Heroes Day Chess Tournament Begins

Heroes Day Chess Tournament Begins

Barbados players have found the going tough so far in the 2023 Heroes Day Chess tournament being played over this Heroes Day weekend at the Coles Building, Bay Street, Bridgetown

 

In the top master’s section, local boys international master Orlando Husbands and FIDE master Martyn Del Castilho are battling in a field which include four grandmasters Neuris Delgado(Paraguay), Cristhian Rios(Colombia) and Luis Aguero and Isan Ortiz, both of Cuba. The event is a double round robin, where each player will play the other twice, each with the white and black pieces.

The locals are seeking to put in strong performances, which would allow them not only to improve their ratings, but achieve a grandmaster norm, which is a high-level performance in a tournament which includes grandmaster opponents.

 

After 3 rounds of the event, Ortiz, Aguero and Rios share the lead with two points, while Delgado sits in fourth with four points, Husbands has one and Del Castilho brings up the rear with half a point.

 

The three leaders have each won against the Bajans in the first two rounds and drew their other matches. Husbands defeated Del Castilho in the third round, amidst the other two games tamely drawing. Del Castilho managed a first-round draw against Rios.

The Bajans are fearing only slightly better in the Open section of the event, where 5 players from Martinique and one from England are present in the 28-player field for this 9 round Swiss type event.

 

The French have so far dominated the event and two of their players Marvin Guillame and Samuel Alcindor sit in the lead with two wins from their two matches along with Englishman Chris White and local Adam Roachford.

 

Guillame has looked in fine form and would have impressed in round two, when he defeated top junior female player Hannah Wilson, the current Central American and Caribbean Under 14 silver medalist. Guillame was able to stemmy Wilson attacking intentions and was able to exploit his better endgame technique to acquire victory.

 

Alcindor has also done well, and his defeat of the second ranked player Kemp Lynch was viewed as one of the upsets of the event so far. Alcindor playing with the white pieces simply overwhelmed Lynch who is making a return to over the board chess after a long break.

Christ White in the latest round defeated the recently in form Ronaldo Rochester to claim his share of the lead. Adam Roachford has been the only local player to keep pace with the foreign invaders and he upset the higher rated Katrina Blackman in round two to stake his claim as one of the leaders.

 

Five other players sit just off the pace with one and a half points. These are Louis Wilson and Julissa Figueroa, along with the Martinique’s Gilles Suez-Panama, Mathis Huyghues- Beaufond and Lionel Buisson. In their last games Wilson and Figueroa drew a long battle, while Suez Panama and Buisson defeated veteran Othniel Harewood and Allan Herbert and Huyghues- Beaufond defeated the much higher rated Justin Parsons, who was a member of the Barbados team to the last chess Olympiad in 2022.

 

In round three, the key match ups at the top will see Guillame against Alcindor and Roachford against White.

 

 

 

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Stuart and Herbert are new Under 10 Chess Champions

Stuart and Herbert are new Under 10 Chess Champions

Charis Stuart of Eagles Academy put in an outstanding performance last week to become the Under 10 National Open Chess Champion  when he finished first, winning all his 6 games.

 

In only his second event, Charis showed great determination and never wavered as he always kept his foot on the gas during the event. Taking the sole lead from the field by the end of the first day with three points, on day two Charis racked up consecutive victories against Nathan Cullpepper, Jaeda Herbert and Darren Toppin to ensure an emphatic victory.

 

Finishing in second on tie-break was Darren Toppin, third was Jacob Ratteray and fourth was Jerimiah Farley. All the players finished on a respectable four points from six.

 

Under 10 Girls Champion

Also finishing on four points was Jaeda Herbert. This allowed her to be crowned the Under 10 girls champion as the females had to play with the boys as they were undersubscribed.   Second in the girls Under 10 was Amelia Mottley.

 

Under 8 Girls Champion

Sameera Jaikaran was the Under 8 girls champion on 2 ½ points ahead of Daisha Rose Parris and Nia Snow Clarke in second and third respectively.

