Trinidad, Guyana finish 1-2 in inaugural CARICOM Classic Chess tournament

Members of the Trinidad and Tobago chess team strike a pose after the tournament

Johnson and Khan carefully maneuvered their pieces for advantage, but both players went all the way to the endgame.

With equal material of Rook, Bishop, and pawns remaining on the board, the top Trinidadian and Guyanese player, agreed to avoid further risk and emerged with half a point each from the truce.

FM Anthony Drayton, Jessica Callender and Shazeeda Rahim lost to FM Quinn Cabralis, WCM Ysvett Hermoso Rodriguez, and Zara La Fleur, respectively.

Drayton went down to Trinidadian Cabralis in a fighting endgame, but the Guyanese had to contend with a weaker position from lost material. A confident Cabralis with a force of extra pawns and an active King forced his Guyanese counterpart to resign.

Members of the Barbados team at the presentation ceremony

The winning teams were presented with medals, trophies, and cash prizes by Davion Leslie, Programme Manager responsible for Sports Development within the CARICOM Secretariat, Georgetown, Guyana.

The cash prizes, trophies, and medals were sponsored by the CARICOM Secretariat.

Guyana’s Taffin Khan gained 8.5 points, while Zara La Fleur from Trinidad and Tobago gained nine points in the nine-round round-robin competition, making them the top scorers in the week-long event.

The Barbados Team, comprising Emar Edwards, FM Phillip Corbin, WCM Katrina Blackman, and Hanna Wilson, took home the third-place prizes.

Guyana’s Team Two scored a victory over Dominica 3-1 in round nine. Keron Sandiford and Kyle Couchman drew with Nigel Francis and Nicholas Goldberg, while Sasha Shariff and Aditi Joshi defeated Zahidu Henry and Ayani Casimir.

The top three teams at the end of the inaugural tournament. From left are Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana

The tournament was supervised by International Arbiter Kelvin Daniel from Barbados, FIDE Arbiter John Lee, and National Arbiters Kim Shing Chong, Odit Rodrigues and Ricardo Narine.

Trinidadian National Arbiter Sandy Razark was also present to assist. Lee was also the technical personnel behind the scenes with the live streaming of the games on guyanachess.gy for viewers on their devices.

The Guyana Chess Federation expressed its sincere gratitude to the CARICOM Secretariat for its collaboration in making this historic tournament possible and to the participating member states for competing and visiting our shores.

The Federation is incredibly grateful to the sponsors for their generous support.

Thanks to Texila American University, ENet, Exxon Mobil, Topco, Republic Bank (Guyana) Ltd., KFC, Guyoil, Starbucks, Optique Vision Care, Rouge Salon and Spa, Platinum Investments, New GPC Inc., Sterling Products Ltd., Semekiah Supercentre, Regency Mall, Marics and Co. Ltd., GSK Inc. Guycan Inc. Icon Investments who came on board to support the event.

Thanks to the Ramada Georgetown Princess Hotel for their support and sponsorship.

The GCF also wishes to acknowledge the International Chess Federation (FIDE) and the Confederation of Chess for the Americas (CCA) for their kind support.

Furthermore, the Federation expressed immense gratitude to the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport for its sponsorship of the event.

“The contributions of these sponsors were instrumental in making the event a success, and the GCF could not have done it without their support,” the Federation said in a press release.

“The Board of Directors and the membership are immensely proud of the Guyanese players who represented their country in this inaugural chess tournament. Congratulations are extended to all of them.”

The inaugural tournament has attracted participation from The Bahamas, Barbados, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname and St. Lucia.

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