Eleven youth chess players are currently representing Guyana at the nine-round, round-robin Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Championship from August 20th to August 27th in Trinidad and Tobago. The actual games will be played from tomorrow.
Tournament director of the recently concluded Women’s Chess Championship John Lee has disclosed there was a disruption of the game schedule for different reasons. Therefore, all of the games which have been played were not readily available for replay purposes However, I managed to replay a few of them.
The game between Aditi Narayan Joshi and Italy Ton-Chung represented the opening moves of Ruy Lopez. On move 20, Joshi made a serious error by taking a pawn on the b7 square when Ton-Chung was threatening checkmate. A probable alternative would have been to move the rook which was under attack from e1 to d1. Perhaps Re3 could also have worked to nullify the danger of two connected rooks.
Aniyah Couchman vs Anaya Lall lasted for 37 moves, with Couchman coming out as the winner. Again it was a Ruy Lopez with Couchman playing White and employing a powerful 17th and 18th move which won a piece. First, White removed the Black Queen from the central square which she was occupying, then White pushed the h-pawn forward two squares attacking a Bishop that was protecting a Knight. It was a fighting game.
Jessica Callender gained victory over Chelsea Harrison. Playing the Black pieces in a Pirc Defence game, Callender won a Bishop on the 23rd move and executed checkmate seven moves later.
The Sasha Shariff vs Waveney Johnson game with Shariff playing White went on for 90 moves. It was a White Bishop vs a Black Knight. Black pushed a b-pawn on the 71st move and White took the pawn creating a passed pawn that could not be stopped from reaching the queening square. I think Johnson overlooked the fact that the Black King could not take the Bishop as the White King was protecting it.
