Brothers Star in Orchard Junior Chess Grand Prix

Trinidad and Tobago under 10 champion Mahendra Singh and his brother Vishnu Singh took top honours in the under 10 and 14 age groups in the first leg of the Orchard Junior Chess Grand Prix, which kicked off on Saturday at Nestle Sports Club, in Valsayn.

The tournament, sponsored by Orchard is the first in a series of three events to be held in support of the Trinidad and Tobago Chess Foundation’s Chess training initiative in Port of Spain, Curepe and Arima. Eighty children from Port of Spain, Arima, Chaguanas, San Fernando and from as far as Princess Town and Valencia took part in the opening leg on the Orchard Junior Chess Grand Prix.

Mahendra a standard five (5) pupil of Montrose Chaguanas Government Primary School ended the seven round competition with a perfect score of seven games. while his brother Vishnu of Presentation College, Chaguanas  had to battle his way to victory in the under 14 section via a two (2) game tie-break match against Prithvi Ramakrishnan of the International School of Port of Spain. Both Singh and Ramakrishnan ended the five round event on 4.5 points each. However, Singh won the tie-break match to hold on to the top spot in the under 14 age group.

In the under 20 section Christopher Raphael, a form 6 student of St. Mary’s College played unbeaten in the five round event to take first place. New to the Orchard series this year is the introduction of an age group for children under 8 years. This initiative according to Edison Raphael, President of the Trinidad and Tobago Chess Foundation seeks to widen the scope of the sport to children at an early age so that they too can begin to develop their critical thinking skills and cognitive abilities that would enhance their learning skills. Twenty-four (24) kids took part in the Under 8 section, which   Rishon Ramlogan of Curepe Presbyterian School won with 6.5 out of 7 games.

First Leg results:

This is the third year that Orchard is supporting this event which has given young chess players’ invaluable opportunities to develop their chess-playing skills as well as to learn important life skills and have fun at the same time. The 2nd leg of the tournament will take place on October 25th at Nestle Sports Club in Valsayn.