Goan chess sensation AIM Ethan Vaz has assured a medal for India at the World Cup 2021 Finals tournament by overcoming Yurasov Matfey of Russia in the semi-finals and securing his spot in the finals.
After an easy win in the first rapid game against the Russian’s Monte Carlo Variation of the French Defense, Ethan needed just a draw from an advantageous position in the second game to get himself through to the finals in straight games, but lost the game in an unexpected turn of events, thereby setting up the stage for an Armageddon tie-break game.
Matfey won the toss for the decider and chose to be white, with a time advantage of 5 minutes versus 4 minutes for Ethan with the black pieces, in the sudden-death game with zero time increment. Ethan, with the advantage of needing just a draw with the black pieces to register a win, played impressive blitz chess after his opponent tried to take him off guard with an unexpected Tarrasch opening. Matfey soon lost his time advantage as Ethan got into an advantageous position, but it could have been anybody’s game as Ethan too quickly lost time while trying to manoeuvre his way into checkmating his opponent. With just 5 seconds remaining on Ethan’s clock and the opponent having 18 seconds in hand, all hopes seemed to have been lost for Ethan despite being in a totally winning position. In a nail-biting finish that had the viewers of the live broadcast on the edge of their seats, Ethan did magic as he pre-moved his way using just 2 more seconds for the remaining moves while the opponent got flagged (lost on time) and Ethan won with 3 seconds to spare.
Already assured of a medal, Ethan (Elo 1384) will now aim for Gold against top seed CM Erdogmus Yagiz Kaan of Turkey (Elo 2150) in a bid to become the World Champion (Under-10).