Check mate

Today was Ethan's first chess tournament of the year. For this particular tournament a varsity group was created formed by the highest ranked players who would play each other regardless of grade. Well, Ethan happens to be ranked very high and was put into this group so I explained to him that if he agreed to be part of the varsity group he would play against the best players the other school had and would most likely loose most rounds. He agreed and was very excited for today's tournament. He played against two fifth graders and one sixth grader (she won first place at the tournament) and lost every round. He was upset and disappointed. To add insult to injury, they forgot to announce that varsity players would get their awards at the end and not with their grade level. So when second graders were called, Ethan went up and was the only one whose name was not called and remained sited on the floor without any mention, any medal or trophy. I then found out that he was the only second grader in the varsity group. Needless to say, he was very upset. When the varsity group got called up they were received with a warm round of applause and were cheered on (there were some in tears after each round so I was pleased Ethan had held up so well) and were reminded they were the best players each school had so regardless of their standing in this tournament it was an honor to be part of varsity, blah, blah, blah…. They found out after the last round was played that there was a glitch in the system and there were errors in doing the pair ups, which meant that many of the players (Ethan being one of them) played harder players than they should have played against. He did get a trophy and was much happier after he received it.