Daniel Quizon wound up sixth overall at the close of the star-studded 30th Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival over the weekend in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

After the dust settled, Quizon, 20, actually ended up tied for first place along with five others with seven points each on the strength of his 51-move win over tenth-seed Grandmaster Sunilduth Lyna Narayana.

But after the tiebreak scores were completed, Qiuzon dropped to sixth behind Uzbek GM Nodirbek Yakubboev snatching top honors while GM David Paravyan of Fide and another Uzbek GM, Shamsiddin Vokhidov completing the podium finishers.

Indian GM Leon Luke Mendonca and top seed Iranian GM M. Amin Tabatabaei ended up fourth and fifth, respectively.

Still, the feeling was the same as winning first place for Quizon as he ended up with an impressive performance rating of 2749 that earned him a whopping 33.3 rating points and sent his own rating leapfrogging to 2490.3 from 2457, or just less than 10 points away from breaching the 2500 plateau and earning the GM title outright.

Quizon also earned a GM result but he doesn’t need one as he already has the required three.

All Quizon needs to do is reach 2500, which he could accomplish in the 45th World Chess Olympiad slated 10 to 22 September in Budapest, Hungary.

“I will try to reach 2500 there in the Olympiad,” said Quizon, who met seven GMs in Abu Dhabi and beat four of them against two defeats.

The National Chess Federation of the Philippines also praised Quizon for his strong showing.

“Congratulations to him. NCFP chairman/president Cong. (Butch) Pichay is really delighted with his performance, very impressive,” said NCFP chief executive officer and national coach GM Jayson Gonzales.

“Hopefully, he gets to do the same thing in the Olympiad,” he added.