Chess Student Spotlight: Zac AKA LeafySnack

Ask any of our online Academy program coaches about their standout students and they'll surely mention Zac Chua, AKA LeafySnack, who represented Canada at the FIDE World Cadets Cup in Batumi, Georgia earlier this year. A member of our Elite Academy, Zac is a frequent competitor in our weekly online tournaments and a formidable opponent in his matches against peers in GM Johan Hellsten's classes.

Zac started with us as a newish tournament player rated in the 800s, and is now closing on a 2000 rating over the board, and is one of the top kids his age in Canada.  During his time with Silver Knights, Zac has enthusiastically done basically every bonus activity along the way, so he's had the chance to learn from a number of instructors. Here's what a few of his past and present coaches had to say about him:

"I helped Zac during the event [the World Cadets Championship]. It was a challenging one but he did pretty well. Interestingly, in the games corresponding to his participation in the main event, White won all the games! No grandmaster draws there, all the games were well fought out.

 

One interesting battle was against the higher rated Kiryl from Russia in round two, where Zac was under some slight pressure but found a central pawn break to create counterplay with the team of queen and knight, which later translated into a decisive attack on the opponent's king.

Another exciting game was against his higher rated (Canadian) compatriot Barath in the 7th round, where Zac first had to ward off the opponent's attack, which looked quite worrisome for him, and then basically out of nothing managed to conjure an attack on their king using a queen and bishop." - GM Johan Hellsten

 

"Yesterday, I asked him why he used the London system so many times in the tournament he played and he said he wanted to bore his opponent to beat him! 'London: boring to beat any opponent!' Just like GM Ding Liren uses it to beat GM Ian Nepomniachtchi." - FM Gustavo Cadena

 

 

"Zac (Leafy) is a regular at my broadcast lessons. When he was away for a tournament in Georgia, I encouraged the kids to send him good luck messages via his Chess.com account. One of the kids typed in the chat: 'Type H if you wish Leafy was here' and it really blew up the Chessable chat. I don't understand why 'H' was chosen, but there was a goofy outpouring of online love. I don't recall a similar show of online support for a student." - Coach Luke

 

"He is truly amazing! One of the greatest students I've ever had. He is just as well mannered as he is a great chess player. He also has the fluffiest cat I've ever seen." - IM/WFM Dorsa Derakhshani

Zac got to meet a bunch of coaches and other Silver Knights students from all over at a tournament last year too!

We sat down with Zac to discuss his experience playing in the Cadets, the origins of his famous username, the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, and more. 

Our Conversation With Zac

Playing in the FIDE World Cadets Chess Championship

Silver Knights: How was the tournament in Georgia?

Zac Chua: I really enjoyed it. It was a really strong tournament with lots of well-prepared players, so every day I had to double check my repertoire, look them up on different databases. It was a really tough struggle, I think. I really enjoyed it and I got to make new friends from around the world.

SK: Cool! How did you qualify? I know how it works in the US, but I don’t know how it works in Canada.

ZC: I’m not really sure. I was invited by (the Chess Federation of Canada).

SK: It’s not like a local tournament where the people are just kind of random, or the kids who are there are just kind of people who like chess. Anyone who goes there [to the World Cup] is really into chess and is pretty serious and has done well in a bunch of tournaments.

ZC: Yeah.

SK: What was your most exciting game?

ZC: It’s really hard for me because I’d have to pick between my second or seventh round game. My seventh round game was against my compatriot. I squeezed him. It was drawn and then he blundered and allowed me to take a file. But in my second game, I made a weird decision to have a queen for two rooks, so I’m not sure. I think my second game was my favorite.

SK: I saw that it was a little bit funny–you flew around the world and played two other Canadians there.

ZC: Yeah, it became the Canadian Cup.

SK: Had you ever gone on a trip like that before? I assume it was pretty unfamiliar. Was it easy to get around? I assume you don’t speak Georgian.

ZC: I learned a little bit, just "gamarjoba," which is "hi,"  "madloba," which is "thanks," and "nakhvamdis," "bye." So I just used those. The locals were really happy with it. But yeah, it was my first time on a trip like this. I’d never gone on an 11 hour flight before, and this is the farthest that I’ve gone, so it was really exciting for me. I really enjoyed it.

SK: Anything else that was interesting about the tournament?

ZC: There were some side events. There was a puzzle solving competition, but the results didn’t come out so I don’t really know how I did there. There were two on game studies, three mate in twos and three mate in threes.

SK: I assume these are the mate in twos where you’re like, “Oh, it’s just a mate in two,” and then you’re like, “Oh, this is an impossibly hard mate in two.”

ZC: Yeah. No remove the guard tactics or anything.

Zac's Chess Origin Story

SK: How did you get started playing chess?

ZC: When I was 4 years old, my dad went to this convenience store and got a game set that had backgammon, Chinese checkers, checkers, chess, and others, and I learned chess–kind of–and played for about a year with the dark square on the right, with h1 being a dark square. [laughter] 

So that’s when I started. Then I started watching Agadmator’s YouTube channel and found his comments really funny and really started to get to know the tactics better. Then I got a few apps like the Play Magnus app, which really helped me a lot. I learned tactics. My strength then was like 700, so I joined my first OTB [over-the-board] tournament in October 2021, and for a few tournaments it wasn’t going great, and then I joined SKCA and [gestures to show his rating soaring upwards]  …yeah. 

