Avyaay Garg of Aditya Birla World Academy (Tardeo), who finished second (seven points) behind Singapore's Lim Shee Hun Magnus (7.5 points) at the recently-concluded Singapore Open Chess Championships in the U-8 category, considers the silver medal special, despite the result not being the one he hoped to settle for.

The Class 3 student has achieved quite a bit in his short one-year journey in chess. Last year, he became amongst the youngest player aged seven to get FIDE's ELO rating. He has participated in many state and national events and also represented India at U-8 world cadet championship in Georgia last September. "I feel a bit sad that I could not come home with gold and had to settle for silver. This [second-place finish] though is special considering that it is my first international medal and also it has just been a year since I started playing chess. Also, the second-place finish aspires me to go back next time when it is conducted and win gold," said Avyaay (ELO rating 1242), who finished second in the four-day tournament which had 500 participants from Brazil, China, Germany, Malaysia, Vietnam, Hong Kong and the United States.