Chess Prodigy of Goa, AIM Ethan Vaz, made India proud yet again, this time by clinching the Silver Medal at the most prestigious chess tournament – the Super Final, which is the final stage of the FIDE Online Cadets and Youth Rapid World Championship series.
Over 3,000 participants from 160 national federations took part in the World Championship series, which started with the World Cup in August, followed by the Grand Prix in November, and finally culminated in the grand Super Finals this December.
Ethan ended the world championship on a high note, by winning the final game against the World No. 1 Under-10 player CM Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus of Turkey (Elo 2276) who was a mammoth 892 Elo points above him. Moving into the final day of the 10-game double-round-robin tournament, Ethan (who was on 6 points) needed to score at least 1.5 points from the 2 games against the Turk (who was on 7 points) in order to be crowned the World Champion. Ethan got into an advantageous position early on in the first game, but fell short of converting it and sufferred his first and only loss of the tournament, in a hard-fought end game. In the final game, CM Yagiz Kaan, having his title safely under his belt, offered Ethan an early draw, but Ethan declined the offer and went on to register what would be remembered as one of the most memorable wins of his chess career as he caused the biggest upset of the Super Finals by defeating the top seed.
Earning 7 points out of possible 10, with 5 wins and 4 draws, Ethan finished one point behind CM Yagiz Kaan who scored 8 points from 8 wins. In other notable games, Ethan (Elo 1384) caused the upset of second-seed CM Schnaider Ilan of Argentina (Elo 2106) with a score of 1.5-0.5. Ethan, who was seeded 5th amongst the 6 players, played top notch chess and also held Dau Khuong Duy (Elo 1754) of Vietnam to a 1-1 draw, while defeating Sathvik Adiga (Elo 1374) of India 1.5-0.5 and Nguyen Quang Minh (Elo 1423) of Vietnam 2-0.
The best players in the world – three players from the World Cup, two from the Grand Prix series and one highest FIDE rated player – had qualified for the 6-player round-robin Super Final in each of the 10 categories (Open & Girls Under 10, 12, 14, 16, 18). It may be recalled that Ethan had earned the rights to direct entry into the World Cup Super Final by winning the Silver Medal at the World Cup Finals.
The world championship series was organized online by Georgian Chess Federation on behalf of the International Chess Federation (FIDE), from 18th to 22nd Dec, 2021, and the closing ceremony was premiered on the 26th of December.
Media Coverage
Many thanks to Herald Goa, The Goan everyday, The Navhind Times, Pudhari, Lokmat Goa, Tarun Bharat and Times of India for the extensive coverage!
(Click any image to read the newspaper articles as a slideshow)