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Barbados Girls do well in XI IRT Híbrido del Sur Sub-1800 2023 Chess Event

Barbados Girls do well in XI IRT Híbrido del Sur Sub-1800 2023 Chess Event

Barbados’s two best female junior chess players shone brilliantly at the XI IRT Híbrido del Sur Sub-1800 2023 hybrid chess event over the weekend, as both Hannah Wilson and Chanon Reifer-Belle finished second in their respective rating categories of the tournament.

A hybrid chess event is where the players play online via a chess platform and are monitored by screen sharing and having their cameras on via Zoom and being all in the same location and under the supervision of an arbiter(referee).

Under 1800 section

Hannah finished on 5 points from 7 games, to finish ½ point behind the eventual winner Angel Gonzalez Viana of Venezuela.
She was steady throughout the event, winning four games, drawing two and only losing to the overall winner.

Hannah’s second place joy in this section was mirrored by the sorrow of her elder brother Louis, who would have led the event going into his final round 7 game with a half point lead over the rest of the field. A draw would have been enough to win the event by tie-break, but Louis played tentatively against Benjamin Romero Espana of Venezuela and eventually he got a piece, his rook, cut off behind enemy lines and as the game progressed Espana was able to use his now mobile piece to eliminate Louis’s pawns that would allow Espana to win the game. With this Louis finished fourth in the tie-break also on five points.

Barbados’s other participant in this section Cyprian La Touche had a subpar outing finishing on three points from his 7 games.

Under 1400 section

Chanon Reifer Belle put in a great performance to finish joint first but second on tie-break on 5 ½ points from her 7 games. Again, just like Louis , Chanon had a tragedy in her final round. She went into that round a clear half point ahead of the field and was set for victory when she allowed herself to repeat the position three times. In chess when this occurs the game is declared a draw. With this result she had to settle for second as Erick David Matos Parra of Venezuela had won his last round game to catch Chanon on points.

Mileke Sinckler, Barbados’s other participant in this section finished on three and a half points and continues to develop.

Under 1200 section

In this 50 players section, Barbados had 6 participants and two players Aaron Jaikaran and Isaiah Archer managed to finish in the top ten. Jaikaran finished in 7th and Archer in 9th , with both players in a large group of player finishing on 5 points. Jaikaran was again solid, only losing one game against the eventual third place finisher Oscar Alejandro Amelunge Moreno of Panama.

Of the other Bajan participants, Derick Boyce scored 3 ½ , Rhys Francis – 3, while Ephraim Hope and Samuel Richards scored 2 points each.

In the three sections combined, approximately 90 players from Venezuela, Panama, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados participated organized by the Panama Chess Federation. The next tournament on the Barbados Chess federation calendar is the National Under 8, 10 and 14 Youth Championships, to be held on Thursday and Friday this week at Harrison College.

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Barbados Chess Players battle on the regional and international boards

Barbados Chess Players battle on the regional and international boards

Barbados chess players performed credibly at the St. Lucia Easter Chess Classic held over the Easter weekend.

The event was played in the hybrid format, which is where the players play from one central location under the charge of a referee and play via the internet on a chess playing platform. The tournament had two sections, an Under 2000 section and an Under 1400 section.

Barbados was represented by five players in each section and would have hoped that players like C.A.C. under 14 silver medalist Hannah Wilson, her brother Louis along with Renaldo Rochester would have put in strong performances.

In the Under 2000 section, the top Barbados performer was Renaldo Rochester who finished 7th form 33 players with 4 ½ points. Rochester was initially up with the leaders and had three points from four games at the half ways points. However, he could only muster three draws in his final three games to finish off the event. Rochester did manage draws against the second and third place finishers Remone Johnson of Jamaica and Gilbert Abalos from Cayman Islands.

Louis Wilson also finished on 4 ½ points but finished 9th on the tie-break. If  Louis had won and not drawn his last round game, he would have finished third in the event. The same goes for Rochester.

