the Thunder shot 41.3% from the field.

Taurean Prince scored 21 points to lead the Nets, who missed seven of eight shots in overtime, shot 40.8% overall and are on their longest skid since dropping eight straight from Nov. 21–Dec. 5, 2018.

Caris LeVert added 18 of his 20 in the second half but did not play in overtime due to a minutes restriction. Spencer Dinwiddie was held to 14 points on 6-of-21 shooting

The Nets held a 94-89 lead on Dinwiddie’s reverse layup with 4:27 remaining, but Oklahoma City stormed back and tied the game in the final minute of regulation.

Paul forged a 101-101 deadlock with 47.4 seconds left when he went around a screen by Adams and hit a jumper from the right side of the paint before Allen could cover. After LeVert badly missed a contested short jumper, Paul had a chance to give the Thunder the lead, but he committed a turnover in the lane when the ball went off his right leg with 11.7 seconds left.

The Nets missed two chances at the win when Dinwiddie missed a free throw with 11.7 seconds left after Oklahoma City committed a foul before the ball was inbounded. Dinwiddie then missed a contested floater against Adams with seventh-tenths of a second left. — Reuters

Kenneth Chua claims rare five-straight Prima Bowler of the Year award

KENNETH Chua claimed an unprecedented five-straight Prima Pasta Bowler of the Year award recently during the 2019 Team Prima Annual Awards at the V Corporate Centre in Makati City.

Chua, 28, capped off last year with a silver medal in the men’s bowling team event of the recent 2019 Southeast Asian Games in Mandaluyong City after ruling several tournaments nationwide at the same year.

He also captured the last year’s titles in the open master division of SCTBA Open Championship, the first PBF National Matchplay Open Championships, last year’s TBAM Open Masters competition and the PBA Open Masters Champion.

“Champions work hard until they get it right,” said Chua after receiving the award in the annual event organized by Team Prima Chairman Alexander Lim who also gave special citation to some other Prima athletes who excelled in the last 2019 Southeast Asian Games hosting.

Special mentions were Prima cyclists Jerrick Farr and Lea Denise Belgira who won the gold in the cycling downhill competition men’s and women’s classes. Cue artist Rubilen Amit received citation also for winning the nine-ball singles gold, nine-ball doubles gold and 10-ball silver in the SEA Games.

Krizzah Tabora Macatula was awarded the female bowler of the year winner while the junior bowler of the year male and female winners were national youth member Merwin Tan and Dale Lazo. Senior bowler of the year male and female achievers were Bonnie Solis and Lou Laforteza.

Vivian Padawan and Clarence Tiu won the female and male athlete of the year bowler for Cebu-Bacolod-Davao crowns, respectively. For the most improved bowler of the year winners, Grace Hernandez copped the female award and Nicco Agujo claimed the male award.

Other Team Prima Athlete of the Year winners were Jericho Rivera (cyclist of the year), Adrian Dionisio (multi-sports), David Lim (photographer of the year), Nephtali Pineda (male badminton of the year), Andrea Abalos (female badminton of the year), JR Pandi (boys’ badminton of the year) and Ghisel Bautista (girls’ badminton of the year).

Magnus is Blitz Champion

World Championship Blitz
Moscow, Russia
Dec. 29–30, 2019

Final Top Results

1–2. Magnus Carlsen NOR 2865, Hikaru Nakamura USA 2885, 16.5/21

3. Vladimir Kramnik RUS 2748, 15.0/21

4–5. Alexander Grischuk RUS 2741, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave FRA 2768, 14.0/21

6–20. Alireza Firouzja FIDE 2649, Vladislav Artemiev RUS 2793, Yu Yangyi CHN 2807, Maxim Matlakov RUS 2720, Jan-Krzysztof Duda POL 2796, Dmitry Andreikin RUS 2780, Vladiimir Fedoseev RUS 2714, Anish Giri NED 2769, Alexander Zubov UKR 2754, Levon Aronian ARM 2698, Wang Hao CHN 2714, Ernesto Inarkiev RUS 2556, Peter Svidler RUS 2805, Boris Gelfand ISR 2700, Ivan Cheparinov GEO 2647, 13.5/21

Playoff: Magnus Carlsen beat Hikaru Nakamura 1.5-0.5.

Total of 206 participants

Time Control: Three minutes for the entire game with two seconds added to your clock after every move starting move 1.

Venue: VIP Zone of the Luzhniki Football Stadium in Moscow, Russia.

Others: The prize fund is $350,000, with $60,000 for first place. Prize money is shared equally between players on the same number of points, with a playoff for first place that consists of two 3+2 games followed, if necessary, by Armageddon, where White has five minutes to Black’s four, with a draw for Black to be counted as a victory.

Five years ago Carlsen won both the Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships in the same year — this was in 2014 Dubai. Since he was also Classical World Champion at that time he became a “Triple Crown” winner. Garry Kasparov compared the feat to “winning tennis slams on clay, grass and hard court.” Well, he has done it again! Two days after winning the Rapid he tied with Hikaru Nakamura for the Blitz title and won the playoff. He is now the reigning World Champion in classical, Rapid and Blitz.

