Jagnandan wins local title as junior chess continues to rise

By Errol Tiwari On In Chess with Errol |
Eight-year-old Tanitoluwa Adewumi, an immigrant from Nigeria who currently resides in New York, poses with his trophy. He captured the New York State Primary Chess Championship in the kindergarten-to-third-grade bracket. ‘Tani’, as he is familiarly called, played undefeated in the Championship, where he outmaneuvered his opponents from elegant private schools with pricey chess tutors. Tani learnt chess a little over a year ago. (Photo: GoFundMe) 
Eight-year-old Tanitoluwa Adewumi, an immigrant from Nigeria who currently resides in New York, poses with his trophy. He captured the New York State Primary Chess Championship in the kindergarten-to-third-grade bracket. ‘Tani’, as he is familiarly called, played undefeated in the Championship, where he outmaneuvered his opponents from elegant private schools with pricey chess tutors. Tani learnt chess a little over a year ago. (Photo: GoFundMe) 

Andre Jagnandan, 19, a University of Guyana law student, was crowned the 2019 Junior Chess Champion of Guyana last Sunday. Jagnandan played unbeaten and accumulated a total of 5½ points in the 7-round tournament. (A win = 1 point, a draw = ½ a point and a loss = 0 point.) 

It was Jagnandan’s third victory for 2019 in as many tournaments hosted by the Guyana Chess Federation. Placing second and third in the Junior Championship were St Stanislaus College’s Ghansham Allijohn and Queen’s College’s Rajiv Lee respectively, each with 4½ points. Allijohn gained the nod over Lee when the tie-break was administered.

Last year’s junior champion Joshua Gopaul was disappointingly invisible during the Championship following a turn of illness which caused him to miss the third round. He had lost both of his games on the opening day.