11-year-old Ethan Vaz of Goa rocked the chess world as he stood joint 3rd along with 5 grandmasters, at the 20th Delhi International Open Grandmaster Chess Tournament 2023, with a fantastic score of 8.5 points in 10 rounds. He finished in 6th place based on Buchholz tie-break score. Contested by 1075 players including 50+ titled players from 17 countries, the tournament is one of the strongest and probably the biggest GM Open tournament.
Ethan made big news in chess circles as the only Under-15 player to break into the Top 20 in the final rankings, and the only non-GM to make it into the Top 10, ahead of many Grandmasters and other titled players. He remained undefeated in the 10-round Swiss-system tournament, with 7 wins and 3 draws including draws with GM Alexei Fedorov (Elo 2477) of Belarus (playing under FIDE flag) and IM Viani Antonio Dcunha (Elo 2386) of India in the 6th and 8th rounds respectively, and finished with a stunning win against GM Stany G A (Elo 2494) in the 10th and final round.
Ethan is the reigning Commonwealth Champion and Gold Medalist at Asian Youth Standard & Blitz Chess Championships in the Under-12 Open category, and has won 15 international medals for India so far.
The GM tournament was organized by Delhi Chess Association under the aegis of AICF and FIDE, from 23rd to 30th March 2023, at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, New Delhi. GM Aravindh Chithambaram of India won the title, while GM Paichadze Luka of Georgia finished 2nd and GM Sethuraman S P of India settled for the 3rd place. Ethan was the only other Indian to make it to the top 10.