Baadur Jobava was doing very well with five wins and three draws in the first 8 rounds but this loss against Magnus in round 9 messed him up and he couldn’t recover. The theme of our article today is endgame play. Most people wouldn’t find Black’s endgame finesse, let alone under blitz conditions.

Jobava, Baadur (2604) — Carlsen, Magnus (2872) [A01]
World Blitz 2019 Moscow RUS (9.2), 29.12.2019

1.b3 g6 2.Bb2 Nf6 3.Bxf6 exf6 4.c4 d5 5.cxd5 Qxd5 6.Nc3 Qa5 7.a3 c6 8.e3 f5 9.g3 Bd6 10.Bg2 Nd7 11.Nge2 Nf6 12.0–0 0–0 13.b4 Qd8 14.d4 Qe7 15.Rb1 a5 16.b5 Bxa3 17.bxc6 bxc6 18.Bxc6 Ra6 19.Nd5 Nxd5 20.Bxd5 Bb4 21.Nf4 Bd6 22.Qf3 a4 23.Rfc1 a3 24.Ba2 Ra7 25.Nd5 Qd8 26.h4 Be6 27.Kg2 h5 28.Nc3 Bxa2 29.Nxa2 Rc7 30.Qd5 Qa8 31.Qxa8 Rxa8 32.Rxc7 Bxc7 33.Kf3 Kf8 34.Ke2 Bd6 35.Kd3 Ke7 36.Rb7+ Ke6 37.Rb6 Ra7 38.Kc2 Kd7 39.Kb1 Kc7 40.Rb3 Rb7 41.Kc2 Rxb3 42.Kxb3 Kc6 43.Nc3 f6 44.Kc4 g5 45.f4 g4 46.Kb3 Bf8

Jobava has fought Carlsen to a standstill but now makes a fatal mistake.

47.Nb1?

[47.Na2 was correct, but isn’t the text the most obvious move, winning the a3 pawn?]

47…Bb4! 48.Nc3

[48.Kxb4 a2 and the pawn queens]

48…a2 49.Nxa2 Be1

White’s kingside pawns fall.

50.Kc4 Bxg3 51.Nb4+ Kd6 52.Kd3 Bxh4 53.e4 fxe4+ 54.Kxe4 Bg3 55.f5 h4 56.Nd5 h3 0–1

Both Magnus and Hikaru Nakamura, the two highest rated blitz players in the world, finished with 16.5/21 and had to play an additional 2 blitz games as tie-break. Magnus cleaned up nicely:

Carlsen, Magnus (2865) — Nakamura, Hikaru (2885) [D02]
Wch Blitz tiebreak 2019 Moscow (2), 30.12.2019

1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 d5 3.Bf4

Lately Carlsen has been playing the London System every time he needs the full point.

3…c5 4.e3 e6 5.Nbd2 Bd6 6.Bxd6 Qxd6 7.dxc5 Qxc5 8.c4 dxc4 9.Bxc4 0–0 10.Rc1 Qe7 11.0–0 b6 12.Qe2 Bb7 13.Rfd1 Nbd7 14.Ba6 Nc5 15.Bxb7 Qxb7 16.Ne5 Ncd7 17.Qf3 Qa6

This is no time to go pawn-grabbing of course but Nakamura knows exactly what he is doing, being a veteran of hundreds of online blitz/bullet tournaments. He is provoking Magnus to stir up an attack under speed time controls while he gobbles up one or two pawns. If things go the way he wants it and, being the tactical monster that he is, Carlsen’s attack will run out of steam and Naka can then cash in with his extra material.

18.Nc6 Kh8 19.Nc4 Qxa2 20.g4 Nc5 21.Nd6 Nb3?

Nakamura starts getting nervous. He should have remained true to himself with 21…Qxb2 as White’s attack is still not clear.

22.Rc2 Qa4 23.Rc4

Black’s queen has been shut off the kingside — Nakamura is clearly in trouble.

23…Qa6 24.g5 Nd7 25.Rh4!

There is already forced mate.

25…Nbc5 26.Nxf7+

Magnus misses checkmate with 26.Rxh7+! Kxh7 27.Qh5+ Kg8 28.Ne7# but no matter as the text move wins as well.

26…Rxf7 27.Qxf7 Qe2 28.Rxd7 Nxd7 29.Qxd7 Rf8 30.Rf4 1–0

There was a bit of a controversy at the end. Alireza Firouzja, the one who left the Iranian Chess Federation because he badly wanted to play here in Moscow, and the very same one who got the silver medal in the Rapid section, was also doing very well in the blitz. Carlsen met him in the 3rd to the last round. Remember our theme for today? Endgame play, right?

