Quizon 52 points away from Grandmaster title
FILIPINO Daniel Quizon continued his march to a Grandmaster (GM) title as he kept holding his ground after six rounds of the FIDE World Juniors Open Chess Championships in Gandhinagar in Gujarat, India.
The 20-year-old World Cup veteran held second seed Russian-born GM Aleksey Grebnev of FIDE, a former world Under-18 titlist, in 35 moves of a King’s Indian duel to remain half a point off the pace.
Mr. Quizon, who claimed the last of three required norms to close in on a GM title following his conquest of a tilt in Hanoi, Vietnam last March, was in a heavy 14-player logjam at No. 4 with 4.5 points each.
They trail by half a point a four-player lead group of Kazakh International Master (IM) Kazybek Nogerbek, Colombian GM Jose Gabriel Cardoso Cardoso, Russian IM Rudik Makarian and Sri Lankan IM LMST De Silva with five points each.
Mr. Quizon was tackling Hungarian GM Gleb Dudin in the seventh round at press time of this 11-round meet that drew 125 participants.
Mr. Quizon was hoping to gain some FIDE rating points to reach the required minimum rating of 2500 to become a full-pledged GM.
He is currently rated 2448.
Seeded 20th here, Mr. Quizon was slowed down by draws against lower-rated foes — Indian bets IM Ramesh Avinash in the second round and Arena FIDE Master Harshit Pawar in the fourth — while hurdling Zambian Rafael Sharon, Malaysian Ang Ern Jie Anderson and Indian IM S. Aswath alternately in the first, fifth and fifth rounds, respectively. — Joey Villar