Six-time national champion Martyn Del Castilho enhanced his bid to win the Barbados Chess Federation’s online Grand Prix Series by capturing his second successive event with a perfect record last weekend.

Taking advantage of the absence of Justin Blackman, who won the first two events, Del Castilho registered a maximum seven points to comfortably stave off his opposition in the fourth event of the series which is being played under the fast rapid format.

Three players finished with five points with Akeem Cox taking second place on the tie break ahead of the youthful pair of third-placed Gaybrianna Moore and fourth-placed Rory Prescod.

With two events remaining in the series, Del Castilho, who celebrated his 32^nd birthday last week, has established himself as favourite to win the new onilne series that has been organised to provide some form of competition for local players against the background of restrictions on over the board tournaments in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Under the format of the six-event series, players are awarded Grand Prix points in each event based on their percentage score in each tournament. Del Castilho, therefore, gained 100 Grand Prix points, with Cox, Moore and Prescod each earning 71.

FIDE Master Del Castilho is now the runaway leader in the series with 356 points, sitting comfortably ahead of his nearest rivals. Blackman, despite missing the fourth event ahead of his participation in this weekend’s knockout rounds of the American World Cup 2021 Qualification Stage, is in joint second place with Cox on 270 points.

Emar Edwards remained in fourth place on 256 points and Prescod moved up a notch to fifth place on 235 points.

The list of the top ten is completed Moore (227), Julissa Figueroa (221), Hannah Wilson (219), Melvin Terence (205) and Chanon Reifer-Belle (199).

Moore has replaced Figueroa has the leader among the females, while Edwards (Best player rated between 1300 and 1599), Prescod (Best player rated between 1000 and 1299) and Joshua Blanchard (Best unrated player) have retained their front-running positions in the other sub-categories.

For the third successive event, there were 26 players and overall 35 players have participated in the series which will move into the fifth event next month. (BCF)