Over the last weekend, the Guyana Chess Federation engineered a combined junior and senior Independence over-the-board tournament and a virtual girls’ competition.
Justino DaSilva, who had qualified for the 2020 national championship, emerged victorious in the senior category of the contact tournament and Kishan Puran, 15, a student of Queen’s College, won in the junior section.
Puran is obviously playing energetically to have beaten DaSilva during their individual encounter. In the virtual girls’ competition, Pooja Lam, 13, of the Saraswati Vidya Niketan School in Cornelia Ida, distinguished herself to be declared the winner. Lam played unbeaten in her five game encounters, conceding a lone draw.
Meanwhile, from August 1 to 30, Guyana will participate in the FIDE (World Chess Federation) Online Cadets and Youth Rapid World Cup. Guyana will be represented in the under-10, under-12, under-14, under-16 and under-18 categories by a total of 15 participants (three players per category). The qualification tournament to determine the representatives will be held on Saturday June 19. All chess players up to the age of 18 are invited to participate.
In international news, Abhimanyu Mishra’s third and final grandmaster norm that was achievable at the Vezerkepzo Chess Tournament in Budapest, Hungary from May 13-21, has eluded him. Mishra’s quest is to become the youngest chess grandmaster in history. The record is held by Russia’s Sergey Karjakin who achieved it at 12 years, 7 months. Mishra has until September 5 to fulfil that requirement.
