In an impressive feat, 13-year-old Sachin Pitamber captured the National Under-16 Boys Chess Championship while fifteen-year-old Maliha Rajkumar took the National Under-16 Girls title on Saturday, at the Marian Academy Auditorium.
Over fifty young chess players clashed in a battle of minds and tactics on the chess boards in the One-Day championship across seven rounds of fast-paced chess. They were matched using the Swiss Pairing System and played with a time limit of 20 minutes per game with 5-second increments after each move.
Pitamber with this latest triumph, now holds the double title of National Under-14 and Under-16 Chess Champion for 2024. He was tied on 6.5 points with his closest rival, fourteen-year-old Kyle Couchman who was the 2023 National Under-16 Open Champion, but Pitamber emerged as champion on a tiebreak.
Meanwhile, Alexander Zhang ended the tournament in
third place with 5 points, followed closely by outstanding performances from Timothy Cole and Arysh Raghunauth in the fourth and fifth places.
On the distaff side of the championship, Rajkumar fought off fierce competition from National U-14 Girls champion Aditi Joshi. Parnita Kishun and Ciel Clement secured the third and fourth places respectively.
Winners in the main categories were honoured in a brief award ceremony following the tournament as trophies were presented along with certificates of participation by GCF Board Member and Director of Public Relations, Shiv Nandalall.
Along with the championship trophy, Sachin Pitamber also received the prize for the Best Under-14 Open Player, and Aditi Joshi secured the Best Under-14 Female Player prize.
Eight year old Vir Narine received the best Under 12 Open Player medal, and the Best U12 Player in the Girls category went to ten year old Kataleya Sam.
The next GCF event will be the CARICOM Classic Chess Team Tournament set for March 3-10.
