… Johnson, Shariff, Lam currently tied for top spot in Women’s Nationals

ROBERTO Neto defeated Candidate Master Wendell Meusa in the sixth round of the nine-round GAICO-sponsored National Open Chess Tournament, which is being played at the Guyana National Stadium in Providence.

Meusa has already defeated number two seed FM Anthony Drayton, who won the Qualifier, and defending National Champion CM Taffin Khan, but he was surprised by the lower-ranked Neto.
Neto was actually playing catch-up in the early part of the game as Meusa took the advantage.

The middle game progressed evenly with Meusa making a material sacrifice as well as a mistake which turned the game from a win to a draw. Another blunder by the former champion Meusa and a level head from Neto resulted in the latter converting the draw to a victory.

Meusa still is a strong favourite for the title, but with Khan only a half-a-point behind on 4.5 overall points, he will be hoping for another blunder.
Meanwhile, in the KFC Guyana-sponsored Women’s Nationals, Nellisha Johnson, Sasha Shariff and Pooja Lam are currently tied in the top position on five points each after six matches.

Johnson’s only defeat so far was against the defending women’s champion Shariff. She convincingly won her game with Jessica Callender after a laborious three-hour battle.

Minor inaccuracies by Callender gave Johnson the advantage from the beginning. Although the two players had equal materials during the middle game, Callender’s positions had weaknesses which Johnson took advantage of.

Shariff and Lam have not yet lost any matches but drew their games against each other and No. 2 seed Jessica Callender who won the Qualifying tournament.
Adia Alphonso and Maliha Rajkumar follow closely behind the top three players on three points each.

Along with the respective national champions, a point-based system, inclusive of results from the Grand Prix tournaments as well as the Nationals, will determine the 10-member team to represent Guyana in India at the 44th Fide Chess Olympiad in July-August of this year.