The Guyana Chess Federation’s (GCF) crown jewel, the National Open Chess Championship moves off today at the National Racquet Centre, Woolford Avenue, Georgetown and defending champion Taffin Khan is confident of retaining his title.
Looking at the pairings (match-ups) and his opponents, Khan said “I think I have a really good chance to win the championship based on the pairings”.
Just last weekend, the top nine challengers, including four junior players who will join Khan today, emerged from an intense qualifiers’ tournament. They are FIDE Master (FM) Anthony Drayton, Justino Da Silva, Roberto Neto, Candidate Master (CM) Ronuel Greenidge, Junior Champion Keron Sandiford, Sachin Pitamber, Loris Nathoo, Kyle Couchman and Ethan Lee.
Drayton, who is expected to be Khan’s number one challenger, also gave a brief comment ahead of today’s action.
“I’m now focused on improving my gameplay rather than the results. Results will show based on good quality chess” Drayton opined.
Last weekend Drayton defeated CM (Candidate Master) Greenidge in their seventh round match-up to secure six points overall. While Justino DaSilva also finished the tournament on six points, Drayton had the advantage by way of a superior tie-breaker. Drayton accumulated a tie-breaker of 27.5 while DaSilva had 24. The latter had defeated Kyle Couchman in their matchup while Keron Sandiford had a draw with Gilbert Williams.
Meanwhile Nathoo and Pitamber both recorded wins over Matthew Singh and Ricardo Narine respectively.
Challenging for a top 9 finish, Aditi Joshi suffered a loss to Ethan Lee on the day, missing out on qualification to the National Championship.
Roberto Neto, who managed to finish third place, got the better of Rai Jagat Sharma to finish with an overall points haul of 5.5.
CM Greenidge, Sandiford, Pitamber and Nathoo all finished on 5 points apiece to place fourth through seventh in that exact order after varying tiebreaker points sorted them out.
Couchman and Lee took the last two spots finishing in eighth and ninth places respectively.
The 2024 Championship which is sponsored by the New GPC Inc. consists of nine rounds with classical chess time controls and will be played at the National Racquet Centre, Woolford Avenue, Georgetown. Defending Champion Taffin Khan will face his nine opponents who will also tackle each other in a single round-robin format.
