La Touche and Reifr-Belle lead chess event

After three rounds of the CB Gilkes Open chess tournament, veteran Cyprian La Touche and junior female player Chanon Reifer-Belle lead the 32-player field with three points each.

La Touche has been the impressive stand out in the tournament as he has so far upset Justin Parsons, a current Olympiad team member in round two and then won from current female CAC Under 14 silver medalist Hannah Wilson in round three, players who are higher rated than La Touche.

Reifer-Belle has been slightly just as impressive with victories over Leshay Springer, Boris Thompson and Aaron Jaikaran. Her most impressive victory has been against the much higher rated Thompson who is making a return to the boards after a long layoff.

Three players sit in third to fifth on two and a half points . These players include Renaldo Rochester, Allan Herbert and Philip Roach, the top-rated player in the event, another person making a return after a long lay-off. In the last round Herbert had a commendable draw against Roach, while Rochester won a long endgame from Travis Grant.

A few players are also just off the pace on two points and these include Thompson, Jacob Layson, Wilson, Othneil Harewood, Alesha Lovell, Emar Edwards and Kanye Williams.

In the next round to be played, the featured game will see La Touche with the white pieces against Reifer-Belle. Other important matches will see Rochester versus Herbert, Roach against Thompson, Edwards against Harewood and Layson versus Wilson.

They are three qualifiers and the top three players from each will qualify to the National finals to join the current national champion Martyn del Castilho. The current event is named after CB Gilkes who was one of the past chess champions of Barbados and also a former Caribbean chess champion which he won in 1938.