… Gobin, Raghunauth crowned individual champions

DEFENDING champions St Stanislaus College emerged victorious in the Marian Academy second annual Inter-School Tournament, which was held over the weekend at the host school’s auditorium.

In the individual battles Samirah Gobin and Arysh Raghunauth won the Secondary School and Primary School competitions respectively.

Young players from six city schools (Marian Academy, St Stanislaus, Queen’s College, Mae’s, School of the Nations and Al Ghazali Islamic Academy) along with four students from the Hinterland Dorms competed in the tournament.

According to the Marian Chess Club coordinator, John Lee, some 82 students battled in the individual and team competitions for primary and secondary schools.

The coordinator noted that the event was geared to give the school’s chess club more exposure and promote healthy rivalry among the schools.

“Marian Academy Scholastic Chess Club has been running two tournaments every year since 2013 for members of the club. In 2018, we decided to expand the scope to include other schools so that our players would be exposed to new opponents and to promote the spirit of healthy competition with their peers from other schools.”

In the six-round two-day tournament, Saints team, which included Jaden Taylor, Chelsea Juma, Ghansham Alijohn and Jorrell Troyer, finished ahead of Marian Academy and Queen’s College.  Marian’s team was led by Ronan and Ethan Lee, Sasha Shariff and Odit Rodrigues. QC had the likes of Rajiv Lee, Narine Ricardo, Drupe Demitrius, Dyal Omesh and Alex Pires as reserve.

A number of players also competed in the individual competitions and Gobin, who has been in dominant form over the last few school events, continued to impress.

The Al Ghazali Islamic Academy student won the Secondary Open. Marian Academy’s Luca Dotto finished as runner-up, while Angel Rahim (Marian) copped the Best Female Player award.

School of the Nations’ Juilon Lord was the best U-18 player while Marcello Leonard, who represented the Hinterland Scholarship Dorms, was the best U-14 player.

Mae’s Schools dominated the primary division. Raghunauth won overall with his school mate Mahir Rajkumar in second place, while Maliah Rajkumar finished as Best Female, Omar Shariff as the Best U-12 player and Jacob McDonald from School of the Nations as the Best U-8 player.

Julian Mohabir from School of the Nations was also outstanding. The six-year-old finished with 2½ points.