Chess players worldwide, some one billion of them, are ecstatic that face-to-face chess has returned. It has revitalized the Chess Olympiad, which is surpassed only in participating nations by FIFA. In 2018, when the last face-to-face Olympiad was held in Batumi, Georgia, 180 nations participated. One hundred and fifty-one-women’s teams were represented, including Guyana. This year, Chennai, India, hosts the Chess Olympiad beginning in July and Guyana is dispatching men’s and women’s teams.
Seventeen-year-old University of Guyana’s computer science student Ricardo Narine is the 2022 Junior Chess Champion. He defeated 19-year-old industrial engineering student Ethan Lee in a furious final game of the two-best-in-three series playoff last Saturday. In the Junior Championship, the scores were tied at 6.5 points each from nine games. Lee won the first game of 15 minutes duration; then Narine took the 10-minute and five-minute games.
I had felt that if the playoff games went to the five-minute blitz game, down to the wire as B L Crombie, a popular sportscaster used to say, it would be Narine’s title. I make no excuses for Lee, nor am I trying to minimise Narine’s deserving victory, but Lee prefers the longer encounters. He is not alone.
I truly believe, seriously, that a promising male junior should be a part of Guyana’s team for the Olympiad, whether he qualifies to go in the National Championship, or not. An Olympiad is a celebrity affair with notable and rising stars. The junior would brush shoulders with the current world champion and former world champions, with boys’ and girls’ grandmasters and with rising superstars such as 19-year-old Iranian-French grandmaster Alireza Firouzja, who would be playing top board for France. It would be an exhilarating and memorable experience. The women have their separate competition for qualification to the Olympiad, so I expect junior girls to qualify.
KFC Guyana has donated $250,000 for the Women’s Championship in June. According to a release from the Guyana Chess Federation, KFC has an interest in promoting women’s chess. Marketing Officer of KFC Pamela Manasseh noted that the company is delighted to be the primary sponsor of the National Women Chess Championship. KFC has a history of supporting and sponsoring local athletes, she said.
