Sixteen -year-old Ethan Lee cemented his place as one of the country’s best junior players by adding the Marian Academy chess competition to his list of wins last Saturday at the school’s auditorium.
Lee, who had won the St Stanislaus College Invitational Open tournament earlier this year, played undefeated in seven rounds of the Swiss system tournament played under the FIDE competitive rules and regulations to win the secondary division which attracted 38 students.
William Escarraga won the Primary School competition with six points the same as Louis Da Silva while Ronan Lee tied with Bradley Walton, Joel Wong and Jamal Landry on five points each.
The primary school tournament attracted 19 participants.
Lee proved to be a class above the rest and showed he benefited from finishing fourth in the national junior championship as well as his stint in the CARIFTA Championships held in Suriname earlier this year.
He, however, was pushed to the distance when he battled the best female in the tournament, Sasha Shariff but in the end the young playmaker emerged victorious.
Roshawn Washington was the runner-up while Odit Rodrigues, Racquel Ramlall, Rachel Ramlall and Gareth DaSilva finished as the best player in forms four to one respectively.
Meanwhile, in the primary division, Escarraga defeated his opponents convincingly but suffered one defeat. Louis DaSilva finished second despite ending on six points, the same as Escarraga, who was given the top spot on the tie break while Jane Singh was crowned best female. Walton finished third and also collected the best Primary Four prize with Marcus Hinds, Sean Fraser and Kyle Coachman copping the best players awards from Primary Three, Two and One respectively.
Milan Ramautarsingh won the best Prep B level award.
After the competition, the students were given a special exhibition by national chess coach, Candidate Master Wendell Meusa who played 50 students from the school’s chess club simultaneously and won.
