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.