Candidate Master Taffin Khan defeated Errol Tiwari as only six first-round open pairings unfolded on the opening day of the fourth Guyana Chess Federation-organised Gaico Construction-sponsored Grand Prix tournament yesterday.
Play at the National Stadium, Providence in the seven-round Swiss system FIDE rated tournament saw Khan securing victory over the former president of the federation while current president, Frankie Farley, made a blunder 30 moves into his match to hand Loris Nathoo the win.
Davion Mars maneuvered from an almost certain draw against Cuban, Axel Gowen to come out with the win late in the night.
Glenford Corlette secured victory over Joshua Gopaul, Shiv Nandalall defeated rookie Jason Barnwell and Ronuel Greenidge got the better of Adrian Roopnarine.
With each of the six winners earning one point each, Rai Sharma also secured a full point due to a pull out by one of the players. Robert Neto, Saeed Ali and Joshua Williams were given a 0.5 point bye.
Shifting to the under-12 division, the Rajkumar siblings, Mahir and Maliha distanced themselves from the other 13 players. Mahir, however, earned the top position with four wins in as many matches, including a fourth-round win over his sister who had three victories.
Jacob McDonald, Nicholas Zhang and Neal Rodrigues also have three points whereas Alexander Zhang, Anaya Lall, Jnae Singh, Omar Shariff, Italy Ton-Chung and Arysh Ragnauth are on two points. Dominic Loaknauth, Seon Fraser, Oranio Profit and Joana Shepherd are one point.
The inter-schools Open tournament saw 34 players registering. Oluwadare Oyeyipo, Luca Dotto and Keron Saniford have played undefeated after three rounds. Omesh Dyal and Odit Rodrigues drew in the third round while Ronan Lee joined them on 2.5 points after drawing with Alec Lumelino in the opening round.
Ricardo Narine, Samirah Gobin, Nellisha Johnson, Angel Rahim, Demetrius Drupe, Manav Sharma, Shivesh Mohamed, Khemraj Goberdhan and Aleem Basseer are on two points while Anasie Fredericks, Kishan Puran, Jonathan Ganga and Timur Singh are on 1.5 points.
The action returns to the same venue from 09.00 hours today.
