Young Daniel Quizon humbles Indian Grandmaster

MANILA, Philippines — Prodigious Daniel Quizon is making a big case as the next big thing in Philippine chess.

Quizon,14,  caught a big fish in Grandmaster R.R. Laxman of India in the ninth and final round to wind up in the top 20 and the best-placed Filipino in the strong Ninth HD Bank International Chess Tournament in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam Wednesday night.

Quizon ended up in an 11-player logjam at 12th spot with six points but settled at 22nd overall after tiebreaks.

The Dasmariñas, Cavite-based chesser came a draw short of earning the second of three GM norms but nonetheless gained a whopping 71.8 FIDE rating points and a tournament performance rating of 2571 for his outstanding play.

Apart from his impressive win over Laxman, Quizon also drew with GMs Susanto Megaranto of Indonesia, Rodrigo Vasquez Schroeder of Chile and Nguyen Duc Hoa of Vietnam and Filipino IM Haridas Pascua, and beat IMs Roderick Nava of the Phl, Lu Xiangyi of China and Rithvik Raja of India.

Ironically, Quizon’s only loss of the tournament came against untitled Zhao Yuanhe of China.

Quizon also finished ahead of some of the Phl’s top players like Pascua, Miciano, GM Darwin Laylo and IM Oliver Dimakiling.

Quizon has been making heads turn of late after topping the East Asia Juniors in Gangneung, South Korea to earn the IM title and his first GM norm and was second to countryman IM John Marvin Miciano in the premier 18-under division of the Asian Youth Chess in Chang Mai, Thailand a year back.

He was also unchallenged in his bracket in the last two SEA Youth chess.

Another Filipino, FM Nelson Villanueva, split the point with Vietnamese Pham Thi Thu Hien and edged another Vietnam bet Pham Minh Hieu in tiebreaks to rule the Challenger division.