Berbician Kriskal Persaud will be strongly tipped to retain his senior men’s title when the National Closed Chess championships gets underway Saturday at the Ocean Spray Hotel.
In the junior division though, a new champion will be crowned as last year’s champion Ronald Roberts is over the stipulated age.
The double round robin, Swiss system tournament will allow each player to face his opponent twice, once with the white pieces and once with the black pieces.
Persaud will face a strong challenge from seven of the strongest chess players in the country in Ronuel Greenidge, Errol Tiwari, Loris Nathoo, David Khan, Dennis Dillon, Frankie Farley and Omar Sharif.
Taffin Khan, who played unbeaten in the qualification tournament held earlier, is favoured to win the junior category.
He will face stiff challenges from the likes of Cecil Cox, Saeed Ali, Kana Khan, Khalid Gajraj, Rashad Hussain, Sham Khan and Devendra Singh.
The opening will take place at 1pm at the Ocean Spray International Hotel, 46 Stanley Place, Kitty, Georgetown with the first pawn set to be pushed at 2pm.
On Sunday, play will take place at the King’s Plaza Hotel on Main Street, with the second round commencing from 10am.
The third round will start at 3pm.
Time control for each game is three hours and scoring is compulsory in algebraic notation for both categories.
