THE Philippines’ Daniel Quizon added another victim to his growing list of big fishes with a 41-move win over Grandmaster Klementy Sychev of FIDE to stay in the title hunt after seven rounds of the premier Master’s section of the 30th Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival in United Arab Emirates Thursday night.
The Olympiad-bound 20-year-old Filipino International Master survived a ferocious kingside sacrificial attack Sychev, who missed several winning chances that allowed the former to end up a piece up and victorious after 41 moves of a Ruy Lopez duel.
The win catapulted Quizon back into the top 10 alongside 15 others with five points, or just a full point behind solo leader GM Shamsiddin Vokhidov of Uzbekistan with two rounds to go.
It was the second GM scalp Quizon collected after shocking sixth seed Egyptian GM Bassem Amin in the fourth round Monday.
It came just a day after escaping with a miraculous victory over Indian IM L Srihari in a game where he appeared hopelessly lost.
Quizon was tackling Uzbekistan’s GM Abdimalik Abdisalimov in the eighth and penultimate round at press time with hopes of keeping his title chances alive and his bid for more rating points for a GM title going.
At present, Quizon has already amassed 19.6 points and has leapt to 2466.6 from 2457 entering the ultra-tough tournament.
Quizon will be one of the spearheads of the Philippine team plunging waging war in the World Chess Olympiad slated Sept. 10 to 22 in Budapest, Hungary where he hopes to complete his 2500-rating requirement to become a GM.
