Quizon takes down another Grandmaster to remain in podium hunt

MANILA, Philippines – Filipino International Master Daniel Quizon caught his second Grandmaster in Klementy Sychev of FIDE’s refugee team to stay in the hunt for a podium finish in the super strong Masters class of the 30th Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival in the United Arab Emirates Thursday night.

On the receiving end of a vicious sacrificial onslaught unleashed by Sychev, the 20-year-old Olympiad-bound former World Cup veteran sprang back to life after a couple of missteps by the former.

Sychev was the second GM Quizon stunned after the latter also shell-shocked sixth seed GM Bassem Amin of Egypt in the fourth round Monday.

It allowed Quizon to regroup and use that one piece that Sychev sacrificed earlier to essay the 41-move triumph of their Ruy Lopez showdown and leapfrog back to the top 10 with 15 others with five points, or just a point behind solo No. 1 GM Shamsiddin Vokhidov of Uzbekistan.

Quizon was battling Uzbek GM Abdimalik Abdisalimov in the eighth and penultimate round at press time with hopes of continuing to rack up rating points to breach the 2500-rating plateau and become a full-pledge GM.

Currently, Quizon has accumulated 19.6 rating points and has jumped from 2457 to 2466.6.

If he couldn’t do it in Abu Dhabi, Quizon will try to achieve the feat in the FIDE World Chess Olympiad set September 10-22 in Budapest, Hungary, where he will be joined by GMs Julio Catalino Sadorra and John Paul Gomez and IMs Jem Garcia and Paolo Bersamina with GM Eugene Torre as coach.