Hannah Wilson finished with four points from her 7 games. She suffered several upset defeats against lower rated players. Travis Grant finished on three points while Mileke Sinckler finished on 1 ½ points. Mileke’s performance is however worth mentioning as he was in the tougher section of the event and would have done enough to acquire his own international rating. Chinake Kudakwashe of Cayman Islands won the section with 6 points from his 7 games.

In the Under 1400 sectionAaron Jaikaran finished with 5 points to be joint third, but 7th on tie-break from the 50-player field. Jaikaran was solid throughout the tournament with 3 wins and 4 draws, and not losing a game.

Kanye Williams finished on 4 ½ points to finish 11th. He drew with the second-place finisher Abner Furquhar of Antigua, but a loss and not a win in his last round game against Jaheim Smart of Jamaica meant he missed out on a second placed finish.

Eden Gibson (4 points) , Chaz Reifer-Belle(3 points), Derick Boyce(3 points) and Charis Stuart(3 points) all performed credibly especially those players in their first regional event.

 

Bajans in Martinique

Also, over the Easter week, local boy Travis Grant and Barbados based Chris White participated in the 10e Open International de Martinique – Memorial Joel Gratien chess event on the beautiful French isle.

Grant finished in 21st from 60 players with five points from nine but managed to defeat a number of higher rated opponents like Raymond Marbot and Serge Marie-Magdeleine, both of Martinique.

White did even better as he finished joint 10th but 13th on tie-break on 5 ½ points. White missed out on a top five finish when he lost his last round game to Florian Tastet of Guadeloupe but did himself proud as he defeated woman international master Mounika Akshaya Bommini of India and then drew with grandmaster Christian Bauer of France, the eventual winner of the event. These two players are rated much higher than White.

 

Bajans throughout the World.

Justin Blackman based in Spain continues to perform well also. Last month Justin picked up another 11 valuable rating points, as he won both his games in the Lliga Catalana 2023 Primera Divisio Grupo 1 while playing for his club team. He won against  Luis Luna Cortes and  Miquel Fabre Massana, both of Spain. He is now just slightly less rated than current national champion, Martyn Del Castilho.

Last month also saw former national junior player Nitin Mahtani who played in the Hart House Reading Week 2023 – U2200 event in February, where he finished 16th from 38 players. A loss in the last round pushed him down the pack as if he had won, he would have finished joint 5th.

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Harrison and Queens College split junior divisions at Secondary Interschool chess

Harrison and Queens College split junior divisions at Secondary Interschool chess

Queens College “A” team edged out Queens College “B” team to claim the Under 15 Secondary Interschool chess championship team competition which wrapped up at Crumpton Street recently.

Q.C. “A’’ scored 55 points out of a possible 60 to pip the B team who scored 52 points. The race for the title was always a two-horse race from the start and in round one when the Q.C. “A” team won 6 – 4 from its “B” team, pundits knew it would have been a case of who held their nerves best.

Both teams would have initially fallen behind the Combermere “A” team which won 10 – 0 against its respective “B” team but by round 4, the Q.C. teams had each defeated the Combermere “A” team and were into their two-horse battle.

It was just a case of who would drop those 1 or 2 critical points per match. Q.C. “A” dropped a point in Round 3 as they downed Combermere 9-1. Then Q.C. “B” dropped two points against the same team in Round 4. Both teams then registered 10 – 0 victories in the last two rounds. Q.C. “A’ was able to put their hand on the winners’ cup.

Q.C. A team of Kanye Williams, Eden Gibson, Noah Clarke, Samuel Greenidge and Alexei Frederick can feel proud in their achievements as well as the “B” teams Javier Hoyte, Yhden Layne, Daniel Nurse, Zarek Greaves and Kayode Nurse, who showed they were no “B” team at all.

Finishing in third were the Combermere “A”team of Caleb Latchman, Tedra Johnson, Joanna Hunte, Gavin Beckles and Demar Parris on 40 points, some distance ahead of Lodge, Princess Margaret and the others.

