India’s 96th Chess Grandmaster! From the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan to GM at 14: The Ethan Vaz Story

96. India Grandmaster Ethan Vaz NEW DELHI: The exact date was March 11, 2011, when a magnitude 9.1 earthquake and subsequent tsunami damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Three reactor cores melted, leading to the largest release of radioactive material since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. At the time, Linda Fernandes was pregnant with Ethan Vaz.“She was pregnant with Ethan at that time in Tokyo itself when the crisis happened,” Edwin Vaz, Ethan’s father, told TimesofIndia.com during an exclusive interaction from Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Both Edwin and Linda worked as software professionals in Japan. However, after the disaster, their lives changed forever.“Because she was pregnant, we felt there was a health risk. So I brought them to Goa. I went back to Japan to reassess the situation for a few months before I finally decided to go back,” added Edwin.Ethan was born later that year on September 3, 2011.On Saturday, while competing in the “Sarajevo Chess Summer – GM Mix” tournament, Ethan secured his third and final GM norm, becoming India’s 96th Grandmaster (GM) at the age of 14.

The long-awaited realization

It has not been 24 hours since Ethan found his place among the Indian chess elite. For Edwin, the reality of his son’s huge success is still swirling in a blur of celebratory messages.“It hasn’t really sunk in because since he hit the norm, we’ve been frantically trying to answer calls, answer messages,” Edwin said. “We still haven’t been able to have time to ourselves to really get a sense of what actually happened.”The family knew that the last step would require immense patience. Once a player crosses the 2500 Elo mark, finding Grandmaster standards becomes a uniquely difficult task.“We were preparing for the long haul,” Edwin explained. “People try for a grandmaster sometimes for decades and still fall short. There’s never a set path or a set timeline. Once you get over 2500, it’s hard to get a lot of norms. When it comes to open tournaments like this, he’s the top seed… and then he has to play lower because it’s a lot easier to get norms when you’re lower.” However, Ethan handled the milestone with the quiet, understated demeanor typical of a seasoned chess player. When local reporters in Goa sought Ethan’s reaction to becoming India’s newest and the state’s third CEO, the 14-year-old, currently ranked 2522, cut it short.“I asked him what he wanted to say,” Edwin recalled with a laugh. “He said, ‘It’s been a goal of mine since I started playing chess, and I’m happy to have reached the title of grandmaster.'” When Edwin pressed his son to elaborate, Ethan added only one sentence: “I’m going to continue to work on my game and try to achieve my dream of becoming a world champion.”“Those were his two rare sentences. That’s it,” Edwin said with a laugh. “I think chess players don’t talk much. They play on the board. Everything is said on the board with the mouth closed.”Ethan, currently in 10th standard, was originally scheduled to represent India at the FIDE World Youth Chess Championship in Italy.However, a sudden visa delay threatened to derail his plans. Refusing to let the disappointment settle, his parents quickly organized an alternative itinerary to Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, a pivot that paid off spectacularly as Ethan went undefeated with 7 points from 9 rounds to claim the tournament victory in addition to claiming the final title.

When chess replaced cartoons

Ethan was only six and a half years old. At that time, television screens were a great distraction for children. “Ethan and his older brother, Edrick, who was actually born in Japan… both became addicted to cartoons,” Edwin recalled. “We thought maybe it’s better to give them some intellectual activity instead of being in front of the TV.”They enrolled the brothers in a chess academy near their home in South Goa, taught by coach Prakash Vikram Singh.“At the time, we had absolutely no idea that chess was actually a sport that would take you in that direction. We didn’t know there were tournaments; we didn’t know you could only play country, state and stuff like that,” Edwin added.After three months of his training, the academy management suggested to enter Ethan in the Under 7 tournament in North Goa. Edwin was very reluctant to sacrifice three days of work and school for a new hobby. “I wasn’t ready to give three days because we never wanted that,” admitted Edwin.But they went. Ethan placed fifth, narrowly missing out on an automatic top two selection for the state championships.On the advice of his trainer, the family funded a donor entry to be exhibited at Nationals. Ethan, who has so far trained under Singh, GM Swayams Mishera, GM Srinath Narayanan and benefited from various training programs including those conducted by GM RB Ramesh, surprised everyone by finishing in the top 20.“That’s where we first realized it had potential,” Edwin said. “From not wanting to give three days to a tournament in Goa, we ended up putting everything on the back burner, including our startup on the back burner, and ended up kicking his chess career full steam ahead. It was a journey we hadn’t thought of, but a sweet and rewarding one nonetheless.”

The price of a dream

The pursuit of chess excellence quickly changed the family’s lifestyle. When Edwin and Linda moved back to Goa, they started a self-funded IT services company. However, as Ethan’s career accelerated, their professional ambitions had to be balanced with the demands of global travel.The financial weight of a professional chess career also brought lingering anxiety. “We were concerned about finances,” admitted Edwin. “We saved quite a bit of corpus because of course our pension fund and our back-up plan in case our business failed when we came from Japan. When we realized we were using all these savings for Ethan, his career, there was a bit of concern about what the future would bring.”“Chess is mostly like all expenses and no income,” he added. “Even if you win the tournament, you’ve actually spent more to enter the tournament than what the winning actually is.”Fortunately, recent support from Indian donors and sponsors made the journey seem manageable and helped the family move towards financial stability.

Out of system

Credited by the Goa Chess Association and the All India Chess Federation (AICF) for providing an initial competitive platform, Edwin differentiates between basic infrastructure and elite professional development.“The chess infrastructure is there because the AICF is there, and then there are the state associations,” noted Edwin. “The state association organizes these tournaments where we get to know about them. Ethan has won thirty international medals for the country and this is possible thanks to the state association, the AICF and the Sports Authority of Goa. This infrastructure was very essential, especially in the early years.”“But the professional path, where a player aspires to become a professional, is more of a personal struggle,” Edwin clarified.He still has a long way to go to become one of the world’s elite grandmasters. But there’s no doubt in his father’s mind about the path ahead, as he said: “I think we’ll still continue down that career path because that’s where his passion lies.”