While English grandmaster Nigel Short, the Director for Chess Development in the world governing body of chess, FIDE was in Barbados on a courtesy visit, he took part in several chess playing activities. These included a simultaneous exhibition against several of Barbados’s top junior players, but also, he partook in a grandmaster blitz chess challenge tournament, where he played against  nine of Barbados’s top ranked players.

A blitz event is where the players each have a limited amount of time to complete their moves, and a game will are completed in less than 15 minutes. The action is fast and furious and is akin to T-20 cricket.

In the event, GM Short lined up against some of the top players from Barbados including current National champion FIDE master Martyn Del Castilho, former champions international master Terry Farley and FIDE master Dr. Philip Corbin along with the like of national representatives Kemp Lynch, Emar Edwards and Justin Parsons.

Short however, showed why he was once a challenger to the great Garry Kasparov’s title and was able to defeat all his opponents to finish on 9 points from his 9 games.

After 4 of the 9 rounds were completed, it was GM Short sharing the lead with Terry Farley as both players had won their previous matches. In this pivotal matchup of the leaders, Short playing with the white pieces, was however able to capture an early positional advantage and duly went on to win the game. Short then showed great competence in winning the remainder of his games, including a tricky last round one against Dr. Philip Corbin.

Two players finished the event in joint second place. These were Terry Farley and Justin Parsons. Both players finished with 7 ½ points from their 9 games having both lost to grandmaster Short and drawing with each other. Kemp Lynch finished on 5 points to finish in 4th spot, while Emar Edwards scored 4 ½ points to round out the top 5 finishers.

It was a memorable experience for the local players to play against such an esteemed player, who in his prime would have been in the top 10 players on the official rating list. I am sure that they would have benefited from his post analysis and anecdotes from the games.