Firouzja, Alireza (2649) — Carlsen, Magnus (2865) [C79]
FIDE World Blitz Championship (19.1), 30.12.2019

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 d6 5.0–0 Bd7 6.c3 g6 7.d4 Bg7 8.h3 Nf6 9.Bc2 0–0 10.Re1 Re8 11.Nbd2 Qe7 12.Nf1 Qf8 13.Ng3 Bh6 14.Ng5 Nd8! 15.Bb3 Ne6 16.h4 Rad8 17.Be3 Bg7 18.h5 Bh6 19.Qc1 Ng4 20.Nxe6 fxe6 21.Rf1 Nxe3 22.fxe3 Qe7 23.hxg6 hxg6 24.Qd2 exd4 25.cxd4 Kg7 26.Rf3 Rf8 27.Raf1 Rxf3 28.Rxf3 Rf8 29.Qc3! c6 30.Nf1 e5 31.Rxf8 Kxf8 32.Qc4 Qf6?

[32…Kg7 33.Qg8+ Kf6 looks awkward but is the best defense]

33.dxe5 dxe5 34.Qb4+ c5 35.Qxb7

That’s one pawn.

35…Bb5 36.Qc8+ Ke7 37.Qxc5+

That’s two.

37…Qd6 38.Qxd6+ Kxd6 39.Bf7 Bxf1!

Black places his hopes on a bishops-of-opposite-color endgame.

40.Kxf1 g5 41.Ke2 Bf8 42.Kf3 Ke7 43.Bc4 a5 44.Ke2 Kd6 45.Bd5 Be7 46.Kf3 Bd8 47.Kg4 Be7 48.Kf5 Bd8 49.g4 Be7 50.a3 Bd8 51.b4 axb4 52.axb4 Be7 53.b5 Bd8 54.Kg6

The forcing 54.b6 does not work: 54…Bxb6 55.Kxg5 Ke7! 56.Kf5 Bxe3 57.Kxe5 is a draw. In order for White to win with his extra two pawns they should be farther apart (for example, if the e4 pawn were instead on c4) so that Black’s king and bishop cannot coordinate defense.

54…Kc5 55.Kf5 Kxb5!

Even in blitz rate Magnus is a phenomenal endgame player. This is the same principle as in the previous note — he destroys white’s pawn on b5 so that the remaining pawns will be close together. Besides, if he tries to defend his e5–pawn then 55…Kd6 56.Ba8! Be7 57.b6! wins.

56.Kxe5 Kc5 57.Ke6 Ba5 58.e5 Bd2 59.e4

Here Firouzja missed 59.Kf7! Kxd5 60.e6 Bb4 61.e7 Bxe7 62.Kxe7 Ke4 63.Kf6 but c’mon, both players had only seconds left on their clock.

59…Bc3! 60.Kf5 Kb6 61.e6?

Why didn’t he take the g5 pawn? I believe 61.Kxg5! wins.

61…Kc7 62.Kg6 Kd8 63.Kxg5 Ke7

In contrast with the position on the 61st move, Black’s king has managed to make it back in front of the pawns. I couldn’t believe it but a look at the 7–man tablebase says that the position is drawn.

64.Kh5 Bd2 65.g5 Bf4

Actually the losing move. Correct is 65…Bc3! 66.Kg6 Bd2! 67.e5 Bc1 White cannot make progress

66.Kg4?

Throws away the win (66.g6!) but also… I will let GM Dejan Bojkov tell the story: “In this very complex position the unthinkable happened. Right after moving his king to g4, Firouzja tipped over his king and after first putting it back, Firouzja was just too late to hit the clock and he ran out of time, while Carlsen moved his bishop to d2. His position was declared a loss as theoretically speaking a mate is possible to happen with opposite-colored bishops on the board! What a dramatical finish of a spectacular game!”

66…Bd2 0–1 <D>

FINAL POSITION

Theoretically, the position on the board is a draw. In the video of the finish you can see Grischuk calling Magnus and telling him that he should get a win as there is the possibility of checkmate on the board. The arbiter on the scene agreed and awarded Magnus the point. Firouzja protested and the chief arbiter, the very well respected Takis Nikolopoulos, was summoned to make a ruling. He upheld the win and clarified that, yes, Black gets the win because the rule is that if checkmate is possible for Black, no matter how remote the possibility, then Black gets the win. Here is one possibility for checkmate: 66…Bd2 67.Kf5 Be3 68.Kg6 Bd2 69.Kh7 Be3 70.g6 Bd2 71.g7 Be3 72.g8N+ Kf8 73.Kh8 Bd2 74.e5 Be3 75.Be4 Bh6 76.Bh7 Bg7#

This is where there is a divergence between online and live play. In online chess you cannot win without mating material. Since Carlsen only had a king and bishop the game would have immediately been declared a draw.

After this very tough loss Firouzja lost again in the next round (to Kramnik) and drew in the final round to finish in 6th place. On the other hand Magnus Carlsen was also in a state of nervous exhaustion and drew his last two games and that is what allowed Nakamura to catch him.

As you can see, Carlsen versus Firouzja was not just another blitz game.

 

Bobby Ang is a founding member of the National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) and its first Executive Director. A Certified Public Accountant (CPA), he taught accounting in the University of Santo Tomas (UST) for 25 years and is currently Chief Audit Executive of the Equicom Group of Companies.

bobby@cpamd.net

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