GUYANA’S national senior and junior chess champions Taffin Khan and Su Hai Feng will represent the country at the second annual Umada Cup chess tournament, which got started yesterday and ends on Sunday in Barbados. Both Khan and Feng were selected by the Guyana Chess Federation (GCF), based on the fact that they are the leading local players in their respective categories at the moment and are expected to do well in the tournament of which Romario Sanchez of Suriname is the defending champion in the Challengers’ category.
Both players will compete in the Challengers’ category of the competition, which is for players ranked below the 2,100 FIDE rating points, with Khan having a FIDE rating of 1,804, while Feng is unrated. At the inaugural tournament in 2010, Khan, Guyana’s lone representative, finished with a bunch of players for fourth position.
Tournament Director of the GCF, Irshad Mohamed, told this publication that he expects good returns from the two players, as they have improved significantly over the past year.
“Based on Taffin’s previous performance (in 2010), we expect him to do well. Su Hai has improved tremendously as well, and we’re confident he will give a good account,” Mohamed projected.
The tournament is the brainchild of Kirsan Nikolayevich Ilyumzhinov, president of the game’s world governing body FIDE. Guyana’s participation at the event has been made possible through the kind support of FIDE, Red Cherry, Computer High Tech, ECI Engineering, Buddy’s Pool Hall, and Sasha Cells.