There is still gas left in the tank for possibly one last shot at World Chess Olympiad glory for Filipino Grandmaster Oliver Barbosa.
And Philippine chess should notice after the 39-year-old Barbosa finished a strong fourth in the ultra-competitive 14th New York International at the Marshall Chess Club 23 West in 10th Street Wednesday.
Barbosa, who hails from Pasig but is now based in New York, bested countryman GM Mark Paragua in the ninth and final round and ended up with an undefeated score of 6.5 points on four wins and five draws in the tournament that drew 70 participants, including 13 GMs.
One of those GMs was Safal Bora, who edged fellow American GM David Brodsky via tiebreak to rule the meet after the two amassed seven points apiece.
Barbosa actually wound up tied for No. 3 with Indian GM Karthik Venkataraman and Ukrainian GM Oleksii Bilych but the former settled at No. 4 and the latter two at No. 3 and No. 5, respectively, after tiebreaks were applied.
Apart from Paragua, Barbosa also caught a GM in fifth seed Praneeth Vuppala of India and split the points with top seed Venkataraman, eighth seed GM Mackenzie Molner of the US and fourth pick GM Labit Babu of India.
The effort could be a statement that he is still capable of suiting up for the Nationals in this September’s Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
The last time he did came 14 years ago in Istanbul, Turkey where he manned second board and scored seven out of 11 on five wins and four draws against two defeats.
Paragua, also an Olympiad veteran, did well too and scored 5.5 in the first seven rounds before dropping his last two and ended up 17th overall.
The National Chess Federation of the Philippines has two more men’s slots left, with one reportedly going to another US-based player in GM Inno Sadorra, who played top board for the Nationals in Budapest, Hungary two years ago and did well there.
International Master Jem Garcia, GM Darwin Laylo and IM Michael Concio Jr. took the first three slots after finishing in the top three in the Battle of the GMs last month.
The last one could go to anyone.
But there is hope it could land on Barbosa.