Candidate Master Taffin Khan moved to five wins from as many matches after defeating Loris Nathoo Thursday evening at the National Resource Centre in the latest round of the Guyana Chess Federation (GCF) GAICO_sponsored Swiss System tournament.
Khan is the only unbeaten player in the tournament so far and barring an upset in the remaining rounds Sunday is sure to win this the second in a series of chess tournaments held by the GCF with a view towards selecting a team for next year’s Olympiad.
Nathoo put of stiff opposition and it took over an hour for the players to trade pieces.
When they did exchange both knights, it left Khan with double pawns on the d and f files but Nathoo was unable to capitalise on the anomaly.
Nathoo told this newspaper that he had played the Scillian Defence in response to Khan’s e-4 (Grand Prix attack) but said that Khan had the advantage throughout the match.
Following the exchange of queens, Khan ended with seven pawns (double pawns on the d-file) to Nathoo’s four and Nathoo duly resigned after some 38 moves.
Youngster Joshua Gopaul held veteran player Rai Sharma at bay for much of their match but overlooked a check on his king, lost a rook and promptly resigned.
Candidate Master Ronuel Greendidge defeated veteran player Errol Tiwari. Tiwari who opted for a knight takes pawn exchange instead of the much simpler pawn takes pawn found himself in a complicated middle game during which he lost a piece and subsequently resigned.
Chino Chung also won his match forcing Adrian Roopnarine’s resignation in a a game that took over 50 moves
In one of the longest games of the round Roberto Neto and Davion mars played to a draw while Saeed Ali and Jaden Taylor also shared the point in their encounter.
Ethan Lee scored a surprise victory over Shiv Nandalall and Justino Da Silva defeated Frankie Farley.
The competition continues today with Steve Leung opposing Gldnford Corlette, Jacob Nauth playing Kenrick Braithwaite and Uddav Bhangwandeen opposing dane Grimmond.
