Congratulations are due to Zalan Nemeth, who recorded two IM norms within the span of the past few weeks, at the SixDays Budapest IM-C January 2025 and the 1st EUTender Sinus Sárkány IM 2025.
Each was structured as a ten-player all-play-all, and Zalan finished clear first in each.
His games have been added to the archive here, though not yet the index: see the sundry files 2025-02 collection.
His norms have been added to the Norms page here. In the process, I noticed that I had not recorded his FM title, for which I had seen no announcements. He has not reached 2300 in any published FIDE list, but as far a I can see, he reached a live rating of 2303.2 on March 12, 2023 by winning his game against IM Viktor Varádi in the Hungarian team league 2022-23 (see the Norms page for details of the calculations). The FM title appeared in the May 2023 list.
Here is a crucial ending from his first norm.
44… ?
The diagram shows his fifth round game against IM, and top seed, Áron Pásti (Black), with Pásti to move. Though White is not as badly placed as might appear at first glance—engines give Black a half-pawn advantage only—it looks as if White is “playing for two results”.
52… ?
Eight moves later the second diagrammed position was reached, and now it’s all much more uncomfortable for Black. It seems that 52… Kb8 is enough to hold the balance, but Black chose 52… f5. This should also be fine, but after the reply 53. e5, he had to find the only move 53… f4!, which holds the balance. Instead he played 53… g5?, and after 54. f4! (not 54. hxg5?? f4 and Black wins) he was lost.