WENDELL Meusa carted off the inaugural ‘James Bond’ Chess Invitational, which took place over the weekend at Congress Place in Sophia. The event attracted 11 players and consisted of 7 rounds with competitors exhibiting different classes, strength and playing styles.
According to a release, the intense contest was mentally satisfying to the players because of its strategic time control which varied from five minutes per player, as each round passed, whereby the time increased for example 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, 20 min, 30 min, 1 hour.
Meusa, Guyana’s only FIDE (World Chess Federation) instructor, emerged the winner after accumulating six points and suffering a loss to Roy Sharma.
Sharma;s only loss was to his junior counterpart Davion Mars and he also accumulated six points, but due to the Swiss tie-breaking system Meusa emerged victorious.
Third place was captured by Cleveland Hutson who totalled five points, losing to Meusa and Sharma in the 5th and 6th rounds respectively.
Fourth place was won by Davion Mars for accumulating four points while fifth place was secured by the only female player Dr Maria Thomas who earned four points.
The other competitors by points standings were: Owen Mickle, 3.5 points, Errol Tiwari 3 points, James Bond 2.5 points. Winston Williams, Shaun Griffith and Kibwe Copeland all scraped one point.
The release added, “This tournament would not have been possible without the kind sponsorship of Mr James Anthony Bond, Attorney-at-Law, who recently started playing chess, and immediately saw the benefit of instilling chess in the minds of our youths, extracting the raw skill of analysing, calculating, focusing intensely and inspiring discipline.”