Wilson finishes CAC Games chess on positive note

Hannah Wilson, Barbados’s top rated junior chess player finished a creditable 5^th place from 16 players in the Central American and Caribbean( CAC) Games blitz championship played in El Salvador.

The format of the event was a 16-player round robin played at a time control of 3 minutes with 30 seconds increment from move one. A team consisted of two players, a board one and two with teams competing in an Open and female section. The top three finishers on each particular board and section were rewarded with medals.

Wilson playing at board one in the female section scored 8 ½ points from 15 points, winning 8 games and drawing one. Wilson defeated a number of higher rated players including women FIDE master Sandra N Guillen Cristobal of Mexico and women international master Gabriella Johnson of Trinidad.

Playing on board two, Julissa Figueroa scored 5 ½ points. As she had done in the rapid section of the event, Figueroa again defeated the highest rated female player in the event, women’s grandmaster Yerisbel Miranda Llanes of Cuba. This can be viewed as an outstanding achievement for Figueroa.

Men’s Team finds going tough.

The men’s team of international master Orlando Husbands and FIDE master Martyn Del Castilho the going a little more difficult as they could only muster 5 and 5 ½ points, respectively. The team did however show their resilience when in round 3, when they handed the much more highly rated Costa Rican team a 1 ½ – ½ defeat, with Husbands defeating international master Leonardo Valdes Romero and Del Castilho holding international master Sergio Duran Vega to a draw.

Women International master Valentina Argote Heredia of Colombia and Lilia Ivonne Fuentes Godoy of Mexico tgook the two gold medals on offer in the female section, while grandmasters Cuban Carlos Daniel Albornoz Cabrera and Colombia’s Jose Gabriel Cardoso Cardoso won the two gold medals on offer in the Open section