MARGAO
Chess prodigy of Goa, AIM Ethan Vaz, has 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 in 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). Moving into the final day of the 10-game 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 played commendable chess, but suffered his first and only loss of the tournament in a hard-fought rook-pawn end game in the 9th round. In the final round, CM Yagiz Kaan offered Ethan a 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 defeated the top seed who was rated a mammoth 892 Elo points above him.
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.
