Pan Am Youth Chess Championship
Guyana finished outside of the top five in the various age group categories and also without any medals when the curtains closed on the Pan Am Youth Chess Championship in Orlando, Florida, USA, yesterday.
Played at the Rosen Shingle Creek Hotel over the last six days, team Guyana produced a bag of mixed results in the tournament, but amid those results, Aditi Joshi (Girls U-14), Kyle Couchman (U-16 Open), and Kataleya Sam (U-12 Girls) gave good representation of themselves in their respective categories.
Joshi finished with the highest number of points overall for Guyana with 4.5 from 9 matches. She recorded three wins, three drawn games, and three losses to lead the way for her country.
Meanwhile, Couchman ended his campaign with a tally of four points from his nine matches, winning twice and drawing four times while conceding three defeats.
While Sam did not get off to the best of starts, she rebounded strongly to end with two wins in the final two rounds (8 and 9), taking her tournament record to four wins and five losses.
Sachin Pitamber in the U-14 category had a good start to his tournament but fell away in the later rounds, closing off with 3.5 points. His campaign saw him notching up three wins and a draw while losing five games.
The team consisted of Pitamber, Sam, Joshi, and Couchman, along with Maliha Rajkumar (Girls U-16), Jeremy Cole (U-12 Open), Vir Narine (U-10 Open), and Saura Ruplall (U-10 Girls).
