The annual Kei-Shar’s chess tournament begins today at the Kei-Shar’s Sports Club at Hadfield and Camp Streets. The format is an eight-round swiss system in two categories, a junior section and a senior section. The time allotment is in keeping with FIDE regulations.

There was a fair turn-out of schools for the Berbice tournament that was held recently. Forty-five students participated in the one-day tournament making it the largest number of participants from Berbice to compete in an exclusively Berbice chess tournament. Congratulations are in order for officials from the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, the Ministry of Education and Region Six for making this event a reality. The planning of similar events is currently engaging the attention of the federation  for Linden and Bartica.

The federation would like to see the establishment of chess clubs in schools. Such a structure for chess which would benefit young people would greatly enhance the game and its development. When this happens, the clubs can apply for membership in the Guyana Chess Federation at a greatly reduced cost. After that, we can have inter-club competitions throughout the country in addition to the monthly sanctioned tournaments of the federation.

Participants in the Berbice Schools Chess Tournament that was held last week at the JC Chandisingh Secondary School. Forty-five students competed for honours.

At present, we are excitedly anticipating the tournament which will give us our international ratings. As was reported last week, four foreign players are coming to Guyana to compete with us under the supervision of an international judge. We are hoping to be able to run off this tournament by July.

In international news, the world championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov began yesterday.

The championship was postponed for one day owing to the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland which caused the cancellation of hundreds of flights from most European airports, including Sofia, Bulgaria, where the championship is being held. The match is expected to be a fiercely competitive one. Topalov is a very strong player, but I predict a narrow win for Anand.