FOLLOWING seven rounds of intense competition and months of training, 19-year-old Andre Jagnandan emerged as Guyana’s newest Junior Chess champion.
At Sasha Cells National Junior Chess Championships, eight competitors, including 2018 Junior Chess champion, Joshua Gopaul, engaged in the ‘battle of wits’ as they vied for the title.

Following the final round, which was held at the National Aquatic Centre, Liliendaal, Jagnandan amassed 5.5 score and 24 points. With this, he cemented himself as the best Junior chess player in Guyana. His closest competitor, Ghansham Allijohn, trailed him with his 4.5 score and 21.5 points. The dethroned Junior champion, Joshua Gopaul, only amassed a 2.0 score with a meagre 7 points.

Speaking to Chronicle Sport, following his victory, 19-year-old Jagnandan shared: “From October last year, I have been training and now with the victory, I can see the hard work paid off.”

The young man shared that after winning the championship he just felt a sense of deep accomplishment. In fact, he said: “Being the Junior chess champion is something I’ve wanted for a long time and now that I (am) actually the junior champion, I can finally check that off my list.”

But for Andre, chess has been a part of his life for a long, long time. In fact, he said, “I’ve been playing chess for about nine years, but with school and stuff, I’ve been away from the national arena for a long time.”
Currently, he is pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in Law at the University of Guyana (UG) and it was his ‘chess friends’ at the university that encouraged him to compete in this year’s competition.

Due to his age, this year was his final year to participate in the Junior section of the competition. However, his coach Roneul Greenidge and a few other members from the UG chess club egged him on.. And his comeback was, evidently, a wise decision.

Jagnandan has been a student of Queen’s College for the past seven years, where he successfully completed the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations and the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE), subsequently. But during this time, he did not neglect the sport.

Though he took a hiatus of some sort from the national championships, he still found the time to play the board game he has grown to love. In fact, in his school he was instrumental in organising chess tournaments and worked to keep the school’s chess club alive.

And, he mentioned that the game also helped him improve his academic life.
“In school, chess helped me a lot with Mathematics, in the sense that the same analysis I used for chess, I could relate to the subject,” the player noted. Even now, as he pursues his law studies, Andre noted that he would play a few chess games before he studied to “open up” his mind.

Speaking in a matter-of-fact tone, Andre posited: “In my view, chess is a nice sport to pair with academics and a nice pastime as well. It has a lot of benefits”
By no means is Jagnandan strictly a ‘chess guy’ however. In fact, he highlighted that he also plays basketball and volleyball.

“Chess is different,” he explained. “Chess allows you to use your mind in a way that is different; you push your brain to the limit to analyse the board and to find the best move.”
With this title in the bag Andre now has his eyes set on the chess championships at the Carifta Games, which will be held in Curacao, later this year.