The march continues inexorably towards a National Championship Chess Tournament at the end of the year.
Next Sunday, the Kei-Shar’s Gift Shop will be sponsoring a seven-round swiss system chess tournament under the auspices of the Guyana Chess Association. Players can accumulate valuable points for qualification to the championship by participating in the tournament.
The tournament will be held at the Kei-Shar’s Staff Club in Hadfield Street and is open to all. Manager of Kei-Shar’s, Shiv Nandalall, himself an accomplished chess player who also will be a tournament competitor, has indicated that special incentives would be given to female and student participants. If we can get teenage boys and girls actively and seriously involved in competitive chess, he said, the popularity of the game would soar .This is why he felt stimulated to sponsor the tournament and provide incentive prizes for participants at the teenage level.
The interim committee of the association meanwhile, is seeking to involve the chess diaspora in New York, Canada and England in contributing to developing chess into a national pastime in Guyana. Contact has been made with some former stalwarts of chess domiciled overseas and it is anticipated that during the National Championship, representatives from the three countries mentioned would travel to Guyana to discuss matters relating to the upliftment of the game.