Eight junior, eight senior players to compete in nationals

The qualification tournament to decide the players for the National Chess Championships has been completed. Eight junior, and eight senior chess players have advanced to compete for the titles of National Junior and Senior champions of Guyana.

Haatram Parbat faces Brian Thompson in the just concluded qualification chess tournament for entry into the National Championships. In the background Omar Sharif and Robert Arjoon ponder their moves.

Taffin Khan played unbeaten to win the junior section of the qualification tournament while Ronuel Greenidge took the senior category. Greenidge has returned to chess following a layoff from the game for many months. He said he took a break from the game and has now returned specifically for the National Championships.

In the nationals, each player will play his opponent twice; once with the white pieces and once with the black pieces in a round-robin event. Each player will have 90 minutes on his clock to complete the game.

Denis Dillon, Frankie Farley and Omar Sharif were the three surprises of the tournament to be included among the seven qualifiers in the senior category of the tournament. All three played excellent chess to gain their places in the nationals.

On the international circuit, Anand seems to be pulling away convincingly from his opponent who has so far failed to win a game. The match is at the half-way mark and Kramnik is still fighting to solidify himself.

However, he may still show us some fighting chess yet.