MARGAO
Goa's Ethan Vaz won a bronze at the National Amateur Chess Championships 2022 at Jaipur, Rajasthan.
The 10-year-old AIM continued his top form to score yet another national podium finish, winning bronze in the Under-2000 Open section of the Amateur Nationals. Facing nine rated players, Ethan (Elo 1792) lost only to the eventual gold and silver medalists, 33-year-old Pradeep Tiwari (Elo 1865) of special unit DASCB and Apoorv Kamble (Elo 1846) of Karnataka respectively. He drew against Chandrasekhar M K (Elo 1725) of DASCB, and won against all other opponents, including an upset win over Stanley Samson P (Elo 1910) of Tamil Nadu.
By virtue of the podium finish at the Nationals, Ethan is amongst the youngest to have been officially selected to represent India at the Asian and World Amateur Chess Championships. The National Amateur Chess Championships are contested by the young and old alike, and are held based on Elo rating, viz Under-1700, Under-2000 and Under-2300 Elo, in Open and Girls categories respectively.
Ethan's brother, AFM Edrick Vaz (Elo 1269), who contested in the Under-1700 Open section, also played commendable chess, scoring 7 points of possible 9 to secure the joint 7th place and finish 15th on tie-break, narrowly missing a spot in the Top 10 prize list. At 13 years of age, Edrick is the youngest as well as the lowest rated to break into the top 15 amongst 268 players in the Under-1700 Open section.
In what was a noteworthy performance, Edrick upset Gaurav Kathuria (Elo 1521) of Haryana, Kuldeep (Elo 1617) of UP, and AFM Narayan Joshi (Elo 1539) of Rajasthan in the final three rounds, adding a handsome 96 Elo points to his FIDE Rating and also qualifying to participate in the Asian and World Amateur Chess Championships as a special entry.
