"There was a little bit missing…" said Professor Horácio Neto when asked how it felt to reach the podium of the World Correspondence Chess Championship. The Instituto Superior Técnico professor, and current coordinator of the Integrated Master's Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering, took a glorious second place in the 28th edition of the World Correspondence Chess Championship.

The championship, which had been running since June 2013, had its final round on March 3rd. After a marathon of 117 moves, Horácio Neto beat the Croatian Krivic to take second place in the competition. The Técnico professor and Sporting Clube de Portugal player was the second most victorious in the competition - three wins - only to be overtaken by the now World Champion, Croatian Leonardo Ljubicic, who amassed a total of four wins.

Chess became part of Professor Horácio's life from the age of 6, and at the age of 14, he joined the federation. The lack of availability for direct competitions didn't make him give up, he just opted for another means of competing: correspondence chess. "The creativity and innovation" and "the chance to discover a new idea" with each move are the particularities of chess that most captivate him. In short, "the most scientific component of chess", he summarizes.

Regarding the strategy that led him to win the silver medal, the professor of electrical and computer engineering says that it always involves "deciding better than our opponents and to do that we have to do more and better research than them".