Top 100 Cebuano:Joseph Sanchez

CEBU, Philippines — He takes pride for being the first Cebuano chess grandmaster.

At the time Joseph Sanchez achieved the historical feat in 2009, he became the 11th member of the Philippines’ elite club of GMs after Eugene Torre, the late Rosendo Balinas Jr., Rogelio Antonio Jr., Buenaventura Villamayor, Nelson Mariano II, Mark Paragua, Wesley So, Darwin Laylo, Jayson Gonzales and John Paul Gomez.

The Mandaue City-native Sanchez is seemingly a late bloomer in chess as he started playing this famous European boardgame at the age of 13.

His interest for chess was further fueled after he bagged his first championship in 1988 when he was still a junior BS-Marine Technology student at the University of Cebu (UC).

Instead of proceeding to his internship as a seaman, Sanchez chose to pursue his dream of becoming a GM.       

Lady fortune smiled at Sanchez when he was able to go to Europe as coach of Mark Paragua, then the country’s top chess player who would later become a GM in 2005, during the 2003 World Youth Under-18 Championships in Greece.

Afterwhich, Sanchez, whose mother is from Samboan town south of Cebu, decided to stay in France to work out his International Master status, which he got in 2004.

 After toiling hard to earn his first two GM norms, Sanchez nailed his third and final norm and became a full-fledged grandmaster by accumulating 6.5 points at the 23rd Cannes International Chess Festival in France in February 2009. He placed third overall in that event where he outsmarted a couple of super GMs in the world including Alexander Motylev of Russia.

Two years later, Sanchez finally emerged as champion at the 25th Cannes Chess Festival. He considered it as his greatest achievement to date.

In between tournaments, Sanchez serves a professional chess tutor. He’s a living proof that chess is not only a sport, but also a profession in the future. - EBV