If human beings have one virtue, it is the constant capacity for personal improvement. Set a goal, plan how to get there and embark on your search. No guarantee of getting it, but not afraid to try. Conscientiously, with preparation and with a lot of courage. Faustino Oro He is 10 years, 8 months and 10 days old, with a small body, a look that lacerates his rivals behind his glasses and an enviable competitive temperament. He is a chess genius in a small package. And, above all things, he is brave and loves this game that little by little he turns into art. That is why starting this Tuesday it will be launched again the adventure of becoming the youngest international master in history.
In it Madrid Chess Festivalnine days ago, came within half a point of that feat for the books: it was third and undefeated with 5 units on 9 wheels, when he needed 5.5 to surpass the American Abhimanyu Mishrawho was an international teacher at 10 years, 9 months and 3 days.
Fausti You have until July 16 to beat that record. Nobody rushes it. Neither his coaches nor, above all, father Alejandro and mother Romina, mainly interested in his daily development, without logically ignoring the gift of his son. It is Faustino himself who wants more.
“I wanted him to rest, but he wants to play. It will be difficult, because there will be many boys on the rise, but here it goes Fausti to try to achieve one more feat,” explains Alejandro Oro to Clarion from Badalona.
The family has lived in that Catalan city since at the end of last year they decided to quit their jobs as accountants in top companies in the country to move to Spain, the nerve center of chess tournaments conducive to Faustino’s progress.
From this Tuesday, June 25 to Sunday the 30th, the Argentine prodigy will compete in a closed tournament in Barcelona against a grandmaster, two international masters and six FIDE masters like him.
By the average ELO of the tournament, Fausti will need to add 6.5 points in 9 rounds to achieve the third and final international master standard and obtain that title. The mission will be complicated, because he would reach that figure with four wins and five draws. And nobody gives anything away on the board.
In the double day this Tuesday, at 5 and 11:30, the Argentine with 2,351 ELO points will begin his journey with white against the Spanish grandmaster Hipólito Asís Gargatagli (2472) and with black against the Spanish MF Carles Martin Barcelo (2234).
On Wednesday he will face the French MF Samuel Malka (2211), on Thursday against the Spanish MF Guerau Masague Artero (2345) and the Colombian MI Cristian Andrés Hernández (2350), on Friday he will play against the 13-year-old Spanish MF Alex Villa Tornero (2321), on Saturday there will be another double day against the MF category 2010 Xavier Mompel Ferruz (Equatorial Guinea, 2279) and the Spanish MF César Alcalá González (2274), and on Sunday it will close against the Chilean IM Fernando Valenzuela Gómez (2358).
A kid on a roll
Faustino Oro He hasn’t lost for 79 days a chess game at a classic or “thought” rhythm, in which each player begins with an hour and a half on the clock, to which 30 seconds are added per move made.
It was last April 6, the last day on which the Argentine stretched out his right arm as a sign of abandonment: he did so with the black pieces before the Cuban international master. Ernesto Fernandez Guillénin the seventh wheel of III Open International Chess Menorca.
Since that day accumulates an undefeated record of 22 games at a classic pace, with eight wins and 14 draws. The streak began in that tournament on one of the Balearic Islands, where he won in the eighth round and tied in the last. From May 24 to June 2, he had a monumental performance in it Medellin Continentalwhere was eighth and undefeated and achieved his second international master standard with 8.5 in 11, due to six wins and five draws. And from June 10 to 15 he finished third and undefeated with 5 in 9 (one win and 8 draws) in the aforementioned Madrid Chess Festival.
What was he up to? Fausti since that tournament? In his daily life as a family, training and – when not – playing games on-line at dizzying rhythms, those that he loves and in which he shows amazing suddenness and instinct.
on the platform Chess.com He had two incredible achievements. First he surpassed 3,000 ELO points in rhythm “blitz” (three minutes per player, plus two seconds per move) and was in the top 70 on that platform. And on Saturday the 22nd of this month he finished ninth in the Bullet Brawlwith one-minute games like the one he won against the Norwegian in March Magnus Carlsennumber one in the ranking for 13 years and king of world chess.
Faustino Oro, the boy who learned to play chess in a pandemic, another adventure on the board begins now. It is insisted: he is not “the Messi of chess”, as he is sold in marketing with a certain danger due to the pressure that he entails. He is a genius of 10 years, 8 months and 10 days. And, above all, a chess enthusiast who goes to the front with talent and courage.