SK: When you say they weren’t going great, did you like, lose all your games? Did you lose most of them?

ZC: I lost most of them. I’d typically only win one game, typically in the second round, and then everything else, just… zero.

SK: Was it discouraging? Would you get sad?

ZC: Not really. Back then, the first tournament, I really did not like losing a lot. I expected to do better because I thought, “Oh, I know a lot.” And then it’s like, “OK, chess obviously isn’t that simple. There’s a lot more to it.” It made me sad at first, but then it made me happy because I realized that there’s so much to explore in chess. There’s so much you can do. It’s such an open game. It made me more interested in it and I just kept going. 

SK: Do you remember who the first coaches you worked with at Silver Knights were?

ZC: I think my first coach was Coach Uthra in one of the camps.

SK: That's funny, because I feel like at this point you’ve done so much stuff with us that you’ve done stuff with all the coaches. Me [Daniel], Uthra, Dorsa, Adarsh, probably Gustavo, Luke…

ZC: I even had one lesson with Coach Sid I think, one of the book clubs.

SK: Where did the nickname LeafySnack come from?

ZC: OK, so the lore is really crazy here. I didn’t really attend bonus classes a lot before–I just attended the weekly Kings classes–and it was one of the Wednesday ones before the Grand Prix got moved to Thursdays, and I was munching on a nice salad. It was like five minutes before the tournament and I had no idea what I was going to name my Lichess account. Then I was like, “OK, salad. There’s a salad there. What’s in salad? Leaves. I like salads as a snack, so let’s go with LeafySnack.”

SK: I’ll take it. I always wondered because that didn’t seem like it was one of the randomly generated ChessKid usernames or something. So you were just eating a salad and were like, “Oh, I need a name now!”

ZC: [nods]

SK: I’ve been curious about that for a long time.

Zac's Chess Favorites

SK: What's your favorite thing about playing chess?

ZC: The thrill. The expectation. The endgame–you just compute everything. It’s really straightforward. But the middlegame is my favorite spot. It’s so shrouded in mystery with all the different tactics and positional ideas.

SK: Who's your favorite chess player?

ZC: Ok, so there’s an interview where I said Gukesh. Obviously, Gukesh is pretty good. I think maybe Gukesh or Magnus [Carlsen]. They’re probably the top two these days.

SK: I don’t remember if I put this in the email to your mom, but the way we found out you were in that tournament is that Gustavo said he was looking at one of FIDE’s videos about the tournament and was like, “Wait a second, is that Zac?” and it was the video where you said Gukesh is your favorite. He shared it and I looked and was like, “Oh yeah, it looks like Zac is playing. Cool! I should ask him how it’s going.” Gukesh and Magnus are strong choices.

SK: What’s your favorite chess book?

ZC: I think the first one that got me started isn’t really well known. It’s called “How To Become a Candidate Master” by Alex Dunne. It got me started playing the Sicilian. Also Johan Hellsten’s series is really strong. I learned a lot of ideas from that. 

SK: You’re in Johan’s classes now, right?

ZC: Yes

SK: What’s your favorite opening?

ZC: I have a lot of favorite openings, so I don’t actually have one. I just play whatever I feel like.

SK: OK. Do you start different games in different ways?

ZC: Yes, most of the time, actually. Sometimes I just look up openings and am like, “OK, I’ll challenge myself to do this.” I ignore the theory and just try to operate on principles.

Lessons Learned at Silver Knights

SK: What's your favorite thing you've learned from coach Johan?

ZC: Lifeline is a really cool tactic that’s not talked about that much. It’s when your piece is under attack but you have another piece, or the same piece, that attacks a hanging piece of your opponent’s and allows you to save it. I think it’s a sub-intermediate move.

SK: Interesting. I haven’t heard that terminology before but I know the idea. What’s your favorite thing you’ve learned from one of the other kids in the class?

ZC: Ooh. There’s this guy who always plays 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nd7 Nf3 5. Ngf6 Ng5 6. h6 and then goes Nxf7. That guy keeps me on my toes, always tries to hit the light squares, so maybe how to defend by trading?

SK: That’s not sound, is it?

ZC: I don’t think it is. He just goes for it every time for some reason and then almost gets me.

Interests Beyond the Board

SK: What do you like to do besides chess?

ZC: I play basketball. I used to play tennis, but the class times would interfere with my SKCA lessons, so I don’t do tennis consistently. I also do piano. I really like piano. And I have a cat named Mina.

SK: Is Mina tied to the piano?

ZC: No, but sometimes she plays the piano somehow. 

SK: What’s your favorite non-chess book?

ZC: This is a hard one. Maybe “The Hobbit.”

SK: That over “The Lord of the Rings?”

ZC: It’s tough for me. I feel like I like “The Hobbit” just a bit more because it’s not that… dense? I’m not sure. I think that’s the term for it. Because Lord of the Rings, it feels like there’s a lot of lore and such, like if you’re going to read “The Lord of the Rings” you should also read “The Silmarillion” so you know the backstory of some characters. 

SK: You don’t have to read "The Silmarillion". [laughs] But I do know what you mean. "The Hobbit" is definitely not as dense, it’s not quite as complicated, it’s a little more readable. 

ZC: True.

SK: What do you want to do when you grow up?

ZC: I wanna hit World Champion and I want to be good at other things like basketball, maybe banking, or writing books.

SK: Some sort of grown up job that you’ll figure out later?

ZC: Yeah.