Filipino chess prodigy Nika Juris Nicolas placed second in the Under-2000 Prague Open 2025 23rd International Chess Festival in Czech Republic.<\/p>\n
The 12-year-old mini-grandmaster scored seven points on six wins and two draws against a lone setback, while Greek Spyridon Ilandzis scored 7.5 points and placed first. <\/p>\n
Nicolas also emerged as the best female player and No. 1 in the 1600-1699 rating category. <\/p>\n
\u201cNika is the most hardworking, and determined student I ever handled. You truly deserve these awards, Nika!\u201d said Woman Grandmaster Janelle Mae Frayna on her social media post.<\/p>\n
\u201cCongratulations too to her parents, Atty. Nikki, and Atty, Carlo! Without your support all of these will not be possible,\u201d Frayna added, giving credits to GM Jayson Gonzales and Nicolas\u2019 other mentors as well.<\/p>\n
Nicolas\u2019 mother, Atty. Nikki de Vega, also took to social media her thoughts on her daughter\u2019s milestone and routine in Europe.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs you can see, her schedule is very tight. It requires great discipline to adhere to such rigorous schedule. I am proud to say that Baby Nika has turned out to be a disciplined, dedicated and hardworking athlete,\u201d de Vega expressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cPinaghihirapan ang pangarap. So, I am truly grateful that Baby Nika is growing as a mature athlete. She now understands the sacrifices she has to endure and the unusual life she has to lead to chase her extraordinary dream,\u201d de Veda added.<\/p>\n
Nicolas is currently in another tournament in Marienbad until January 25.<\/p>\n
It takes dedication, discipline, and sacrifice to reach the top. Nika Nicolas proves that with her second-place finish in Prague.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-great-filipino-story"],"pageone_source":{"pageone_source":"","author_name":"PAGEONE Online Network"},"_pageone_source":"","zyndk8_nxtgen_metadata":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/energetic-pink-donkey.109-123-235-239.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/energetic-pink-donkey.109-123-235-239.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/energetic-pink-donkey.109-123-235-239.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/energetic-pink-donkey.109-123-235-239.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/energetic-pink-donkey.109-123-235-239.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/energetic-pink-donkey.109-123-235-239.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/energetic-pink-donkey.109-123-235-239.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/energetic-pink-donkey.109-123-235-239.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/energetic-pink-donkey.109-123-235-239.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/energetic-pink-donkey.109-123-235-239.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}