16-year old Jack Mizzi, who is the current Junior Champion (U20) has just participated in the ESNA Chess Championships held in Liechtenstein. The other participating small nations were Andorra, Cyprus, Faroes Islands, Guernsey, Jersey, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco and San Marino.

The championship held bi-annually had 2 Grand Masters (Andorra and Monaco), 1 International Master (Luxembourg), 2 Fide Masters (Cyprus and San Marino) and a Candidate Master (Guernsey).

Jack, who was the youngest and lowest rated player (1863) in the competition had a perfect start beating IM Fred (2300) and FM Michaelides (2304) in the first two rounds. In round 3, Jack lost against GM Henderson from Andorra – the highest rated (2504) and tournament favourite. He then proceeded to beat FM Volpinari (San Marino), Carpenter (Jersey) and was in joint second place by the fifth round.

Round 6 saw the direct clash between the most in-form players of the tournament – Jack against Apol (Faroes Islands) who had won all his games. The clash saw Jack lose his second game. This was followed by another defeat by Monaco’s GM Efimov in round 7.
Jack went back to winning ways by beat Frick (Liechtenstein) and drawing his last round against CM Kirby (Guernsey).

Jack’s performance rating of 2234 was an excellent result and he is expected to gain over 140 rating points which is considered to be rare and impressive. Jack is currently part of Malta Olympic’s Committee Youth Development Scheme and has participated in the Chess Olympiads held in Chennai, India and has represented Malta numerous times as a Junior.

The tournament was won by GM Henderson followed by GM Efimov and Apol.

Full details of tournament can be found https://chess-results.com/tnr675539.aspx?lan=1&art=4