Grandmaster John Paul Gomez drew with second seed GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son of Vietnam in the ninth and final round to finish in 8th place of the Joytu Sheikh Hasina International Online Chess Tournament over the weekend.
Gomez actually ended up tied for fourth place with Nguyen and Indian GMs Diptayan Gosh, D Gukesh and R. R. Laxman with 6.5 points apiece but settled for eighth after the tiebreak in this invitational tournament.
Indonesia’s GM Susanto Megaranto captured the title with a superior tiebreak over India’s S. L. Narayanan and Iran’s GM M. Amin Tabatabaei after the three players finished with identical seven points.
Gomez had to claw back from a third-round loss to Indonesian International Master Novendra Priasmoro by scoring 4.5 points in the last six rounds, including wins over Sharon S M of Bangladesh, Ranindi Dilshan Liyanage of Sri Lanka and IM Shakil Abu Sufian of Bangladesh to preserve his spot inside the top 10 circle.
Meanwhile, GM Joey Antonio wound up in 15th place with 5.5 points.
The 58-year-old, many-time national champion was in the thick of things after the first six rounds but sputtered with painful defeats at the hands of Indian GMs S. L. Narayanan and Prasanna V. Vishnu in the seventh and eighth rounds.
Antonio stopped the bleeding by winning his last-round assignment against Choudhury Anata of Bangladesh to salvage some measure of pride.