Ahmedabad's Hetul Shah selected for world youth chess meet

The New Year gifted Ahmedabad’s Shah family something they will cherish forever. Their son Hetul Shah has been selected for the forthcoming World Youth Chess Championship 2011 to be held in Brazil. The Amdavadi is among three players selected to represent India in the U-12 group.  Hetul is the only player from state who will board a flight to Brazil for the prestigious event starting Nov 17.

Hetul, with an international rating of 1815, was selected on the basis of his silver medal performance last year at the National U-11 championship held in Chennai. Tamil Nadu’s Aravindh Chithambaram had won that competition and will be travelling with Hetul to Barzil. Harshal Shahi of Delhi is the third player in the team. Hetul understands the importance of the tournament and has already started putting in extra effort. “He has taken special holiday from his  school for the last one month. He practices for five-six hours daily, including playing online games with grandmasters and his coach GM Tejas Bakre,” said
Jagrut Shah, Hetul’s father.

It is to be recalled that a couple of years ago, at age of nine Hetul had made history in the first round of the 7th Parsvnath International Open chess tournament defeating Grandmaster Nurlan Ibrayev of Kazakhstan. Hetul broke the Indian record of Parimarjan Negi, who had set the record when he scored over Switzerland's Ivan Nemet in the Biel Masters at the age of 11 years.