Sarmiento places 2nd in Germany chess tournament

David Ray Sarmiento of the Philippines finished in second place at the B division of the Grenke Chess Open 2025 held from April 17 to 21, 2025 at the Kongresszentrum Karlsruhe in Germany.

Sarmiento scored 8.0 points on account of seven wins and two draws, tied for the number two spot with Tim Lehmann of Germany, Daniel Aziz of the Netherlands, Elman Tariverdiyev of Germany and David Tulchynsky of Germany.

The 20-year-old player from Nueva Ecija, however, bagged runner-up honors after the tie-break was applied and pocketed 1,500 euros for the feat.

Joscha Schmitt-Schott of Germany, meanwhile, scored 8.5 points to win the title and the purse of 2,000 euros.

"Even I myself am shocked by my seven-game win streak. I only came there for fun but I ended up getting second Place out of 1,195 in Open B, which I am very happy with," said Sarmiento, a second year nursing student at Caritas Rheine in Lingen, Lower Saxony, Germany.

"I wanted to make it a perfect 9/9 to pull a Bobby Fischer but I got worn out on the last day and ended up drawing the remaining two rounds."

In the first seven games, Sarmiento defeated players from Germany — Fritz Zoellmer, Udo Ploder, Faruk Osmanovic, Florian Gutfeisch, Eugen Pelezki, Serafin Jacob and Daniel Reksten — to take the early lead. He, however, settled for draws against Paul Niebler of Germany in the eighth round and Daniel Aziz of the Netherlands in the final round.

He said he will next compete in the Internationale Unterlände Schachtage from July 31 to August 3 in Heilbronn, Germany.