When all the pawns had been pushed and all the dust had settled, it was Katrina Blackman who had edged out Julissa Figueroa and Hannah Wilson to win the 2023 Female National Chess championship of Barbados.

Going into the final round, that was played at the Coles Building, Bay Street in the city, it was Blackman, a former winner, who held a slim half – point lead on 7 points from 8 games, ahead of the two former joint leaders Julissa Figueroa and Hannah Wilson.

Blackman had kept a winning streak in the last few rounds of the event, but Figueroa and Wilson had both suffered upset defeats at the hands of Alesha Lovell(Figueroa)  and Chanon – Reifer Belle(Wilson) respectively.

So, on entering the last round, any one of the three players could have theoretically crowned themselves queen of local chess. However, Blackman made sure of her title as she  was the first to defeat her opponent Shernelle Padmore. Figueroa was also victorious against Kiarra Eversley, while Wilson won against Lovell, but these results could only see them agonizingly languishing slightly adrift of Blackman, in second and third spot respectively on 7 ½ points.

Other results in the final round saw Gaybrianna Moore winning against Heather Leslie and Reifer-Belle winning from Leshay Springer.  Thus Reifer-Belle, Moore and Eversley all finished on 5 ½ points to tie in fourth spot, having to be separated by the tie-break in that order.

The next two events in the chess federation’s calendar are the Vexx Tournament and the XIII IRT Hybrid chess event which would have started Thursday for the Vexx and Saturday for the IRT Hybrid event.