International Master Daniel Quizon kept his stranglehold of the solo lead while Woman Grandmaster remained on course on making the Olympiad-bound men’s chess team as the Philippine National Chess Championship approaches its final windup at the Marikina Community Convention Center Thursday night, Jan. 4.

Quizon, 19, outclassed John Jerish Velarde with a 26-move win of his pet Benoni to remain unflappable on top with 7.5 points, or a full point ahead of the field including a three-player cast at No. 2 spearheaded by Frayna after nine rounds of this 13-round event presented by Marikina City Congresswoman Maan Teodoro and Mayor Marcy Teodoro.

Frayna, the country’s first and only WGM, fought IM Paulo Bersamina to a 39-move standoff of a Reti Opening that sent her crashing from solo second to a share of it with IM Jan Emmanuel Garcia and GM John Paul Gomez with 6.5 points apiece.

Garcia smashed GM Joey Antonio in 40 moves of an English Opening while Gomez trounced IM Barlo Nadera’s Torre Attack in 56 moves to catch up on Frayna at No. 2.

Frayna, who has been manning the top board for the women’s team in many Olympiad editions now, took solo No. 2 after a crushing win over Vince Angelo Medina in the eighth round early in the day but eventually couldn’t hold onto it.

The Army woman from Legazpi, however, stayed in the hunt of becoming the first woman in the men’s national tilt and also the first female to make it to the male’s Olympiad team.

The tournament, which is backed by Marikina City, NCFP chairman president Prospero Pichay, Jr., POC president Abraham Tolentino, PSC chair Richard Bachmann, the Eugene Torre Chess Foundation and Pan de Amerikana’s Jundio Salvador, is staking three slots to the biennial event set in September in Budapest, Hungary apart from the P120,000 top purse.