SOME of Guyana’s top junior chess players are ready to take their game to the next level with the help of Indian International Master, Atanu Lahiri.
Coach Lahiri is a former Commonwealth chess champion, who had stints as head coach of Nepal (2005) and Bhutan (2014) before he took charge of the Indian Youth, Junior and Cadet teams.
He has also coached and mentored national and international chess players who have won major Indian Tournament as well as World Championships in various categories. The most notable among those players is Grandmaster, Surya Shekhar Ganguly, who won the Indian Championship for six consecutive years.

The Guyana Chess Federation (GCF) is hoping that the veteran coach would be able to take our young players to the next level.
According to Coordinator of the GCF Chess-in-Schools initiative, Anand Raghunauth, the players have shown a renewed enthusiasm since starting the online classes earlier this month.
“After two weeks, the juniors are once again excited about playing chess.” He noted that the players have displayed new confidence in understanding certain theories on development and strategy early in the game.

“It may be too soon to assess improvement, but the enthusiasm level has risen and it is expected to grow from strength to strength.”
The training consultant Lahiri is currently teaching our U20s and U16s (which include some strong U12 players) once each per week.
Raghunauth noted that some 40 juniors are in the first batch. “The training will be for an initial three months; it will then be evaluated and possibly extended for at least one full year.”
During that time, the International Master would constantly monitor the progress of the players, while the federation would hold monthly competitions to keep them active. The GCF coordinator noted that “This is the first time there is sustained training from such a high level coach in the history of local chess”.

Some of the notable players in the training programme are junior champions Joshua Gopaul, Ranjiv Lee, Sameria Gobin and under 12 champion Kyle Couchman.