Panaji: Ethan Vaz secured his third and final norm at the Chess Summer in Sarajevo–GM Mix tournament in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, to become Goa’s third Grandmaster at just 14 years of age.Anurag Mhamal was the first from the state to become a GM, followed by Leon Mendonca. Ethan, who hails from Raia in Salcete, is now India’s 96th GM and currently the youngest at 14 years nine months and 27 days.Ethan is second only behind the brilliant Faustino Oro, often hailed as the ‘Messi of Chess’, as the youngest GM currently in the world.“Being a Grandmaster has been my goal since the time I started playing chess, and I am glad to have achieved the title,” said Ethan. “I will continue to work on my game and try to achieve my dream of becoming the world champion.”GM is the highest title in chess. A player needs to attain a ranking of 2500 ELO points and earn three norms. A norm is a strong performance in a classical tournament where a player faces a minimum of three GMs from different federations.Going into the last three matches at the Chess Summer in Sarajevo–GM Mix tournament, Ethan needed 2.5 points to earn his last norm. He remained unbeaten to earn seven points from nine rounds. He drew with GM Sharivazdanov Andrey (2472) of Serbia in the fourth, got the better of GM Bernadskiv Vitaliv (2511) of Ukraine in the seventh and settled for a draw against GM Kovchan Alexander (2444) in the final round.Remarkably, all three of Ethan’s GM norms were earned while winning international Grandmaster tournaments, a notable achievement that underlines his strength and consistency.His first came at the GM 4 Festival Saha tournament, Bijeljina, Bosnia, in October last year. The second was achieved at the GM Mix 11 Fantastico tournament in Serbia in January.Ethan’s achievement carries additional significance under FIDE’s revised Grandmaster regulations, introduced in June 2022, which require every aspiring Grandmaster to earn at least one GM norm in an individual Swiss tournament, making the title more demanding to achieve than under the previous regulations.Ethan’s rise in chess has been meteoric. There was never any doubt he would become a GM; the only question was how quickly he could get to the top. The young lad earned his first norm in October last year. A month later, he crossed the 2500-mark and by January this year, bagged his second.He was set to become GM in the next couple of months but had to wait till June due to circumstances beyond his control.“The US-Iran war broke out and we had to cancel participating in many tournaments we had planned,” said his father Edwin.Ethan’s parents introduced him to chess so that he did not get addicted to television. The youngster took to the game like fish to water.Ethan participated in the Goa State Championship within a few months of being coached in 2018. The Raia resident went on to play Nationals immediately and finished 13 in his age group.The King’s School student raced past the Fide Masters title in 2023. It was a phenomenal run. Within the next six months, Ethan secured the International Masters title in 2024.His father, a software engineer, had to rely on sponsors, generous donors and crowd funding to take care of mounting expenses of travelling to Europe for high-level tournaments.“If you look at Ethan’s chess journey, we couldn’t have done it without Geno, sponsors and other donors. We are grateful to them. We had to play in Europe to get norms for all titles. So, we had to seek sponsors. India didn’t have many tournaments where we could get norms due to high participation and Ethan had to play lower-ranked players,” said Edwin, who acknowledged the contribution of Ethan’s grandparents — late Sebastiao and late Luiza Vaz, and Mariano & Eliza Fernandes – for their role in his successful journey.
