On the chess board , lies and hypocrisy do not last long -Emmanuel Lasker
Guyana has been ranked 150th out of the 179 countries which are earmarked to participate in the 2014 Norway chess Olympiad, according to FIDE, the World Chess Federation. Guyana has been listed at an average rating of 1784 as compared to Russia’s top rating of 2777. The three top participants are Russia, Ukraine and France, followed by Armenia, USA, Hungary and China. Cuba is numbered at a massive 12, above Norway, at the average rating of 2676. India is booked at 19th on the playing board, minus Vishy Anand, who is not listed as a participant. Magnus Carlsen, the world champion, is listed as playing for Norway. Carlsen and Anand are set to clash for the world championship title later in the year. England is numbered at 9.
The players for Guyana have been named by FIDE. They are Anthony Drayton , Su Hai Feng, Ronuel Greenidge, Taffin Khan and Maria Varona-Thomas. FIDE has noted that the names are not classified according to board order. No captain of the Guyana team has been named. The space for the captain’s name remains blank.
Persons from the local chess circuit, and even those persons who are not associated with chess and only read about it, have been approaching me about the Guyana chess team which is participating at Tromso. In the first instance, those persons overall, seem happy that Guyana is once again venturing forth to play chess as a group at the formidable Olympiad. I explained to them our first goal is to rule the Caribbean countries as we once did when we participated in our only two Olympiad in 1978 and 1980. Prior to those, Guyana placed second behind Cuba and ahead of the English-speaking Caribbean at the