SEASONED Youth player Kyle Couchman made light work of the Guyana Chess Federation online competition for advanced youngsters, while Nathan Gurcharran surged ahead in the lower rated category battle.

The Guyana Chess Federation (GCF) competitions, which were played yesterday afternoon, targeted advanced juniors and young players now learning the game and were held for U20 players with a rating of 1100 and above and for U20 players with a rating of 0-1099 respectively.
Couchman, with a 1544 rating, dominated his games for a full seven points. Second place went to Oluwadare Oyeyipo who finished with six points, while Omar Shariff, with five points, placed third.

Pooja Lam, Italy Ton Chung and Jacob McDonald followed with four points each, while Maliha Rajkumar and Mahir Rajkumar finished on 3.5 points.
Irshaad Nasir and Adia Alphonso rounded off the top 10 with three points each.

In the 0-1099 rating battle, nine-year-old Gurcharran finished with 5.5 points, while Matthew Singh and Sean Fraser finished on five points each.
Six other players finished on four points, including Noah Rahaman, Dante Persaud, Kaiden Ali, Jnae Singh, Micaiah Enoe, Adam Rahaman and Adeeb Zaman.
President of the GCF Frankie Farley thanked the players for their participation.

“Congratulations to all players and parents for participating in this tournament. Special congratulations to the winners. For those players who have lost games, you have to create that path to winning by working on your mistakes in the games you have lost. Losing is an opportunity to learn and develop winning strategies to succeed. Best of luck in the next tournament.”