DeSinco National U-12 Chess Championships

THE nine-year-old pair of Aquilani Swaminadha and Kataleya Sam won the respective boys and girls titles at the DeSinco Limited National Under-12 Chess Championships that were staged at School of the Nations on January 28 last.

Twenty-Five players competed in seven rounds of play which were contested under a time control of 20 minutes per player, with five seconds added to the clock after each move.

Swaminadha took the Under-12 Open Championship title with 5.5 wins after he defeated his counterparts, Jacob McDonald, Joseph Prendergast, Javier Davenand, Julian Mohabir, and Arush Ramnarine.

His half-point came from a draw in the fifth round against 11-year-old Nicholas Zhang.

Swaminadha also won the prize for the Best Under-10 player.

Zhang went on to claim second place in the competition. While he scored the same points as the champion, he was ranked below Swaminadha due to the Buchholz tie-break system, which takes into account the scores of the opponents that a player has defeated.

The player with the highest total Buchholz score (the highest sum of the scores of the opponents that the player has defeated) is ranked higher.

In 3rd place for the Open category was Jacob McDonald on five points. Also on five points were Jeremy Cole, Julian Mohabir, and Arush Ramnarine who came in fourth, fifth and sixth in the competition respectively.

Meanwhile, Sam finished ninth overall in the overall event with four points and her losses came from Julian Mohabir, Jacob McDonald, and Nicholas Zhang.
She also took home the prize for Best Under-10 female player.

In second place for the girls was Chelsea Harrison while third place went to Skyler Gurchuran. Both nine-year-old girls finished on 2.5 points each.

Seven-year-old Landon Mohabir, the youngest player in the tournament, earned a prize for his exceptional performance, granting him a trophy as the Best Under-8 player. He finished on three points, having defeated Harrison, Ethon Marks and Lucas Smith.

Notable performances came from Joseph Prendergast, Adam Rahaman, Veer Persaud, Francis Thomas and Shaheem Khan who all finished on 4 points.

According to the Guyana Chess Federation, they are pleased with the performances of the players most of whom are part of the training programs provided by the GCF.

The tournament was supervised by FIDE Arbiters John Lee and National Arbiter Jessica Callender.

The next tournament will be the Under- 14 Nationals which will be held in February.