AN eight-round victory against defending Junior Chess Champion Ricardo Narine brought Keron Sandiford to the top of the scoreboard, and heading into the final round of the Milex National Junior Chess Championship.

Sandiford now has seven points after eight rounds. Last evening, he faced Kishan Puran.

Sandiford’s closest challenger is Under-14 Champion Kyle Couchman, who has trailed him closely throughout the tournament.

Couchman has 6.5 points currently, and faces young Nicholas Zhang in Round Nine.

Depending on the outcome of these two decisive matches for the front-runners, there is still hope for Couchman to edge Sandiford to claim the victory.

This is only if Sandiford loses or draws his match tomorrow against Puran.

Couchman lost his point advantage in Round Eight when he drew his match against Matthew Singh. The two played a tense match, which ended with an almost symmetrical end position, with both players having connected Rooks on open files, and four Pawns each on the King’s side.

Qualifying champ Ethan Lee has 5.5 points, following victories over siblings Alexander and Nicholas Zhang on Day Four.

Oluwadare Oyeyipo and Mathew Singh are both on five points.

Ricardo Narine is now on four points, having defeated Alexander Zhang on Tuesday, and subsequently losing to title challenger Sandiford. Ronan Lee has 3.5 points, and will face Singh in the final round. Alexander Zhang has 1.5 points.

Games are being live-streamed on livechesscloud.com and youtube.com. The final match on Wednesday, July 19 brought to a close the National Junior Championship, where a new National Junior Champion for 2023 was set to emerge.

The Guyana Chess Federation is fielding a team to the U-18 XIV Youth Chess Festival in Trinidad next month.