Teacher wins AIB Chess

Teacher wins AIB Chess

Naresh Bhola, teacher at Presentation College, San Fernando had a lot to celebrate when he won the Adult Novice category of the Agostini Insurance Brokers (AIB) sponsored Rapid Play chess event held at St. Augustine Girls’ High School over the weekend. The tournament, which attracted 100 junior and adults players from around the country including the current National Champion and former champions, saw players competing in four rated categories, under 1050, under 1300 under 1500 and over 1500 plus two new categories, Novice Juniors and Novice Adults.

These two special sections for novices were introduced for players who previously never participated in competition Chess. However, it was the Adult Novice division that turned out to be the main attraction as six players, most of whom had children playing in the other divisions, fought hard to make their kids proud. “I can’t afford to lose, my son is looking on”, said one player as he and others received hugs and handshakes from the kids for each successful round. At the end of the five round contest, Naresh Bhola played unbeaten taking top honours followed by Dominic Walcott and Martin Blackman in second and third positions respectively.

In the over 1500 rated section, National Champion Marcus Joseph topped the field of 17 to win the competition with a perfect score of 5 followed by former National Champion Ravishen Singh on 4 points and a tie for third place between Ryan Harper and Keron Cabralis who ended on 3.5 points each.

The top three places in the under 1500 division were captured by students of St. Mary’s College: Jonathan Wilson, who edged out his schoolmate Jarryon Paul with the application of the tiebreak system won with 4.5 points with Paul settling for second place and Brian Dixon picking up the third spot with 4 points. Twelve players took part in this section.

In the under 1300 category, three players out of a field of 18 players ended on 4 points. The tiebreak system saw Melchizedeck Pegus of Blackman’s Private school winning, with Brandon Bahadoor of Holy Cross College second and Alex Walcott of Maria Regina Grade School third.

Edwin Yeung of Holy Cross College played unbeaten in the under 1050 rated section to take top honours out of a field of 34 players. His runners up were Shane Maraj and Mikel Martin of Grant Memorial Presbyterian School in second and third places respectively.

Thirteen players took part in the seven round Junior Novice category which was won by Andrew Lakhan with a perfect score of 7, followed by Caliph Daniel on 6 points and Israel Daniel in third with 5 points. Following the distribution of prizes, Edison Raphael, President of the Trinidad and Tobago Chess Foundation thanked AIB for their sponsorship and for their support for the Foundation’s development programme “Let’s Play Chess”, a free coaching programme that teaches the game of Chess to members of the public.