 

Kolij takes Under 13 Section

In the Under 13 section of the event Harrison College “A” team edged out Queens College “A” team by 2 points, 42 – 40 points, as it came down to one last game which would determine the overall championship and when the last pawn was pushed it was Kolij from Crumpton Street who were celebrating.

In a small field of four teams, it was always neck and neck between the two teams as one team was ahead then the other as they continuously jockeyed for position. The event was set up as a double round robin, where each team would play the other twice with each player playing the white and the black pieces against their stated opponent.

 

After the first day, Q.C. “A” was one point ahead of Harrison 22 points to 21 points. In their first head-to-head clash, the two teams had drawn with Harrisons having victories to Mileke Sinckler and Nathan Reid, for Queens Liam Valdes-Desroachers and Liam Yearwood reciprocated while Aaron Jaikaran and Derick Boyce drew on the top board.

 

By round five, Q.C. “A” had stretched the lead to two points and the final round results would determine the championship. Harrison College was matched against Queens College “C”, while the Queens College “A” and “B” team would clash. Knowing the points situation, one might have been a little suspect of the result, but young children have no such predispositions.

Harrison College defeated Queens “C” 8 – 2, but lo and behold Queens “B” upset their “A” team 6 – 4, with wins by Savion Little, Amari Blackett and Jeovani Pennegan, while Desroachers and Yearwood won for Q.C. “A”.

The final top positions came down to one game, a clash between Naomi Lewis of Harrison College and Darya Samaroo of Queens “C”. In a game which went on ways after all the others were finished, the two young ladies gave it their all Samaroo knew a win would allow her “A” team compatriots at least a tie of the championship, while Lewis knew a win by her would mean Kolij’s glory. It was Lewis who won out in the endgame and with that she crowned herself and school in glory.

Kolij’s victory was on the back of their top three boards as Aaron Jaikaran and Nathan Reid score 5 wins and one draw from their 6 games, but Mileke Sinkler was excellent and won all his games in impressive fashion.

It was good to see at least a third of the government Secondary school turning out over the three age categories in the first interschool team event in three years. Next year hopefully more schools will return to the fold.

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Queen’s College take Under 20 Secondary Interschool Chess Title

Queen's College take Under 20 Secondary Interschool Chess Title

Queen’s College “A” team won the Under 20 section of the recently concluded Secondary Interschool chess championship held recently.

The formidable team led by three females who are past or current Women’s Olympiad team members inclusive of Hannah Wilson, Vanessa Greenidge and Chanon Reifer-Belle along with Louis Wilson and Kimahri Holder put in an excellent performance in winning all their 6 matches and scoring 59 points overall from a possible 60.

The team event is played with five players per team and each person scoring two points for a win and thus a total of 10 points for a match.

Four of the five members won all their games while Louis on board 2 allowed one draw against Azaria Johnson of Harrison College. It was during this round three match that Queens College would have faced their toughest test on paper as they faced archrival Harrison College who had a lineup that included Yeshua Hill, Azaria Johnson, Melvin Terence, Keon Lashley and Jaydn Gill. These players would all have had experience in playing for Barbados at Carifta level and should have provided a stiff examination for Queens.

However, Harrisons’ started the match on the wrong foot, when they could only field their first four boards as no board 5 was available. And like most things in life, when it starts to rain it pours. On board three, Vanessa Greenidge got a clear advantage out of the opening which she would eventually press home. Hill on board one succumbed to Hannah Wilson, Lashley went down to Reifer-Belle and the only person who would trouble the score was Kolij’s board 2 player Azaria Johnson who drew with Louis Wilson.

After this Queens racked up three more consecutive victories by the maximum score to come out convincing winners. Second was Harrisons College with 49 points, while Queens College “B” finished in third place with 36 points. Queens College “B” defeated Combermere “A” 10 – 0 with wins for Nicholas Maxwell, Andrew Greenidge, Jaydn Odle, Makalo Grant and Kyei Hope.

Some individual players outside of the two top teams did put in creditable performances. These include Combermere “A” board 1 Nathan Griffith, Queens College’s “B” team pair of Nicholas Maxwell and Makalo Grant who won four of their 6 games.

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