Including – as was widely reported over the weekend – checkmate his opponents on the chessboard.
Prior to the Eagles’ match against Forest, the 26-year-old England international was centre stage at Chess.com’s four-day amateur ‘PogChamps’ tournament – contested by 12 celebrity content creators and athletes.
Standing in his way were Fortnite content creator Mongraal, who boasts over 5.5m subscribers; YouTube personality Inoxtag, whose channel has over 9m, and who became the first YouTuber to climb Mount Everest; and Team U.S.A. Olympic gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik.
But Eze conquered all before him to claim first place – and in relative comfort, too, as, having qualified from the groups, he progressed through the bracket stage without dropping a single game.
In the final, Eze defeated YouTuber Sapnap 2-0 to claim first place and win top prize, with Chess.com claiming Eze “showed that he’s as good at defending as he is at attacking.”