From The Trinidad and Tobago Chess Foundation
Contact Person: Edison Raphael, President 678-0132

Homeland Security Services have strengthened their bond with the local chess community by sponsoring an Open Junior Chess tournament on Saturday last at St. Augustine Girls’ High School.

    Fifty-Nine (59) players turned up for the competition, the first in a series of monthly one-day Rapid Play chess tournaments that are intended to assist junior chess players to prepare for the five-day International which comes off from August 6th to 10th. Saturday’s event which was hosted by the Trinidad and Tobago Chess Foundation saw players compete for cash prizes in four categories – Novices, Under Age 10, Under Age 14 and Under Age 20.

In the Novices category, Paul Ragoobar of Maria Regina Preparatory School and Justin La Bastide of Holistic Primary School were declared joint winners. The duo ended the 5 round competition on 4.5 points each and had to play a 4 game playoff in order to break the tie. However, this failed to separate the tie as they ended the tie break playoff with equal scores of two games each. They were therefore declared joint winners by the Tournament Director. Runners-up in the novices section were Ravi Ragoo of Jordan Hill Presbyterian, third and Shannon Moore of Mucurapo Senior Comprehensive fourth with 3.5 and 3 points respectively.

    In the Under 10 category, Joshua Johnson of Maria Regina Grade School won with a perfect 5 points followed by Jonathan Paul of Diamond Vale Government Primary and Rishon Ramlogan of Specialist Learning Centre, who ended with 4 points each to take 2^nd and 3^rd places respectively. The tiebreak system was applied to separate Paul and Ramlogan. There was a 4 way tie in the under 14 section with each of the players ending on 4 points. Following the application of the tiebreak system, Garth Williams of Queen’s Royal College emerged as the winner followed by Jarryon Paul of Diamond Vale Government Primary, Jonathon Chong of Holy Name Preparatory School and Prithvi Ramakrishnan of the International School of Port of Spain.

    In the under 20 section Kevin Cupid of Holy Cross College took top honours following a 2 game playoff with National Under 16 Junior Champion Jayson Paul of  Queen’s Royal College to break their 4 point tie at the end of the five (5) round event. Cupid won both tie break games to clinch top spot.  The National Champion had to settle for 2^nd place followed by Brandon Forde of Fatima College in 3^rd position with 3 points.