Barbados’ senior chess players showed that experience, skill and competitive spirit remain a winning combination Barbados recently crowned a new set of Scholastic chess champions when the 2026 National Scholastics chess championships were played in the Under 7, 9, 11, 13, 15 and 17 categories at the Harrison College school and the Barbados Football Association headquarters.

In the Under 7 & 9 section which was combined due to a low subscription in the Under 7, Nia-Snow Clarke captured the Under 9 female section with a perfect 6 wins from her 6 matches. Arya Jordan-Thompson finished in second with 3 points, while Ava Griffith was in third on tie-break also on 3 points also.
In the Under 9 Open section Aaryann Chatrani won the event with 5 points, ahead of James Alleyne in second with 4 points ahead of Kai Hargesheimer who was third on tie-break with 3 points.

Zaiya Garner won the Under 7 female section, a point ahead of Samira Blenman. While Noah Alleyne won the Under 7 Open, also a point ahead of Liam Andre.

Under 11 Section
Kymani Gayle captured the Under 11 Open crown after a hard-fought win over Lukas Coppin in a play – off after both players had scored 5 points from their 6 games in the initial event. Raef Clarke playing up a few categories finished in third with 4 ½ points.
Sameera Jaikaran won the female Under 11 section with 4 ½ points, Naja Howard was second with 3 ½ . Nia Inniss finished in third spot with 3 points.

Under 13 Sectio
This Under 13 section was emphatically won by the top-rated Darren Toppin who scored 5 ½ points from his 6 matches to finish half point ahead of Ethan Alleyne in second spot on 5 points , who in turn finished a half-point ahead of Zane Ward in third with 4 ½ points. Rebekah Lashley with 3 points won the Under 13 female section.

Under 15 & 17 Section
The Under 17 Open section was won by Mileke Sinckler with 5 1/5 points, while Charis Stuart came a close second with 5 points. Eden Gibson finished third. Ayani Casmir of Dominica captured the Under 17 female section with 4 points from her 6 games.

In the Under 15 section the final results come down to a 5-person playoff in the open section while two persons had a playoff in the female section. This was because 5 players had tied in the open section, these were Aidan Singh, Aaron Jaikaran, Jonathan Griffith, Dominic Cadogan and Calmore Miller.  Coincidentally Janiyah Browne and Jaeda Herbert had also tied with 3 ½ points from their 6 games.

In the Under 15 female section Browne was able to sweep Herbert in their two-game match. These were two competitive games in which Herbert was a pawn up in each game, but Browne was able to whip up an attack which proved decisive in the two games.

In the Open section play-off which was played as a round-robin , where each player plays the other and a rapid time control was used. Singh eventually won the event with 3 ½ points form his 4 play-off games. It all came down to his final game against the eventual second place winner Aaron Jaikaran. Aaron was a pawn up and pressing for victory, but Singh played actively to regain the pawn and eventually steered the game to a draw claiming his first championship title. Griffith eventually came third with 2 points ahead of Cadogan on the tie-break.

  Roughly 65 players partook in the event and many of them will be heading out to the Central American and Caribbean Youth chess championships to be played in Costa Rica from November 02 – 07. The general chess community wishes them all the best of luck.