Darwin Laylo is a Filipino

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

 chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 Grandmaster.

Laylo won the Philippine national championship

Philippine Chess Championship

-External links:* * *...

 in 2004 and 2006. These wins earned him a place on the Philippine Chess Olympiad

Chess Olympiad

The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams from all over the world compete against each other. The event is organised by FIDE, which selects the host nation.-Birth of the Olympiad:The first Olympiad was unofficial...

 teams in the 2004 Calvià Olympiad

36th Chess Olympiad

The 36th Chess Olympiad, organized by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between October 14 and October 31, 2004, in Calvià on the Spanish island of Majorca.-Chess...

 and in 2006 at Turin

37th Chess Olympiad

The 37th Chess Olympiad, comprising an open and women's tournament and the general assembly of the Fédération Internationale des Échecs , took place between 20 May and 6 June 2006, in Turin, Italy.-Open tournament:...

.

In 2006 he picked up two GM norms

Grandmaster norm

A norm in chess is one of the requirements to receive a title such as Grandmaster from FIDE.- Grandmaster norm :In order to qualify for the title of Grandmaster of chess, a title awarded by FIDE, the World Chess Federation, a player must achieve three or more grandmaster norms in events covering a...

, the first from the 2006 Malaysian Open, and the second at the 2006 Bad Wiesse tournament in Germany. His third and final norm came in the 2007 Asian Chess Championship in Cebu, Philippines.

As of October 2007, Darwin's Elo rating achieved its peak by posting 2508 which placed him as the fourth strongest chess player in the Philippines.

Laylo placed in the top ten of the 2007 Asian Chess Championship

Asian Chess Championship

The 2007 championship was a FIDE Zone 3 qualification event for the 2007 Chess World Cup, the next stage in the 2009 World Chess Championship. Ten players were qualified for the 2007 World Cup: Zhang Pengxiang , Wang Hao , Abhijit Kunte , Zhao Jun , Susanto Megaranto , Wen Yang , Darwin Laylo ,...

 held in Cebu, Philippines, earning a place 2007 World Chess Cup

Chess World Cup 2007

The Chess World Cup 2007 served as a qualification tournament for the World Chess Championship 2009. It was held as a 128-player single-elimination tournament, between 24 November and 16 December 2007, in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia....

, November, 2007, in Khanty-Mansiysk

Khanty-Mansiysk

Khanty-Mansiysk experiences a subarctic climate . The climate is extreme, with temperatures as low as -49 C° and as high as 34.5 C°. On average, however, the region is very cold, with an average tempurature of -1.1 C°...

, Russia. Seeded 113th out of 128 participants, Laylo was eliminated in the first round match 1½–½ by Étienne Bacrot

Étienne Bacrot

Étienne Bacrot is a French chess grandmaster and currently ranked number one in France.He started playing at 4; by 10 young Bacrot was already winning junior competitions and in 1996, at 13 years of age, he won against Vasily Smyslov...

 (France, rated 2696).

In 2008, he tied for 3rd-7th with Ashot Nadanian

Ashot Nadanian

Ashot Nadanian is an Armenian chess International Master , chess theoretician and chess coach....

, Marat Dzhumaev

Marat Dzhumaev

Marat Dzhumaev is an Uzbekistani chess Grandmaster .Played for Uzbekistan in the Chess Olympiads of 2000 and 2002, in the World Team Chess Championship of 2001 and in the Asian Team Chess Championships of 1999, 2003 and 2008...

, Dražen Sermek

Dražen Sermek

Dražen Sermek is a Slovene chess player.Sermek won the Slovenian Chess Championship in 1993 and 1998 and was a member of Slovenia Olympic team in 1994, 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006.In 2001 he came first in the Pula Open...

 and Susanto Megaranto

Susanto Megaranto

Susanto Megaranto is an Indonesian chess Grandmaster.He became the youngest Indonesian GM ever at 17, beating out Utut Adianto's record by four years....

 in the 5th Dato' Arthur Tan Malaysia Open Championship in Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the second largest city in Malaysia by population. The city proper, making up an area of , has a population of 1.4 million as of 2010. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million...

. In 2009, he came first in the Zonal tournament in Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh

Hồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...

.

External links