President of the Guyana Chess Federation (GCF) Frankie Farley said yesterday that like all the other sports disciplines, the Coronavirus pandemic has affected immensely, his federation’s plans for 2020.
Since being elected GCF president last , Farley has presided over an executive which has been responsible for increasing the number of tournaments locally.
In fact, before the advent of the Coronavirus, chess tournaments were regular features for both junior and senior players as the GCF tried to gets its players prepared for upcoming activities which included the ninth annual CARIFTA chess tournament and the Chess Olympiad in July which has both been affected.
The federation seemed well on its way to achieving its vision which is to: enhance the lives of all Guyanese by increasing the play of chess, where the appreciation of the value of time, concentration, evaluation, patience and calculated risk taking are paramount to success in life as in chess.
As if to help it achieve its objectives, FIDE, the world governing body for chess, awarded the GCF, the rights to stage the ninth CARIFTA Junior Chess Championships.
That championships, for players aged 12-20, on January 1 this year, was critical to the GCF’s developmental plans as the local body had earmarked some 100 players for exposure.
That exposure could possibly have resulted in a tremendous fillip for the game locally.
However, the Coronavirus subsequently forced the tournament, which was due to start next week, to be postponed.
“The Guyana Chess Federation regrets to announce that with the propagation of cases of COVID-19 throughout the region, we have had no choice but to postpone the CARIFTA Junior Chess Tournament,’ a release from the federation stated.
“We will be monitoring the pandemic with the hope of soon seeing a downward trend in the infection curve,” the release added.
Yesterday, Farley told this newspaper that so far, the tournament is “totally out!”
According to the GCF president, the vulnerability of the young children, who were down to participate in the tournament, was taken into account.
He, however, disclosed that there was a possibility that Guyana could stage the tournament next year.
“We’ve negotiated for the rights to hold it next year,” he said adding that the postponement was in essence. ..”giving us some breathing space.”
Farley, though, was optimistic that should conditions get better, the tournament could be held in August.
Meanwhile, Farley, who recently attended a FIDE Congress in Dubai along with Yolander Persaud, who is a member of FIDE’s Ethics Committee, said that the trip was somewhat successful.
“Concerning my trip to the Congress, I made some connections and one of the new ideas we came up with was to stage a tournament among Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad and Barbados upon the completion of the CARIFTA chess competition but that too has been shelved because of the coronavirus pandemic,” he told this newspaper.
The decentralizing of the sport by the GCF, has also been affected.
According to Farley there is only one sub association, the Berbice Chess Federation, and there were plans to decentralize the game further.
Farley said his executive plans to roll out a new constitution, (which is yet to be ratified) which reflects the 10 administrative regions, and plans were to have a sub association in each of the other regions, with meetings to be held biannually.
Additionally he said chess was to be integrated into an existing Police Youth Group and also the Prison Service.
Concerning chess in schools, Farley said that he had hoped that a government would have been in place by this time to allow his executives to sit down with the Ministry of Education to develop a model for use in the schools’ curriculum.
His association has already held tournaments at schools such as Mae’s and School of the Nations, to huge turnouts.
Farley said that he is eager for the situation to improve so that his executives can return to the business of putting chess in Guyana back on the world’s map.
