By Iva Wharton
Former national junior champion Hifeng Sue led first time competitors School of the Nations to the champion title when the Guyana Chess federation national schools teams’ championships concluded yesterday at the Carifesta Sports Complex.
School of the Nations ended on 11 points to edge out former champions Queen’s College and Bishops’ High Scholl who each ended on nine points.
West Demerara’s `A’ and `B’ teams were fourth and fifth with eight and seven points respectively while Black Bush Secondary, Bishops’ High `B’, Vryman’s Erven and Queen’s College `B’ occupied the sixth to ninth positions with six points each.
Marian Academy A and B finished on five points with New Amsterdam Multilateral and President’s College scoring four and two points each.
In the individual competition, defending champion Saeed Ali retained his title while Roberto Neto, Joshua Seepersaud and Pardev Bissoon occupied the next three places.
Jessica Clementson was adjudged the best female player and Ethan Lee the best under 13 player.
School of the Nations captain and former Queen’s College student Sue said while the school has an active chess club they never entered the schools championships before.
“I was thinking of participating in an individual category then I realized that we should take a shot at the teams. But we did not have enough players. So we got three players, myself, Clementson and Alexander Brassington. We needed one more person and as we were training 10 years and under students to play chess we picked the best 10-year-olds
and we brought them into our team to expose them to the real environment of chess tournaments.”
Sue and Brassington played unbeaten while Clementson only lost one game.
