Male and female chess players under the age of 14 will compete Saturday in the Guyana Chess Federation (GCF) National Rapid Chess tournament at Queen’s College.
The National Under 14 Rapid Chess Tournament was last held in February 2020 at Mae’s School where Marian Academy’s Ronan Lee was victorious among a total of 75 students from 12 schools.
Lee will not be eligible to compete in this tournament and a new champion will be crowned.
Among the favourites for the title are Kyle Couchman, Mayas Khan, Julian Mohabir, Nicholas and Alexander Zhang, Omar Shariff, Pooja Lam, Anaya Lall, Maliha and Mahir Rajkumar.
The seven round, Swiss system tournament, will commence from 9:00hrs to 16:30hrs.
The time control of the matches is 15 minutes with added 5-second increments, a release from the GCF stated.
All Guyanese who were under the age of 14 on January 1, 2022, are encouraged to take part.
Anand Raghunauth, Vice President of the Guyana Chess Federation said “Many of the young boys and girls look forward to the shorter version of chess. It’s a faster game. The younger players like to play quickly. It’s an exciting game, the entire tournament finishes in one day.
It’s a fun tournament even though it’s a serious competition. We have some young players who have just completed Grade Six exams, I’m sure they will be looking forward to returning to chess. We have many of the seasoned players who have been competing over the past three to four months with the adults and with the older junior players, and they also will be looking forward to having a go at each other and I’m sure it’s going to be an interesting tournament.”
According to the release, the GCF had a large influx of new junior players earlier this year due to the extensive work done on the Chess in Schools programme and a large turnout is anticipated for this weekend’s matches.
Interested persons can register through the GCF’s website – guyanachess.org. Registration closes July 15 at 17:00hrs. No late registration or in-person registration will be facilitated.
Trophies will be awarded for the first, second and third places in both open and girls categories along with the best under-10 and under-8 players in both categories at the end of seven matches.
