Outstanding chess players over the last five major tournaments were duly rewarded by the Guyana Chess Federation at its awards ceremony Sunday at Park View.
The top performers of the Junior National Chess Championships, the National Women’s Qualifiers, the Women’s Championships, the National Open Qualifiers and the National Championships were all rewarded .
In the Junior National Chess Championships, 17-yearold Ricardo Narine was presented with his championship trophy for earning the title of Junior National Champion 2022.
Also receiving prizes were those finishing second to 10th namely Ethan Lee, Rajiv Lee, Kyle Couchman, Keron Sandiford, Ronan Lee, Sasha Shariff, Matthew Singh, Jessica Callender and Mayas Khan respectively.
In the Women’s Chess Qualifiers won by Jessica Callender, the top nine females received medals. Also receiving medals were Pooja Lam, Anaya Lall Nellisha
Johnson, Adia Alphonso, Maliha Rajkumar, Waveney Johnson, Angel Rahim and Elizabeth McRae respectively.Lam received her championship trophy for her win at the Women’s National Tournament. She became the youngest National Women’s
Champion in Guyana’s history at the tender age of 14 years.
The Women’s Nationals were first held in 2018 when WFM Maria Varona
Thomas won the inaugural title. The most recent Women’s Champion was 18-year-old Sasha Shariff, who came second in this year’s tournament. She
held the title since the Championship was last held in 2020 and had won at 16 years old. Other players awarded trophies from the Women’s Nationals were 3rd place Nellisha Johnson, 4th place Jessica Callender and 5th place Anaya Lall.In the National Open Chess Qualifier, FM Anthony Drayton was rewarded for his win with Wendell Muesa 2nd, Roberto Neto 3rd, Loris Nathoo 4th, with 5th to 9th places going to Frankie Farley, Ethan Lee,
Rashad Hussain, Justino DaSilva and Rai Sharma respectively. They all received medals.
