Candidate Masters Taffin Khan and Aditi Joshi clinched the top prize when Dr Mohammed Irfaan Ali hosted a one-day President’s Cup Chess Tournament at State House on Sunday.
The President’s Cup Independence Day Chess Tournament took place at the Barudi Behab in State House featuring 82 male and female players.

The country’s newest women Candidate Master (CM) Joshi captured 6 points from 6 outright victories to take the top prize with National Women Champion Jessica Callender taking second place after five wins and a draw for 5 and a half points.
Women Candidate Master Sasha Shariff copped third place with 5 wins and a draw for 5½ points.

While in the men’s open category Candidate Master Taffin Khan took the top spot with FIDE master Anthony Drayton second and Saeed Ali third.
President Irfaan Ali commend the players for sticking with the sport and spoke highly of the benefits of chess on the development of the young mind.

“Let me say how pleased I am also with all the accomplishments from the chess players, national and internationally and we look forward to supporting you. Chess is a game of patience, it’s a game of concentration and requires a high degree of discipline and all of you being part of this great sport of chess demonstrate those abilities and capabilities to be discipline, committed, patient and to demonstrate a high degree of intelligence,” the President said.

Dr Ali assured of his government support for the players and the Guyana chess administration to expand the game.

“We are going to continue supporting you, the new building that you spoke of, I have given a commitment that we are going to support, the second thing is in relation to the CARICOM tournament, I have made a commitment to the association, we will continue to support this tournament and we will continue to support your calendar of activities, I said to the administrators we want to see chess played in the streets, played in the avenue, played in region 2, 6, 9, 1, and 10 we want all of you to be ambassadors of chess and help us take this out to all the regions’ .”
The President also announced the purchase of chess sets for players.

“We have already allocated the money and we have already said to the association that we are buying five hundred complete chess sets for 500 players across the country, so that each player would have their own chess sets, so you can practice and play at home and play in your community,” he said.
The Head of State challenged the GCF to organize a regional tournament in the coming weeks in Guyana and promised another 500-chess sets for players next year.