By KRISTEL SATUMBAGA
Daniel Quizon bested Grandmaster Nguyen Anh Dung of Vietnam in the ninth and final round to rule the second and last leg of the Hanoi Grandmaster Chess Tournament and claim the third and final GM norm on Easter Sunday, March 31, in Vietnam.
The 20-year-old Quizon finished with seven points out of a possible nine in ruling the event while in the process snaring his final result to become a GM.
His other norms came in two Eastern Asia Junior tilts in South Korea in 2018 and in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia last year.
It also earned Quizon 19.3 rating points in this leg plus 9.3 points in the opening edition where he wound up second.
It hiked his rating to 2460.6, which is a little less than 40 rating points from becoming the country’s 17th GM, an elite group that included Eugene Torre, Rosendo Balinas and Wesley So.
If Quizon eventually becomes a GM, he would also end the country’s 14-year wait as its last Filipino GM came in 2011 in Richard Bitoon.
“Dream come true ko po ito kung sakali,” said Quizon.
To accomplish the feat, Quizon is expected to participate in several tournaments including one in Thailand in April, three in Vietnam in May and around three in the country in the next few months.
He is also slated to compete in the FIDE World Chess Olympiad in Budapest, Hungary in September.
Quizon, however, needs to thread the proverbial eye of the needle to claim his last GM result as he started the tournament with just half a point to show in the first two rounds that included a painful second-round defeat to Vietnamese FIDE Master Banh Gia Huy.
But he turned the tide by stringing together 6.5 points in the last seven rounds including five straight wins starting the third round.
He highlighted his campaign with a pair of wins over Vietnamese GMs Bui and Nguyen Anh Dung and a draw with top seed GM Vojtech Plat of the Czech Republic that came in the final three rounds.
