Chess State Championship

Yesterday Ethan competed in the State Chess Championship for Elementary schools at the University of Utah. It was an all day ordeal. Dave and Ethan left around 7:30 am and I met up with them around 3:30 pm and got home around 6 pm (we left early; the award ceremony was still going on). Ethan did remarkably well. He went into the competition with a rating of 291. It is expected that first graders be in the hundreds, but after his first tournament last month he was able to earn a higher rating. He was very excited about this championship and practiced quite a bit. All of his opponents were rated much higher than him but he won the first round, lost the second round, won the third and fourth rounds, had a draw on the fifth round and won the sixth round. He had a total of 4.5 point, the highest out of all the competitors representing his school. After a long wait, all the names called started with 20th. At this point I was ready to bite my finger nails, very anxious to find out what he had achieved. Then they called “Ethan Christensen in………………..fourth place! I really could not believe it. He had managed to get fourth place out of the whole state! We are very proud of him and he cannot believe the size of trophy he got. It is a monster trophy, huge! He has admired it so much that he has poked his eye twice with it. He also tells everyone that his trophy is bigger than any trophy his dad has. Heidi was not too happy and said “I am not happy because I did not get anything!” so Ethan let her hold the trophy and get a picture taken.